How a record-strength El Niño will test the workers' compensation market, and the claims that will follow.
Showing posts with label rates. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rates. Show all posts
Monday, October 19, 2026
El Niño Sends the Bill
Thursday, October 30, 2025
New Jersey 2026 Rate Relief
Understanding the Latest Workers' Compensation Changes and Second Injury Fund Adjustments
The New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance has approved significant changes to workers' compensation rates effective January 1, 2026, bringing mixed news for employers across the Garden State. While overall rates are decreasing, the Second Injury Fund contribution has increased notably, impacting the bottom line.
Tuesday, September 9, 2025
Monday, January 25, 2021
"Made in America" Will Impact Workers' Compensation Nationally
Today, President Biden signed the Executive order, Made in America.” The effort to move manufacturing jobs back to the United States will have a major impact going forward for the entire workers' compensation system. This initiative will expand the workforce and expand the potential of a major increase in workers' compensation benefits through increased wages/rates and premiums paid for coverage and all related cottage industries involved in the social insurance program.
Thursday, November 21, 2019
NJ Insurance Rates Decrease 5.8%
The Commissioner of Banking and Insurance (“Commissioner”) has approved a 5.8% decrease in rates and rating values applicable to New Jersey workers’ compensation and employers’ liability insurance effective January 1, 2020 on a new and renewal basis.
The Rating Bureau filed for a decrease of 3.8% in rates and rating values; however, the Commissioner revised the overall change to the approved amount of -5.8%.
The rating components of the approved decrease are summarized in this Circular Letter, issued concurrently with Manual Amendment Bulletin #493, Manual Amendment Bulletin #494 and Statistical Circular #126.
The Rating Bureau filed for a decrease of 3.8% in rates and rating values; however, the Commissioner revised the overall change to the approved amount of -5.8%.
The rating components of the approved decrease are summarized in this Circular Letter, issued concurrently with Manual Amendment Bulletin #493, Manual Amendment Bulletin #494 and Statistical Circular #126.
Wednesday, April 25, 2018
Equal Pay for Equal Work Now Law in New Jersey - Legislation Signed
NJ Governor Murphy Signs Historic, Sweeping Equal Pay Legislation that will balance the playing field for women receiving workers' compensation benefits for occupational injuries and illnesses.
Sunday, April 3, 2016
Consequences of Increasing the Minimum Wage
The national wave toward raising the statutory minimum wage to $15.00/hour is going to have major consequences for the ailing national network of workers' compensation programs. Not only is it going to increase benefits for injured workers that are calculated on wages, but it is also going increase much needed premium dollars for insurance companies whose premiums are based on payroll costs.
Sunday, July 6, 2014
12 states now have plans for a minimum wage of $9 or more
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| Map of minimum wage rates in the United States. See List of U.S. minimum wages. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
| Rhode Island on Thursday joined 11 other states that plan to raise their minimum wage to at least $9 over the next several years. At the start of next year, the state minimum wage will rise a buck to $9 an hour, according to a new measure Gov. Lincoln Chafee (D) signed into law on Thursday. Only three states currently have a minimum wage of at least $9. Washington’s is highest at $9.32, followed by Oregon’s minimum wage at $9.10. California’s rose to $9 earlier this week. When Rhode Island’s new rate goes into effect, it will be joined by three others: the minimum wage in Massachusetts will rise to $9, while that in Vermont and Connecticut will jump to $9.15. In all but three — Minnesota, Michigan and New York — the minimum wages will be above $10. By 2018, 12 states will have reached or surpassed the $9 level. Ten states and D.C. have enacted increases this year alone, according to a list maintained by the National Conference of State Legislatures. The states are: Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Vermont and West Virginia. Many more — 34 states — have considered doing so, according to the NCSL. |
Thursday, June 26, 2014
Ikea Plans to Increase Minimum Hourly Pay
| Ikea plans to adopt a wage structure that it says will raise the average hourly minimum wage at its 38 stores in the United States to $10.76 an hour — a 17 percent increase. Ikea, which will be announcing its new wage policy on Thursday, said it would not impose an across-the-board minimum wage for its stores, but would instead set a minimum for each store based on the cost of living in that particular area. For example, the minimum wage will run from a low of $8.69 an hour at its stores in Pittsburgh and West Chester, Ohio, to $13.22 an hour at its store in Woodbridge, Va. Ikea said that its new average minimum wage, $10.76 an hour, was $3.51 above the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. The retailer’s decision was made as many low-wage workers and labor unions are pushing for an increase in the federal minimum wage and after Gap Inc. informed its employees in February that it would set $9 as the minimum hourly rate for its United States work force this year and then establish a minimum of $10 next year. Gap said its new policy would raise pay for more than two-thirds of its 90,000 American employees, including those at Banana Republic and Old Navy, while Ikea said its new policy would raise the pay of about half of its 13,120 United States employees. “This stems back to Ikea’s decision to create a better everyday life for our people,” said Rob Olson, Ikea’s acting president for the United States and its chief financial officer. ... |
