Earnings Losses of Injured Men: Reported and Unreported Injuries

Abstract

This paper revisits the earnings losses following a workplace injury, accounting for injured workers who did not apply for workers’ compensation and a comparison group of uninjured workers. Selection of the injured group and the comparison group is important. Excluding those who do not apply for benefits overstates the earnings losses, while using less severely injured workers as a comparison group underestimates the earnings losses. Additionally, differentiating whether the injury resulted in a work-limiting disability highlights that it is not the injury event, but rather the subsequent disabilities that drive the earnings losses.