The California Workers’ Compensation Institute (CWCI) conducted a review of recently published data from the National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI), which contains comprehensive data on workers’ comp benefits, coverage, and employer costs for the nation, the states, the District of Columbia, and federal programs.

According to the CWCI’s analysis of the NASI data, California accounted for 11.9% of all jobs covered by workers’ comp in the U.S. in 2023, and 14.3% of covered payroll, while it accounted for 21.7% of all workers’ comp benefits paid to injured workers.

The NASI data is based on three main data sources from 2023; data from an annual questionnaire sent by the Academy to state agencies and from annual reports published by states, data purchased from A.M. Best, a private company that collects insurance data, and from the NCCI.

In 2023, workers’ comp programs in the U.S. covered 149.7 million jobs and an estimated $10.84 trillion in payroll and that total medical and indemnity benefits paid under state and federal programs climbed to $64.1 billion, up 3.8% from $61.8 billion in 2022.

California remained the nation’s largest workers’ comp system, with nearly 17.8 million covered jobs and $1.55 trillion in covered payroll. California workers’ comp programs paid an estimated $13.88 billion in benefits in 2023, an increase of $916 million, or 7.1%, from 2022. That pushed California’s share of total U.S. benefit payments from 21% in 2022 to 21.7% in 2023.

California’s $13.88 billion in benefit payments was more than the combined total for New York, Florida, and Washington, which ranked second, third, and fourth in terms of total benefits, and was nearly four times the $3.52 billion paid under federal programs.

Unlike the nation as a whole, where medical benefits accounted for 47.3% of total payments and indemnity benefits accounted for 52.7%, California’s 2023 payments were almost evenly divided, as medical benefits totaled $6.937 billion and indemnity benefits totaled $6.946 billion.

Further insights are available in the CWCI’s report.