A watered-down version of the original NJ supplemental workers’ compensation benefits bill has been approved by the Legislature. It now heads to the NJ Governor Murphy for review.
The long awaited legislation has been trimmed down substantially from the initial expansive iteration that covered “an employee,” to its present limitation of covering only “a public safety worker, or a dependent of a public safety worker.”
The legislation basically offsets the proposed additional supplemental payments from the NJ pension system. NJ's present state pension debit is massive. NJ continues to to be economically challenged on how to Fund the state pension system going forward.
The Legislation continues to protect NJ's "Reverse Social Security Offset" and shield NJ workers' compensation insurance carrier's "sacred cow." President Trump has proposed the complete elimination of the "Reverse Social Security Offset." The vast majority of jurisdictions in the US are non-reverse offset states and as such permit Social Security to take the age offset before age 62. In NJ the insurance companies may reduce totally disability benefits by a schedule created under the Federal Rules.
The NJ Office of Legislative Services [OLS] concluded in its fiscal report that, “Applying the interwoven offset rules set forth in current law and the bill to different hypothetical cases, the OLS concludes that the bill will not raise the combined amount of benefits from the three wage replacement programs for some targeted workers and only after many years for others. “
See: S1967 (Read for completed description and reports)
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Jon L. Gelman of Wayne NJ is the author of NJ Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thomson-Reuters) and co-author of the national treatise, Modern Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thomson-Reuters). For over 4 decades the Law Offices of Jon L Gelman 1.973.696.7900 jon@gelmans.com has been representing injured workers and their families who have suffered occupational accidents and illnesses.
