So observes the Wenatchee World, where editor Tracy Warner reflects on the proposed 2010 workers' comp tax increase. He notes:
In a state that just saw its unemployment rate bubble up to 9.2 percent, where jobs are easily lost, where economic recovery is excruciatingly slow, you would think it would not be a good time for the state to increase its tax on employment.
It isn’t, but it will. . . .
Business says the system is costly for employers and employees, pays the most generous and long-lasting benefits in the country and can’t seem to keep its expenses under control. It is a rare state monopoly. Rates have risen three years in a row and 53 percent in a decade, even while the number of claims drops, even while premiums in neighboring states with private policy options are stable.
Exactly right. And, you have to remember the agency's experts on Monday actually predicted workers' comp system costs to rise not by 7.6 percent next year but by 19.4 percent next year -- over a quarter billion dollars. The difference between that and the lower rate proposal is based, in part, on the hope that employment will pick up and economic recovery will be brisk. Indeed, we all hope so.
But what happens if, as leading indicators suggest, it doesn't? That's why legislative reform is necessary to address high costs leading to the 19.4 percent figure.
