New York & New Jersey Workers’ Compensation Statistics

Workers’ compensation is a large insurance program available to most employed workers in every state. State-administered programs pay billions of dollars in benefits each year to hundreds of thousands of injured and ill workers.

In New York, total workers’ comp benefits run into hundreds of millions of dollars in a year. In New Jersey, benefits paid top $10 million over the course of a year.

Across the United States, 140 million workers – over 94 percent of employees – are covered by workers’ compensation insurance.

In 2013, workers’ compensation insurance paid:

• $8,290,749,883 in total compensation (lost wages, survivor benefits, lump-sum payments)
• $1,714,919,003 for injured workers’ medical bills.

Payments were made for 251,525 claims (including each employee or survivor receiving benefits) and 167,725 cases (each employee, living or deceased, whose employment and injury or illness were the basis for the claim). Multiple claims may be made in a single case.

Employers pay more than $95 billion annually for workers’ compensation insurance.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics:

• 3 million nonfatal workplace accidents occurred in 2012.
• Almost 95 percent involved occupational injuries. Workplace illnesses accounted for the other 5 percent.

Five occupations accounted for nearly 20 percent of the injuries or illnesses in 2012 that required an employee to take days away from work:

• Laborer.
• Nursing aide, orderly or attendant.
• Janitor.
• Heavy truck and tractor-trailer driver.
• Police officer / sheriff’s deputy with patrol responsibilities.

A total of 4,609 Americans died in workplace accidents in 2011.

About 40 percent of work-related fatalities were roadway incidents involving motor vehicles.

Other common work-related fatalities involved:

• Slips, trips and falls.
• Workers struck by objects and equipment.
• Workplace violence, including 458 homicides.

Contact a NY / NJ Workers’ Compensation Lawyer

If you have been injured or become ill because of a workplace accident or occupational disease, you may be eligible for workers’ compensation benefits. An attorney with the Ginarte Gonzalez Winograd L.L.P., can review your case for free and help you obtain the benefits you deserve.

Use our online form or call us to set up a free, no-obligation initial consultation. You can also visit one of our offices in Newark, New York City, Union City, Elizabeth, Clifton, Perth Amboy and Queens (Jackson Heights).