Plain-language brief · Updated 2026-10-27

What impossible hours do to the national injury rate

A Spanish translation of this brief is available. English

What the numbers show

• A few bad filings hold almost all the hours. We read 2,801,064 injury filings that employers sent to OSHA. Of these, 57,857 (2.07%) reported hours per employee outside a plausible range, below 120 or above 4,500 hours a year. Those filings hold 96.68% of all the hours reported. They hold only 1.37% of the injury cases.
• One filing is enough. The single filing with the most hours holds 88.81% of all hours reported.
• The rate changes about thirty times. With every filing included, the national rate comes out at 0.134 injuries per 200,000 hours worked, which would be an extremely safe country. After setting aside the implausible filings, it is 3.983. The second is 29.7 times the first.
• The choice of limits is not the cause. We tried 25 different pairs of limits. The correction stayed between 29.6 and 29.8 times in every case.

What this means for you

• Workers and worker groups: if you see a very low national injury rate, check how it was made. A rate built from all filings, without checking the hours, can look much safer than the country really is.
• Small employers: check the hours you report. A typing mistake in hours, such as extra zeros, does not only affect your own record. It can change the numbers others use to compare workplaces.
• Anyone using the public data: check hours per employee before you calculate a rate.

Limits

The limits for a plausible filing are a choice made in this analysis, not an OSHA rule. We cannot know which filings are typing mistakes and which are true. The data are reported by employers. This brief covers the filings in the OSHA files we read, not every workplace.

Where each number comes from

Each number is copied from a file in a public repository. The link opens that file.