The Build a Better South: Construction Working Conditions in the US South study examined construction industry labor conditions across six key cities in the southern United States: Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, Houston, Miami, and Nashville.

"Among workers who had been injured during the past year, just 19% reported that workers’ compensation covered the medical bills for their injury," the study finds for Nashville which had the highest injury rate of all six surveyed southern cities. "An additional 38% said that their employer paid for at least part of the medical bills through some other mechanism, but 19% of injured workers paid for the medical bills out of their own pocket. The fact that fewer than one in five injured workers in Tennessee had their medical bills covered by workers’ compensation is troubling given the fact that all construction employers with one or more employees in the state are legally required to be covered by a workers’ compensation insurance policy."

Find the full study here.