Permanent Disability
The most extensive and potentially far-reaching efforts undertaken by the Commission are the ongoing studies of workers' compensation permanent disability in California.
The manner in which California rates and compensates injured workers for total and partial permanent disability has enormous impact on the adequacy of their benefits, their ability to return to gainful employment, the smooth operation of the Division of Workers' Compensation (DWC) adjudication system, and the cost of the workers' compensation system to employers.
Incorporating public fact-finding hearings and discussions with studies by RAND and other independent research organizations, the CHSWC projects focus on policy issues regarding how California workers are compensated for permanent disability incurred on the job. These efforts are assisted by a CHSWC permanent disability policy advisory committee, comprised of interested members of the workers' compensation community. This section also covers temporary disability benefit issues.
SB 863 Reform, Earnings Losses and Considerations for the $120 Million Return to Work Program
- Identifying Permanently Disabled Workers with Disproportionate Earnings Losses for Supplemental Payments - RAND, February 2014
Past Studies of Disability Ratings and Benefits
- Benefits and Earnings Losses for Permanently Disabled Workers in California, Trends Through the Great Recession and Effects of Recent Reforms, RAND, 2016
- Memorandum to Christine Baker, Executive Officer of CHSWC regarding "Analysis of ratings under the new PD schedule, through June 2007
- Evaluate and Identify Impact of Changes to the Temporary Disability Benefit, 2007
- Report: An evaluation of California's permanent disability rating system - RAND, 2005
- Evaluation of California's permanent disability rating schedule: Interim report, RAND, December 2003
Initial Wage Loss Analysis
- Compensating Permanent Workplace Injuries: A Study of the California System - RAND, 1998
- Findings and Recommendations on California's Permanent Partial Disability System - RAND, 1998
Permanent Disability - Private Self-Insured
Impact of Local Economic Conditions on Wage Loss
- Trends in earnings loss from disabling workplace injuries in California: The role of economic conditions - RAND, 2001
March 2021