Summary
This final report in a series is part of a regular effort to monitor the wage losses of injured workers in the California workers’ compensation system between 2013 and 2017. It updates estimates of trends in earnings losses reported in this project’s three interim reports and includes analysis of the factors that have driven changes in workers’ labor market outcomes from 2005 to 2017. It also provides an investigation of the reasons for regional differences (between Southern California and the rest of the state) in labor market outcomes for workers with cumulative trauma injuries. The report also provides estimates of after-tax wage replacement rates for workers with permanent disability and the first estimates of wage replacement rates in California for workers affected by statutory increases in permanent disability benefits that were adopted as part of major workers’ compensation reform legislation enacted in 2012.
Citation:
Dworsky, Michael, Stephanie Rennane, and Nicholas Broten, Earnings Losses and Benefit Adequacy in California’s Workers’ Compensation System: Estimates for 2005–2017 Injury Dates. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2022. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA964-1.html.