of 25 cents is charged by the clerk for this service. In many cases where but small amounts of compensation are paid certain insurers are refusing to get the court approval and to file the settlements with the clerk of court, on the plea that the expense of securing approval and filing amounts to as much or more than the compensation paid. There is no penalty in the law for neglect to secure approval or failure to file, and we are therefore unable to compel compliance with section 22. If the legislature accepts our recommendation to have the settlements approved by an administrative bureau rather than by the courts, this difficulty will be done away with; but if the present system of approval is continued we recommend a penalty for failure to have the settlement approved and filed as required by section 22.

WITNESSING OF SIGNATURES.

The department, in assisting to bring about settlements, and particularly in preparing complaints for injured workmen, must have the signatures of the contracting parties acknowledged by a notary public. This necessity frequently causes a considerable waste of time, with consequent expense to the state. The officers and employes of the department are authorized by law to administer oaths, when necessary in the performance of their duties, and the legislature is requested to provide that the witnessing of a signature by a member of the department shall have the same authority in compensation matters as an acknowledgement by a notary public.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR INCREASE OF BENEFITS TO INJURED

WORKMEN.

Before presenting the department's recommendations for increases in the amount of compensation for injury or death we wish to state for the information of the legislature and all interested persons that these recommendations have been prepared without consultation with any persons or groups of persons in the state. The recommendations are solely based upon our own convictions as determined by our experience under the present act and our study of the laws of the other states.

COMPENSATION FOR NON-FATAL INJURIES.

We recommend that wherever the words "fifty per centum" are found in section 13 or section 14 they be stricken out and the words "sixty-six and two-thirds per centum" substituted.

Compensation at the rate of 50 per cent of the wage is neither just nor adequate. Fifty per cent would be too low a rate of compensation if we had a one week waiting period, and it is entirely inadequate when we have a two weeks' waiting period. A workman injured in Minnesota receives at the present time one-fourth of his wage loss if he is laid up a month (see table "A"); one-third of his wage loss if he is laid up six weeks; 37.5 per cent of his wage loss if disabled eight weeks; 41% per cent if he is disabled twelve weeks; 434 per cent if he is disabled sixteen weeks. No matter how long he is laid up he can never receive 50 per cent of his total wage loss because of the total loss of the first two weeks' wages. The only exception to this rule is the man whose wages are below $13 per week. His compensation will run above 50 per cent of his wage loss if he is disabled more than eight or ten weeks because the minimum, $6.50, is more than 50 per cent of his wages. But, on the other hand, the man who is earning more than $22 per week receives but a very small percentage of his loss. A man earning $24 a week receives only 22 per cent of his wage loss if he is laid up a month and only 40 per cent if he is laid up four months. A $27 man receives 20 per cent of his wage loss during the first month and but 35 per cent during the first four months, while a $30 man gets 18 per cent of his wage loss for the first month and but 32 per cent if he is disabled four months.

The effect of increasing the rate to 66% per cent with a two weeks' waiting period is shown in table "B," while the effect of increasing the rate to 66% per cent with a one week waiting period is shown by table "C."

A careful examination of the tables will show that an increase in the percentage will materially benefit those who earn more than $9.75 and less than $22 per week, but will not increase the compensations of those who earn less than $9.75 or more than $22. Those who earn less than $9.75 would get the $6.50 minimum, as at present; and those who earn $22 and over would only get the $11 maximum, as at the present. Nothing but a diminution in the waiting period or an increase in the maximum can increase the benefits of the man earning $22 or over, though a decrease of the waiting period to one week would of course give them an additional week's compensation.

The three situations can be easily compared by the reader by taking three typical wages: $12 per week, the wage of common labor; $15 per week, the wage of the semi-skilled and the higher grades of common labor; and $24 a week, which approximates the wage of a large part of the skilled mechanics; and comparing the percentages payable to each of these groups under the various situations depicted in tables "A," "B" and "C."

The majority of the other states still have the 50 per cent rate. But Ohio, Massachusetts and New York pay 66% per cent of the wage; Wisconsin and California, 65 per cent, and Texas, 60 per cent. The other states, like Minnesota, in most cases felt that the first compensation act should be drawn on conservative lines. But many of them will unquestionably enact higher rates during the current legislative sessions.

Table A.

Table "A" shows the percentage of their total wage loss which is received by workmen under the provisions of the present Minnesota compensation act. Compensation is at the rate of 50 per cent of the workmen's wage, but not to exceed $11 per week or be less than $6.50 per week, and compensation begins the first day of third week of disability. A workman whose wage was $15 per week would lose $60 in wages during the first four weeks of his disability and would receive $15 as compensation-50 per cent of his wage for the second two weeks. His compensation at the end of four weeks would therefore amount to 25 per cent of his wage loss.

