Florida Construction Injury Lawyers

In Florida, Substantial Cuts In Benefits For Injured Workers

H.R. 940 Imposes Substantial Cuts in Benefits for Injured Workers
Recreational Marine Employement Act of 2005

While State benefits typically compensate workers at a rate of two-thirds of their weekly income, States typically have much lower benefits ceilings. As consequence, well paid injured workers, such as the highly skilled workers who may be expected to be employed building multi-million dollar yachts, suffer a much greater loss of income under State workers’ compensation laws than they do under the Longshore Act.

According to information provided by CRS, a worker who earns $1200 a week ($60,000 a year assuming the person takes two weeks off) who is totally disabled would receive a benefit of $800 a week under the Longshore Act. By contrast, the same worker under Florida’s workers’ compensation law would only receive $626 a week, almost half of their former income. In North Carolina, the same worker would only receive $688 a week under state law. In Tennessee, the worker would only receive $618 a week under state law. In Mississippi that worker would have only received $341 a week, and in Georgia would only receive a benefit of $425 a week.

The Longshore Act also pays more for “scheduled injuries” which are injuries to specific body parts included in a “schedule” in the workers’ compensation statute. For the loss of an arm at the shoulder, for example, a marina worker would receive $321,603 under the Longshore Act. For an identical injury, however, a worker would only receive $121,100.60 in South Carolina and $90,704.39 in the state of Washington.

According to the National Academy of Social Insurance, in 1998 the average temporary total disability benefit payment in sixteen states (Alabama, Iowa, Kentucky, South Carolina, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Maine, North Dakota, Idaho, New Mexico, Georgia, Louisiana, Kansas, South Dakota, Montana and Mississippi) is below the poverty threshold for a family of four. In addition, Utah and Indiana benefits were right at the poverty line for average temporary total disability weekly compensation. 1

Finally, unlike the Longshore program, not a single state worker’s compensation program annually indexes benefits for inflation. Hence, the disparity between what an injured worker and family would be awarded under current law, in contrast to H.R. 940, increases over time to the further detriment of injured workers and their families.

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