Workers' compensation: coverage, benefits, and costs, 1988.

For the fifth consecutive year, payments to beneficiaries in 1988 under workers’ compensation programs in the United States rose more than 10 percent from the previous year, reflecting increases in average wages and medical costs and in the number of employed workers, Workers’ compensation programs provided about $30.8 billion in cash and medical benefits to persons with job-related disabilities and in survivors benefits to dependents of those workers whose death resulted from a work-related accident or illness. Employers paid nearly $43 billion in 1988 to provide workers’ compensation protection to employees, about 12.6 percent more than the $38.1 billion paid in 1987. This premium consists of the amount needed to pay benefits and to administer the insurance operation, including sales and operating costs, claims processing, rehabilitation costs, profits, taxes, and reserves for future benefits.