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Wage Theft -- Another Assault on Workers' Compensation
| As corporate American devises new methods to reduce wages it also assaults the injured workers' benefit safety net including workers' compensation insurance. It results in rate benefits to go down and premium bases to become inadequate to pay on gong claims. Today's post is shared from nytimes.com and is authored by it's Editorial Board. When labor advocates and law enforcement officials talk about wage theft, they are usually referring to situations in which low-wage service-sector employees are forced to work off the clock, paid sub minimum wages, cheated out of overtime pay or denied their tips. It is a huge and under policed problem. It is also, it turns out, not confined to low-wage workers. In the days ahead, a settlement is expected in the antitrust lawsuit pitting 64,613 software engineers against Google, Apple, Intel and Adobe. The engineers say they lost up to $3 billion in wages from 2005-9, when the companies colluded in a scheme not to solicit one another’s employees. The collusion, according to the engineers, kept their pay lower than it would have been had the companies actually competed for talent. The suit, brought after the Justice Department investigated the anti-recruiting scheme in 2010, has many riveting aspects, including emails and other documents that tarnish the reputation of Silicon Valley as competitive and of technology executives as a new breed of “don’t-be-evil” bosses, to cite Google’s informal motto. The case... [Click here to see the rest of this post]  Workers' Compensation: Would Higher Minimum Wage for ...Apr 17, 2014 Wages determine rates of workers' compensation. The lowest wage earners go unnoticed in the struggle to increase benefits. Today's post is shared from njspotlight.com . Advocates decry current $2.13 per hour as unfair, ... http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/ Payroll Data Shows a Lag in Wages, Not Just Hiring Feb 11, 2014 But the report also made plain what many Americans feel in their bones: Wages are stuck, and barely rose at all in 2013. They were up 1.9 percent last year, or a mere 0.4 percent after accounting for inflation. Not only was that ... http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/ McDonald's Accused of Stealing Wages From Already ... Mar 16, 2014 McDonald's Accused of Stealing Wages From Already Underpaid Workers. Wage are the basic factor upon which to calculate rates for workers' compensation purposes. Today's post was shared by Mother Jones and comes ... http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/ |
Monday, April 14, 2014
Executive Pay: Invasion of the Supersalaries
Browse the proxy statements of the nation’s largest corporations and you’ll find the instruction manuals for this apparatus explaining how to finely calibrate the pay of top executives with company performance.
The Coca-Cola board, for example, lays out the formula that set the 2013 cash bonus for Muhtar Kent, its chief executive (base salary x base salary factor x business performance factor). It explains how a failure to achieve certain goals helped limit the bonus to $2 million, but also describes how Mr. Kent got millions more in stock and options. It notes that under his leadership, Coke had “continued to gain value share globally in nonalcoholic ready-to-drink beverages,” and tells shareholders why the board might require him to fly on the company jet (“to allow travel time to be used productively for the Company”). What was all that worth? A tidy $18 million.
But putting aside whether those particular metrics for aligning pay with performance make sense (or, rather, turning over that discussion to Gretchen Morgenson in her Fair Game column), the elegant machine itself would seem to have a dark side. Some say, in fact, that it is the main engine of inequality in America today.
The current system of executive compensation, with its emphasis on performance, can theoretically constrain pay, but in practice it has not stopped companies...
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Apr 09, 2014
Today, he took two executive actions aimed at federal contractors. One bars companies from retaliating against workers who discuss their pay with each other. The other requires compensation data broken down by race and ...
Apr 07, 2014
Before that, he served as the Obama administration's “pay-czar”, a job created by the 2009 stimulus law to oversee executive compensation practices at financial firms bailed out during the financial crisis. He's administered or.
Apr 06, 2014
At the White House Tuesday, President Barack Obama will sign two new executive actions on equal pay as Senate Democrats move for a show-vote on the Paycheck Fairness Act — launching Democrats' first large-scale ...
