Adding Inequality to Injury: The Cost of Failing to Protect Workers on the Job,” is a recently released 20-page OSHA report that has the agency jumping into the national debate about income inequality and raising the federal minimum wage.
OSHA chief Dr. David Michaels wrote in a related blog posted on the agency’s website in March that workplace injuries and illness contribute to income inequality in ways that have been overlooked in political and media discussions. A recent study cited in OSHA’s report found that workers in New Mexico who receive workers’ compensation benefits for wage loss caused by workplace injuries lose an average of 15 percent of the earnings they would have been expected to earn during the ten years following the injury. Even with workers’ compensation benefits, injured workers’ incomes are, on average, almost $31,000 lower during those 10 years than if they had not been injured.