Book Reviews : Workmen's Compensation in New Mexico. By ROBERT W. THOMAS, Department of Economics, University of New Mexico. (Albuquerque, New Mexico. 1950. Pp. 179. $2.00.)

• DOI: 10.1177/106591295100400438
• Published date: 01 December 1951
• Date: 01 December 1951
• Author: Virginia B. Sloan
• Subject Matter: Articles

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Workmen’s Compensation in New Mexico. By ROBERT W. THOMAS,
Department of Economics, University of New Mexico. (Albuquerque,
New Mexico. 1950. Pp. 179. $2.00.)
The first effective Workmen’s Compensation Act in the United
States was passed in 1908 by the federal government for the protection
of its civil employees. It was followed in 1911 by laws in ten states cover-
ing employees in private industry. By 1948 workmen’s compensation laws
had been enacted in each of the 48 states, in Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Alaska,
and the Philippines; and federal legislation had been extended to apply
to employees in the District of Columbia, and to longshoremen and
harbor workers.
In principle, these laws are designed to assure prompt payments of
benefits to injured employees or to the dependents of those killed while
performing their work, regardless of who is at fault. Thus they constitute
the first social insurance program, antedating that which resulted in the
Social Security Act of 1935. As a pioneer program, introduced at a time
when the public attitude toward social security legislation was quite
different from that now prevailing, the provisions of these individual laws
indicate varying degrees of inadequacy.
The study which is the subject of this review is a detailed analysis
of one of the state laws, both in respect to its provisions and to its
operation. To measure the adequacy of both, the author employed two
criteria: (1) the legislation in effect in the neighboring state of Arizona,
which is fairly comparable to New Mexico in population, geography, and
industry, and (2) the ideal legislation proposed by the Fifteenth National
Conference on Labor Legislation held in Washington, D. C., in 1948. In
comparison with both of these, the New Mexico Workmen’s Compen-
sation Act is inadequate in respect to coverage, benefits, and administration.
The greatest inadequacy revealed by the study is the lack of reliable
information concerning the operation of the legislation. This lack...