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Jobs are coming back, but they don't pay enough
The good news as Labor Day approaches: Jobs are returning. The bad news: Most of them pay lousy wages and provide low, if not nonexistent, benefits. The trend toward lousy wages began before the Great Recession. According to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute, weak wage growth between 2000 and 2007, combined with wage losses for most workers since then, means that the bottom 60 percent of working Americans are earning less now than 13 years ago. This is also part of the explanation for why the percentage of Americans living below the poverty line has been increasing even as the economy has started to recover — from 12.3 percent in 2006 to around 14 percent this year. More than 35 million Americans now live below the poverty line. Many of them have jobs. The problem is that these jobs just don't pay enough to lift their families out of poverty. |
Saturday, August 24, 2013
Nation’s Biggest Assisted Living Chain Agrees to Pay $2.2 Million to Settle Claims of Cheating on Wages
| Workers who care for frail seniors win settlement from Emeritus Senior Living. The chain, the country’s largest assisted living company, agreed to pay up to $2.2 million to settle claims that it routinely underpaid workers at dozens of California operations. Hands-on workers at Emeritus centers – non-salaried aides and support staffers who provide care and clean — alleged in a suit that the company had not only shortchanged them in their pay, but also violated state laws on mandated meal times and rest periods. |
Report Recommends Raising Workers' Compensation Premiums
Workers' compensation premiums in California should increase by 3.4% in 2014, according to a report by the Workers Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau, the Sacramento Bee's "Capitol Alert" reports.The report represents a non-binding recommendation for insurers (Walters, "Capitol Alert," Sacramento Bee, 8/12).BackgroundIn September 2012, Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signed into law a bill (SB 863) that overhauled the state's workers' compensation system.The law -- by Sens. Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles) and Jose Solorio (D-Anaheim) -- changed the formula used to calculate benefits for injured workers, increasing their compensation by an average of 29%. It also eliminated benefits for certain health conditions that often are subject to lawsuits, such as psychiatric problems, sexual dysfunction and sleep loss. |
Walmart CEO Mike Duke Pushes Back Against Company's Minimum Wage Reputation
Fast food and retail workers across the country have taken to the streets this year to decry their low wages. But the CEO of Walmart, which is often a target for criticism in that battle, claims a very small share of its workers actually make the bare minimum. “I think less than one percent of our associates make the minimum wage,” Walmart CEO Mike Duke said in an interview with CNBC's Maria Bartiromo. "The vast majority of our associates are paid more than that.” More specifically, less than one half of one percent of Walmart's hourly associates make their state or federal minimum wage, according to a Walmart spokesman. The company claims that full-time Walmart workers make $12.78 per hour on average, much more than the federal minimum wage of $7.25. Yet that figure excludes part-time workers, a group that likely makes up a substantial share of Walmart's workforce, thought not its majority, according to the company. |
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Fast-food workers call for nationwide walkout Aug. 29
Emboldened by an outpouring of support on social media, low-wage fast-food and retail workers from eight cities who have staged walkouts this year are calling for a national day of strikes Aug. 29.
The workers — who are backed by local community groups and national unions and have held one-day walkouts in cities such as New York, St. Louis and Detroit — say they have received pledges of support from workers in dozens of cities across the country.
The workers are calling for a wage of $15 an hour and the right to form a union. Organizers of the walkout say cashiers, cooks and crew members at fast-food restaurants are paid a median wage of $8.94 an hour.
Since some 200 workers walked off their jobs at fast-food restaurants in New York City in November, the strikes have moved across the country, drawing attention to a fast-growing segment of the workforce that until recently had shown no inclination to organize for purposes of collective bargaining.
The workers — who are backed by local community groups and national unions and have held one-day walkouts in cities such as New York, St. Louis and Detroit — say they have received pledges of support from workers in dozens of cities across the country.
The workers are calling for a wage of $15 an hour and the right to form a union. Organizers of the walkout say cashiers, cooks and crew members at fast-food restaurants are paid a median wage of $8.94 an hour.
Since some 200 workers walked off their jobs at fast-food restaurants in New York City in November, the strikes have moved across the country, drawing attention to a fast-growing segment of the workforce that until recently had shown no inclination to organize for purposes of collective bargaining.
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Your Big Mac Would Only Cost $.68 More If McDonalds Doubled Its Pay
Sweeping the nation is a wave of protests by fast food workers for higher wages. High wages result in higher workers' compensation rates/benefits. Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from thinkprogress.org
(Credit: AP)
If McDonalds were to double the salaries and benefits of all of its employees, from the CEO down to the minimum wage cashiers, it would still only cost an extra 68 cents for a Big Mac, according to a new report.
As fast food workers across the country are going on strike to demand a livable wage, University of Kansas research assistant Arnobio Morelix tells the Huffington Post that it would cost the average consumer mere cents to give them just that.
