A recent hearing on the Social Security disability program featured testimony from Philip de Jong of the University of Amsterdam. He is an expert on how the Dutch handled disabled workers. De Jong explained that in the Netherlands, employers have a greater responsibility for keeping their workers employed. In the Netherlands, employers must pay a large percentage of the wages of workers who cannot continue in their jobs. This obligation lasts for two years. This pay is generally higher than what a worker might get in the US under a workers’ compensation scheme. This clearly gives Dutch employers strong incentives to keep workers healthy as well as to get injured or sick workers back on the job. According to de Jong, the Netherlands saw a two-thirds drop in disability awards over a ten year period, ending in 2012. It makes sense that employers who are going to have to pay for workers who are not able to perform are going to do much more to keep said workers healthy. As it stands now, companies in the US can simply shift the cost of disabled workers to some combination of workers compensation and Social Security disability. Having the government force employers to engage in this sort of scheme might be hard to achieve. Big Business is sure to object. That said, it is an idea worth exploring.
Do the Dutch Have A Better Idea About Disabled Workers?
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