The Fiscal Policy Institute has a report out today that shows how employers are killing the worker’s compensation system in New York. According to the report, “Between 500,000 and a million New York workers who should have workers’ compensation coverage do not, and the system’s revenues are $500 million to $1 billion lower than they should be. Fragmented responsibility for enforcement has allowed employers to provide unemployment insurance but not workers’ compensation coverage to some workers; in other cases employers misclassify employees as consultants to keep them out of both systems.”

Steve Greenhouse writes about this report today. But, the big piece that’s missing is the drive to change the system in New York–a drive supported by Gov. Eliot Spitzer–which will harm workers eve more. Right now, the worker’s comp system says that you will get up to $400 per week as long as you are injured; by the way, that amount is a piddling amount, putting New York only above Mississippi, not a great place to be, in terms of worker’s comp benefits.

But, business, using the tired-rhetoric of better “efficiency” and “competitiveness,” is pushing to cap the benefits at a certain number of weeks. So, if you are severely injured, you are out of luck if you pass the time limit. Maybe if businesses paid their fair share of worker’s comp, then, the costs would be spread among more employers.

This is an outrage. And people should be up in arms.