Every year, about 6,000 workers’ compensation claims are recorded for Staten Island with the New York State Workers’ Compensation Board. We analyzed every one of those claims from 2021 through 2025, more than 30,000 in all, using the Board’s public claims data. Here is who gets hurt on Staten Island, how, and what happens to their claims.
Claims per year
Claims dropped sharply in 2020, when many workplaces closed, and have held steady at about 6,000 a year since. That is still below the 2019 peak of nearly 7,500. COVID-19 claims are excluded from every figure on this page.
Source: NYS Workers’ Compensation Board claims data, by year the claim was assembled. Excludes COVID-19 claims. 2020 shown lighter: workplace closures.
Who gets hurt: the industries
Health care is the largest source of claims on Staten Island, as it is across the city: hospitals, nursing homes and home care. What sets Staten Island apart is public employment. Government workers file 17% of Staten Island’s claims, compared with 10.5% citywide, reflecting the borough’s large share of police, fire, sanitation, transit and other city workers. Retail and education are also overrepresented. Restaurants and hotels, a big source of claims in the rest of the city, are much smaller here.
NYC: 21.8%
NYC: 10.5%
NYC: 8.6%
NYC: 13.9%
NYC: 4.8%
NYC: 5.2%
NYC: 4.4%
NYC: 8.7%
NYC: 3.0%
Source: NYS Workers’ Compensation Board claims data, 2021–2025. Analysis by The Law Offices of Frank J. Dito, Jr.
See our pages for health care workers, City of New York employees, school employees, warehouse workers and construction workers.
How they get hurt
Strains are the most common injury, led by lifting, which alone accounts for about one claim in twelve. Falls, slips and trips are next. One finding stands out: about 8% of all Staten Island claims involve a worker struck or injured by a co-worker, patient or member of the public. Much of that is health care, schools and public-facing city jobs.
Lifting alone: 8.6%
By a co-worker, patient or other person: 8.3%
Source: NYS Workers’ Compensation Board claims data, 2021–2025. Analysis by The Law Offices of Frank J. Dito, Jr.
More on lifting injuries and hernias, assaults at work and machine and crush injuries.
What gets hurt
Hands, wrists and fingers together account for as many claims as injuries to multiple body parts. The lower back, knees and shoulders follow, and those are the injuries most likely to need surgery and lead to long time out of work.
Source: NYS Workers’ Compensation Board claims data, 2021–2025. Analysis by The Law Offices of Frank J. Dito, Jr.
See back and neck injuries, knee injuries and shoulder injuries.
Occupational disease: three times the city rate
Occupational diseases, conditions that develop over time from the work itself, make up about 2% of Staten Island claims. That is roughly three times the rate in the rest of New York City (0.63%) and the state as a whole (0.71%). The Staten Island claims come mostly from city agencies, transit and utility workers, and the most common conditions are cumulative strain injuries, hearing loss and carpal tunnel syndrome.
These claims have their own deadline rules and are often fought on medical causation. See occupational disease, occupational hearing loss, carpal tunnel syndrome and repetitive strain injuries.
What happens to the claims
Compared with the rest of the city and the state, Staten Island claims are slightly less likely to be disputed, but more likely to end with a permanent schedule loss of use award, the award for permanent loss of use of an arm, leg, hand, foot, eye or hearing. About a third of injured workers on Staten Island had a lawyer.
| Staten Island | New York City | New York State | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claims (excluding COVID-19) | 30,241 | 461,941 | 1,319,387 |
| Worker had a lawyer | 31.8% | 32.7% | 24.7% |
| Claim disputed by the carrier | 8.2% | 9.4% | 6.5% |
| Schedule loss of use award | 8.7% | 6.8% | 6.1% |
| Occupational disease claim | 2.0% | 0.6% | 0.7% |
| Average age at injury | 42.4 | 41.2 | 41.6 |
Source: NYS Workers’ Compensation Board claims data, claims assembled 2021–2025. Recent claims are still open, so award rates will rise as they are decided.
If your claim has been disputed, see denied and disputed claims. For how permanent awards work, see schedule loss of use, and estimate yours with our benefits calculator.
Where injured workers live
The Board’s data also records the home ZIP code of each injured worker. These are the Staten Island ZIP codes of workers with claims from 2021 through 2025, wherever in New York they were hurt. Larger ZIP codes naturally have more workers, so these are counts, not injury rates.
| ZIP code | Areas include | Claims |
|---|---|---|
| 10314 | Bulls Head, Willowbrook, New Springville, Travis | 4,846 |
| 10312 | Eltingville, Annadale, Huguenot, Arden Heights | 3,421 |
| 10306 | New Dorp, Midland Beach, Richmondtown | 3,268 |
| 10304 | Stapleton, Grymes Hill, Dongan Hills | 2,493 |
| 10301 | St. George, Tompkinsville | 2,437 |
| 10305 | Rosebank, South Beach, Grasmere, Arrochar | 2,270 |
| 10303 | Mariners Harbor, Arlington | 2,074 |
| 10309 | Charleston, Prince’s Bay, Rossville | 1,910 |
| 10308 | Great Kills, Bay Terrace | 1,662 |
| 10310 | West Brighton, Livingston | 1,660 |
| 10302 | Port Richmond, Elm Park | 1,418 |
| 10307 | Tottenville | 816 |
Source: NYS Workers’ Compensation Board claims data. Home ZIP of the injured worker as reported to the Board. Excludes COVID-19 claims.
About this data
- Source. “Assembled Workers’ Compensation Claims: Beginning 2000,” published by the New York State Workers’ Compensation Board on data.ny.gov, as updated September 21, 2026.
- What counts. The Board “assembles” a claim when a worker has lost more than one week of work, has a serious injury that may be permanent, the claim is disputed, or the worker files a claim form (C-3). Minor injuries with no lost time usually do not appear.
- Staten Island. Claims where the county of injury is recorded as Richmond County. The county field appears to closely track where workers live, so treat these figures as Staten Island’s workers’ comp claims rather than an exact count of accidents on the Island.
- Years. Claims assembled from January 2021 through December 2025, excluding claims flagged as COVID-19.
- Using this data. Reporters, researchers and community groups are welcome to cite these figures with a link to this page.
Talk to a Staten Island workers’ compensation attorney
The Law Offices of Frank J. Dito, Jr. represents injured workers from our office at 1610 Richmond Road, throughout the five boroughs and across New York State.
Call 718.701.2776 or 800.310.5520. Consultations are free, at our office, by phone or by video call. If we don’t recover money for you, we don’t get paid.