The plus (+) sign after some of the percentages in the table signifies that the percentage is a fraction in excess of the figure. The fractions are omitted for the sake of simplicity.

12 16 20 24 26 28 32 36 weeks weeks weeks weeks weeks weeks weeks weeks

Table "B" shows the

Table "B" is of the same type as Table "A." percentage of his wage loss that a workman would receive if the compensation rate was 66 2-3 per cent instead of 50 per cent, but the waiting period and maximum and minimum remained as at present.

Weekly
Wage

4

28

32

6 8 12 16 20 24 26 36 weeks weeks weeks weeks weeks weeks weeks weeks weeks weeks weeks

Table C.

Table "C" shows the percentage of his wage loss that a workman would receive if the rate was increased to 66% per cent and the waiting period decreased to one week.

TOTAL PERMANENT DISABILITY.

The amendments of 1915 relative to compensation for total permanent disability created the following inconsistency: If a workman suffers total permanent disability through the loss of both eyes, both arms, mental faculties or by paralysis he is entitled to 550 weeks' compensation or a maximum of $5,000; but if he suffers total permanent disability through any other kind of an injury he is entitled to only 400 weeks' compensation with a maximum of $4,000. (Section 13, subsections (d), (e) and (el). Gust Wicklund, who was totally disabled by injuries to the rectum shortly before the 1915 amendments became effective would have been entitled to only 400 weeks' compensation under the new act. We submit that any man who is totally disabled for life should receive as much compensation as any other man so disabled. The act pays one man who is totally disabled for 550 weeks, another but 400 weeks. The injustice of the provision is so manifest that we feel extended argument upon it is unnecessary.

COMPENSATION OF DEPENDENTS IN DEATH CASES.

A feature of section 14 which we believe unsound in principle and unjust in practice is the awarding of compensation in death cases in the manner prescribed by subsections 5, 8, 10 and 13 of section 14. The schedule in these subsections provides that actual dependents shall receive the following percentages of the deceased's wages:

Widow-35% of the deceased's wages for 300 weeks; minimum $6.50, maximum $11.00.

Widow and one child-45% of the deceased's, wages for 300 weeks; minimum $6.50, maximum, $11.

Widow and two or three children-55% of the deceased's wages for 300 weeks; minimum $6.50, maximum $11.

Widow and four or more children-60% of the deceased's wages for 300 weeks; minimum $6.50, maximum $11.

One orphan-40% of the deceased's wages for 300 weeks; minimum $6.50, maximum $11.

Two orphans--50% of the deceased's wages for 300 weeks; minimum $6.50, maximum $11.

Three or moré orphans-60% of the deceased's wages for 300 weeks; minimum $6.50, maximum $11.

Husband-25% of the deceased's wages for 300 weeks; minimum $6.50, maximum $11.

One parent-30% of the deceased's wages for 300 weeks; minimum $6.50, maximum $11.

Two parents-40% of the deceased's wages for 300 weeks; minimum $6.50, maximum $11.

One grandparent, sister, brother, mother-in-law, father-in-law-25% of the deceased's wages for 300 weeks; minimum $6.50, maximum $11.

Any two of the above-30% of the deceased's wages for 300 weeks; minimum $6.50, maximum $11.

Excluding Oklahoma, Oregon, Washington and West Virginia from consideration because their laws are based on different principles and are not

comparable with ours, we find that only eight of the other twenty-seven states and territories which have compensation laws determine the amount of death compensation by the nearness of kinship and the number of dependents as is done by the Minnesota law. The other nineteen states simply classify the dependents into total dependents and partial dependents.

The Iowa law, for instance, reads: (Section 10, subsection (d)) "If death results from the injury the employer shall pay the dependents of the employe wholly dependent upon his earnings for support at the time of the injury a weekly payment equal to 50 per cent of his average weekly wages * * * for a period of three hundred weeks."

The classification of dependents in the Minnesota act was copied from the old New Jersey law of 1911. The only reason that we know of why it was written into the New Jersey law is that it was cheaper for the employers than a section which would require them to pay the same percentage of the wage in a death case as in a disability case. We have never heard anyone advance any good reason for this classification in Minnesota except that it was a part of the New Jersey law, which formed the pattern of our law of 1913. We have already departed from our New Jersey model in many essential features of our law, and it is to be hoped that the_legislature of 1917 will effectually differentiate our law from that of New Jersey. We recommend that the sections referred to be stricken out and a new section similar to that of Iowa shall be written into our law which will require the payment in all death cases of the same amount of compensation per week as is paid in disability cases. This recommendation is of course supplementary to and condition upon our previous recommendation that the amount of compensation payable in disability cases be increased from 50 per cent to 66% per cent of the weekly wage. If the recommendation to increase the rate to 66% per cent is not passed by the legislature we hope that the legislature will at least amend subsections 5, 6, 10, 11, 12, 13 of section 14 so as to read 50 per cent wherever a percentage less than 50 per cent is mentioned. This would amend section 14 to require the payment of 50 per cent of the wage in all cases where the dependents were wholly dependent upon the deceased.

