The journal Critical Public Health has released a new
article out of Ontario entitled “Poverty status of worker compensation claimants with permanent impairments.” This article looked at injured workers with
permanent impairments (about 6% of all WCB claimants) 52 months after the date
of injury to assess their proximity to and depth of poverty.
The upshot is that injured workers has poverty rates between
17 and 26%, which is appreciably higher than the general population and
approximately the same as poverty rates among working age adults with
disabilities. The data does not allow the researchers to conclude that being
inured causes poverty. But the data does show lower incomes and a higher rate
of poverty after an injury (particularly for those workers with low incomes
before the injury).
The discussion of return-to-work programming and the
practice of reducing the compensation payments to those injured workers who
have completed retraining (“deeming”) regardless of whether or not they have
work is particularly interesting, as is the family effect of post-injury
poverty.
-- Bob Barnetson
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