Show Some disabled Utah workers find it's profitable not to examples cited by Utah Foundation For many disabled workers in it is more profitable to draw disability benefits than it is to This was revealed in a recent analysis of Federal-state duplication in disability benefits just completed by U-tah the private governmental research The Foundation study points out that a worker with a wife and two children earning a month receives only in take-home pay after Federal and state If this worker were totally and permanently the family could receive tax-free income in Utah of a month under present state and Federal disability benefit These high disability benefits arc the result of overlapping and duplication between Federal Social Security and the state workmen's compensation according to the When the Social Security Act was amended in 1956 to establish Federal disability the program was confined to persons 50 years of age and over and an offset provision prevented duplication with state workmen's compensation Subsequent amendments to Uie Social Security Act in and removed the age restrictions and permitted disabled workers to receive both Federal and state disability Foundation analysts note that additional to further broaden and liberalize Federal Social Security and thereby increase the amount of overlapping between the Federal and state were introduced in Congress during 1901 and Critics of the present trend toward expansion of Federal Social Security disability benefits observe it is not practical to have both a Federal and x state system which provide benefits for the some Further will tend to weaken and destroy the state compensation the report points out that the exceptionally high total disability benefits now resulting from Federal and state duplication discourages attempts at rehabilitation and places an unnecessarily large burden on the taxpaying Utah's Workmen's Compensation and Occupational Disease program was established in 1917 to protect persons who become injured or disabled while working on the The program guarantees payment cf medical and surgical hospital funeral and Uie cost of prophetic devices for such persons In weekly benefit payments are provided to disabled workers and their famil-cs or to sun-Ivors of workers killed on Uie Employers in Utah must provide for such workmen's compensation protection for their employees either by H insuring with Uie State Insurance insuring with a licensed private insurance or qualifying as a Cost of such protection is borne entirely by employers in During 1961 approximately of Uie workmen's compensation payments in Utah were made from Uie State Insurance by private insurance and 17 by firms that were Cash benefit payments under this state compensation program amount to of average weekly wages a maximum of a week a for a single worker a week a in the case of n disabled worker with a wife and four These arc state benefits to which may be added Social Security disability Disability benefits for totally and permanently disabled persons under the Federal Social Security Act are equal- to the primary benefits normally received by a worker at age In benefits arc for dependent members of the disabled workers' Total Federal benefits for a disabled worker and his family could amount to as much as a combined state and Federal disability benefits in Utah could equal as much as month fo some |