California has workers' compensation to guarantee no harmed workers lose both their ability to work and their health and income. Employers pay enough workers' compensation benefits in dollars and cents to give a worker a decent and comfortable life.

The benefits replace the money a healthy worker can earn.

The California Worker Income Line

Workers get an income in California even when they lost their ability to work. No matter who they work for. Employers have to pay for their workers' compensation benefits. The California law says so. When benefits are paid, the income never drops below a line for decency.

The Health Lost by Workers

The ability to do work is not the same as normal after an injury happens on the job or an illness strikes. A single harmful event that injures a worker can lower the line for a Californian's work production. A wrist badly sprained during a slip and fall on a wet floor can stop heavy loading and unloading work. A chemical spill that burns the skin can need home care to heal for months.

Or, repeated events can wear out a worker's health. Years working with a heavy duty electric drill can damage the hearing enough for the worker to have to live with partial deafness until their ears heal. Time is needed away from the work noise to heal the ears. During the time the health is poor, the worker does not have the ability to do enough of the same work to earn the same money.

Asking for Medical Help

The first thing workers can do with the money support given out in workers' compensation payments is pick themselves up and recover their strength and health. Employers pay for medical care that helps a worker get their health back after an injury or an illness.

Income Partly Paid

Life goes on for a California worker out of work. Two kinds of workers' compensation benefits help them pay their bills. The first is for living costs during a recovery period. Temporary Disability Benefits replace the wages the worker is unable to earn. The second is for life after work done for an employer ends, or least some of the work ends. When a worker does not fully recover, Permanent Disability Benefits pay for the costs of living.

Paid To Get Back To Work

Making improvements in the ability to work is also something workers' compensation can pay for. Workers injured during 2004 or a later year can get supplemental benefits they can use to recover from a lost job. They can use a voucher to pay for retraining or skills enhancement that makes them able to work in a new job

When Work Ends Forever

Relatives who depend on a worker's ability to earn income for the family get death benefits after a worker dies from a health condition that started at work. Wives, or husbands, and children do not have to suffer a sudden fall into hard times or even poverty.

A Guarantee for All

The ability to work is not always guaranteed. But, in California, a worker's income is guaranteed.

SOurce:

California Division of Workers' Compensation, Employee Fact Sheet for Workers' Compensation (July 2010).