Currently, a minimum wage McDonalds employee makes $7.25 per hour. The CEO makes $8.75 million. But if the former were raised to $15 and the latter to $17.5 million, the dollar menu would only have to become the $1.17 menu and the Big Mac would go from $3.99 to $4.67, Morelix found.
These numbers underscore what low-wage workers already know: It would take very little for McDonalds to vastly improve the lives of those who make the company run. In fact, minimum wage raises have proven beneficial to a company’s bottom line.
Current wages for the lowest paid McDonalds workers are unworkable, and even the company knows that; a recent budget released by McDonalds told employees to get by through getting a second job and spending $0 on heating. Still, the company’s leadership has tried to frame itself as a charitable “above minimum wage” employer.
Friday, July 26, 2013
Raising the Minimum Wage Is Good for the Economy
Most workers' compensation rates are calculated on the SAWW (State Average Weekly Wage.) Raising minimum wages will increase workers' compensation rates for temporary and permanent disability benefits. Today's post was shared by US Dept. of Labor and comes from www.whitehouse.gov
Today, low-wage workers and their advocates are gathering together as part of a national day of action for an increase in the minimum wage. Marking four years since the last increase, Americans across the country are making the case for why raising the minimum wage is good for workers and the economy.
Raising the minimum wage was also part of the economic
vision that President Obama laid out in Galesburg, Illinois today, as he described what we need to do to support the middle class and those who are trying to join it. In his own words, “because no one who works full-time in America should have to live in poverty, I will keep making the case that we need to raise a minimum wage that in real terms is lower than it was when Ronald Reagan took office. “
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| Minimum wages nationwide. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Raising the minimum wage was also part of the economic
vision that President Obama laid out in Galesburg, Illinois today, as he described what we need to do to support the middle class and those who are trying to join it. In his own words, “because no one who works full-time in America should have to live in poverty, I will keep making the case that we need to raise a minimum wage that in real terms is lower than it was when Ronald Reagan took office. “
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Why are there revisions to the jobs numbers?
Workers' Compensation premiums are usually estimated based on anticipated payroll numbers. As those change so does the cost of workers' compensation premiun costs. Basically they are both subject to retroactive audits to verify accuracy. Today's post was shared by BLS-Labor Statistics and comes from www.bls.gov
Why are there revisions to the jobs numbers?
By Thomas Nardone, Kenneth Robertson, and Julie Hatch MaxfieldAt the beginning of each month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports the change in payroll employment for the previous month. This estimate of jobs gained or lost over the month is closely watched by policymakers and those who work in financial markets and the media.
When the estimate is revised in subsequent months, however, data users sometimes perceive a very different picture of the job market than what was initially reported. Data users frequently ask why the number was revised. The short answer is, the revised estimate includes additional information that was not available at the time of the initial release information that makes the revised estimate more accurate.
This Beyond the Numbers article explains the data collection process that BLS conducts every month to produce the estimate of U.S. employment change. The article will also clarify why BLS releases revisions to the initial release, so that users will better understand the change, if any, in the data.
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Obama to Increase Workers' Compensation Benefits
President Obama announced a plan this week that will increase benefits paid to injured workers though workers' compensation insurance. Obama intends to increase the minimum wage from $7.25 to $9.00 per hour and "index" future increases.
The majority the nation's patchwork of workers' compensation systems are based on a payment scheme linked to wages. The State Average Weekly Wage (SAAW) establishes the foundation upon which temporary disability and permanent disability payments are determined. As wages increase so will benefits.
The majority the nation's patchwork of workers' compensation systems are based on a payment scheme linked to wages. The State Average Weekly Wage (SAAW) establishes the foundation upon which temporary disability and permanent disability payments are determined. As wages increase so will benefits.
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| President Barack Obama Delivering The State of The Union White House Photo: Chuck Kennedy |
A White House spokesperson announced that, "The President’s plan strengthens the middle class by making America a magnet for jobs, equipping every American with the skills they need to do those jobs, and ensuring hard work leads to a decent living."
"The President believes that no one who works fulltime should have to raise their family in poverty. But right now, a full-time minimum wage worker makes $14,500 a year – which leaves
too many families struggling to make ends meet, with a family of four with a minimum wage worker still living below the poverty line. That’s why the President is calling on Congress to raise the Federal minimum wage for working Americans in stages to $9 in 2015 and index it to inflation thereafter."
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"The President believes that no one who works fulltime should have to raise their family in poverty. But right now, a full-time minimum wage worker makes $14,500 a year – which leaves
too many families struggling to make ends meet, with a family of four with a minimum wage worker still living below the poverty line. That’s why the President is calling on Congress to raise the Federal minimum wage for working Americans in stages to $9 in 2015 and index it to inflation thereafter."
Related articles
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