Vernon R. Sumwalt asks: Which employee “earns” more at work? The one who gets $10.00 an hour?  Or the one who gets $10.00 an hour plus an additional 6% in quantifiable contributions made by the employer into a retirement account, and to which the employee is 100% vested at the time the contributions are made?  In Shaw v. U.S. Airways, Inc., 652 S.E.2d 22 (2007), the North Carolina Court of Appeals answered this question in favor of the employee receiving retirement contributions and indicated that the Industrial Commission can include these contributions into the employee’s “average weekly wage” under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 97-2(5).

This politically charged issue raises fundamental questions about the concept of “earnings” in the modern economy and how the North Carolina Workers’ Compensation Act, which was first enacted in 1929, can accommodate this development. 

Sumwalt's expert commentary takes a look at the policies behind these questions as well as the framework that Shaw used to evaluate fringe benefits for purposes of “average weekly wage".