Workers' Compensation

Workers' compensation is meant to protect employees from loss of income and to cover extra expenses associated with job-related injuries or illness. Accidents in which the employee does not lose time from work, accidents in which the employee loses time from work, temporary partial disability, permanent partial or total disability, death, occupational diseases, noncrippling physical impairments, such as deafness, impairments suffered at employer-sanctioned events, such as social events or during travel to organization business, and injuries or disabilities attributable to an employer's gross negligence are the types of injuries and illnesses most frequently covered by workers' compensation laws. Since 1955,
The workers' compensation payment and another type of public disability payment are kinds of payments that affect your Social Security disability benefits. Workers' compensation payment is one that is made to a worker because of a job-related injury and illness. It may be paid by federal or state workers' compensation agencies, employers or insurance companies on behalf of employers. Public disability payments that may affect your Social Security benefits are those paid under a federal, state or local government law or plan that pays for conditions that are not job-related. They differ from workers' compensation because the disability that the worker has may not be job related. Examples are civil service disability benefits, military disability benefits, state temporary disability benefits and state or local government retirement benefits that are based on disability.

The higher costs of providing workers' compensation benefits in risky occupations may lead employers to improve safety in order to lower their insurance costs. The 75th anniversary of the Federal Employees' Compensation Act (FECA) is an opportune time to reflect on broad policy issues of no-fault work injury liability statutes. Policy discussions regarding occupational safety and health usually are divided into two distinct parts with government standards established under the Occupational