As opposed to unemployment compensation insurance or Social Security disability insurance, Workers’ Compensation is state-run. The main reason behind why this is so is the fact that in the early 1900s the federal government considered everything related to social insurance and welfare to be the responsibility of the states. Back then the states took care of all social problems by appropriating money and providing institutions or homes to relieve the victim’s suffering.
It wasn’t until the early 1970s that Congress appointed the National Commission on State Workmen’s Compensation laws.