Representatives of this department have attended every legislative committee hearing and every legislative debate on the subject of workmen's compensation since 1909. Throughout these discussions certain individuals and groups have always contended that the employer should be required to provide only a fraction of the support for a deceased workman's family and that the widow or some of her children should be compelled to go out and earn the balance. They have professed great solicitude lest the support received from the compensation act would pauperize them, educate them to live in idleness at the expense of others, and demoralize their character. The widow's compensation was fixed at 35 per cent of her husband's wage and a maximum below the wage of a common laborer was established, with the expectation that the widow would and should get out and hustle for the balance of her support. A compensation of 45 per cent of the wage was fixed for the widow with one child with the same underlying assumption, without regard to the fact that a child's first need is a mother's care rather than ten hours a day in a day nursery or running wild on the streets.

Throughout the country statesmen and social thinkers are trying to devise means whereby mothers, widowed or not widowed, may be relieved of the necessity of leaving their children while they go out to work, and children may be permitted to go to school and not required to support families. Minnesota's mothers' pension law is one of the concrete measures that has been adopted to further that very end. But section 14 of Minnesota's compensation law is based upon exactly the contrary principle. It is based upon the principle that industry should never have to bear any burden which can by any legal device be shifted to the shoulders of the mother and her children. The family having been deprived by industry of a husband and father, the law deprives the children of their mother or else of their education by forcing one or the other out to work. We have no objection to the

mother working to supplement the compensation and win for her family a standard of living above the level of bare subsistence, if she can see her way clear to do that, but we submit that the compensation law ought to at least provide bare subsistence. It does not do so at the present time.

Our argument thus far has dealt more particularly with the case of the widow with children (subsections 6, 7, 8). But just as vital considerations support our recommendations in their application to the case of the lone widow (subsection 5), orphans (subsection 10) or the parents and other dependents listed in subsections 11 to 13. The reader must keep constantly in mind that this recommendation refers only to those who were wholly dependent upon the deceased, and who were able to do nothing toward their own support before his death.

We will take up each of these classes specifically, but before doing so wish to call attention to another fact that is true of all them but particularly applicable to the case of the widow and children of the deceased. It is this: the compensation law should, as far as possible, protect the standards of living attained by the various families. Men of the business and professional classes frequently remark somewhat as follows: "It would kill me to lose my money and have to go back to the standard of living that I had when I started out." They do not always realize that what is true of them is equally true of all classes in society. It is just as bitter an experience for a carpenter's family to have to descend to a common laborer's standard of living as it is for a business man to descend to a mechanic's standard. It is just as great a sacrifice for a woman accustomed to the standard of living that $15 a week purchases, meager as it is, to descend to that which $6.50 per week purchases, as it is for the professional man to fall to a materially lower standard. It is just as great a hardship for a workingman's child to have to leave school and assume the support of a family as it is for a business man's.

Furthermore, it is a far greater loss to society for families in the working classes to be forced down from their standards of living to lower ones than it is for the more well-to-do classes. A startling percentage of our population are living in overcrowded houses, with inadequate food, clothing, and medical care. Millions of dollars are being annually expended in the effort to bring them to what we call a decent standard of living. What utter folly, in the face of these facts, to draw a compensation law in such a manner that it will be impossible for a considerable proportion of those who have been dependent upon men killed by industry to maintain a decent standard of living after the calamity.

The case of the lone widow left with but 35 per cent of her husband's wages as compensation does not appear as serious at first thought as that of some of the other classes of dependents. And it would not be if all widows where young, strong and competent to go out and earn a living. Unfortunately, accidents do not select out for death only those men whose wives are capable of shifting for themselves. The woman deprived of her husband's support is just as apt to be old as to be young, just as apt to be sickly as to be rugged, just as apt to be incompetent to earn a living as competent.

Subsection 10 provides for orphans. Here again the facts as you find them in real life have not been faced. A child's future depends upon his educational chance in childhood. The compensations provided in our act are calculated to give orphan children bare subsistence. The adoption of our recommendation would permit the accumulation in some cases of a small fund to assist the orphan in getting a decent education or a start in life.

Subsections 11 to 13 provide the compensations for dependent husbands, parents, brothers and sisters. Husbands are not dependent on their wives unless the husband is actually unable to work. They are therefore in all cases absolutely dependent on the compensation for a livelihood.

Parents, parents-in-law and grandparents may all be considered together. Two facts stand out strikingly in connection with all of them. First, that parents and grandparents are not found dependent upon and supported by