There was good and bad news for employers in the US last month with a new study showing that worker compensation costs had risen again.

However, while the rate of increase in 2004 was higher than that for the combined cash benefits for injured workers and medical payments for their treatment; it was the lowest hike since 2001.

The National Academy of Social Insurance issued its study on the increasing costs to employers and found that the level of increase in 2004 remain on the rise for the fourth successive year.

Costs have increased year in year since 2000, when workers' compensation costs and benefits relative to wages were at their lowest point in the last 15 years. The 2004 figures are the latest available and do however show the rate of increase is slowing.

Total workers' compensation benefit payments for injured workers rose by 2.3 percent to $56.0 billion, while employer costs rose by 7.0 percent to $87.4 billion.

Relative to wages of those workers covered by the schemes benefit payments fell by 3 cents for every $100 of wages in 2004—from $1.16 to $1.13. Nationally, the costs to employers, primarily the premiums they pay for workers' compensation insurance, rose by 3 cents per $100 of wages, to $1.76 in 2004.