I was geeking out with this database over at OpenTheBooks.com and was absolutely shocked to see all the workman’s compensation claims for government workers. On a lark, I decided to see if there were any anomalies that could be seen with the naked eye.
Holy freaking cow.
What you are looking at is the number of workers comp claims for ONLY government workers. I would expect Chicago’s claims to be highest based on the size of their work force. More employees, statistically more workers comp claims. Chicago has 1,303 cases.
Scanning the list, we see that Herrin Illinois, population 12,500 has 1650 workers comp claims. 350 cases more than the city of Chicago.
Does that sound right to you?
Winfield by comparison has about 40 employees for a population of 9000 residents. If the ratio holds, Herrin should have 56 employees. Realize we are just ball-parking numbers but that is 29 workers comp claims PER WORKER.
Some people have multiple workers comp claims spanning multiple years. You would think that they would have learned a little something about safety after the first claim.
I think we all know what is going on here. The taxpayer is getting scammed and nobody is doing anything to stop this.
This information is truly amazing.
If I were these people’s boss, I would fire every one of them.
Wonderful, that Winfield is not on the list!!! and that you are not the boss in any of these other communities (because you would generate all kinds of litigation expense for trying to fire these people.
Hey Tim, I was a little skeptical as to the numbers you cited. I went out to OpenTheBooks.com, and relative to workers comp data, I don’t see any information regarding what level of government each of these employees represent. It could be just state-level employees, for all I know. The locations do not seen to relate to municipalities, but rather hearing locations for the state Workers Compensation Commission. For all I know, these numbers could be skewed relative to where the various correctional facilities are in the state and where the nearest hearing location is to where the employee lives.