June 7, 2019
While the city contemplates demanding employers provide paid vacation days and other new guarantees for workers toward the bottom of the pay and power scale, a basic piece of the safety net is frayed: the workers’ compensation system meant to support people who get hurt on the job, and to help their families get by when a breadwinner is killed. Workers’ comp is a private system with benefits set by the state. Employers buy the insurance, which then pays out when an employee sustains an injury…
June 5, 2019
A new study finds that that workers' compensation benefits are surprisingly low in New York, a state known for its progressive policies and high cost of living. Meanwhile, workplace fatalities have spiked and insurance company profits ...
June 4, 2019
A report by James A. Parrott and Nicholas B. Martin, Center for New York City Affairs New York was the first state to adopt workers’ compensation and was once a national leader in safeguarding the interests of workers injured on the job. However, worker protections under New York’s workers’ comp system have seriously eroded over the years as legislative and administrative changes have focused on curtailing benefits rather than minimizing injuries, adequately compensating injured workers,…
January 25, 2019
By Philip Moeller Low-income people receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments are supposed to automatically be switched over to “regular” Social Security retirement benefits once they turn 62 years old. The logic here is that the government should not be paying out SSI benefits if someone could otherwise receive their normal Social Security benefits, which they have already earned. I doubt this provision is well known by SSI recipients and, as evidenced by a report recently…
December 18, 2018
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from all of us!
December 8, 2018
“These long wait times are devastating to people with severe health impairments,” says Lisa Ekman, director of government affairs for the National Organization of Social Security Claimants’ Representatives, a group of lawyers that handles disability cases. “Sometimes they exhaust their savings and declare bankruptcy, and sometimes they lose their homes. Or, they can’t afford their medical treatment and get sicker — sometimes they die.”