Striking a New Grand Bargain : Workers' Compensation as a Social Safety Net

States have responded to COVID-19's ongoing workplace disruptions with myriad workers' compensation policy changes. While some states have extended presumptions of coverage to a large swath of workers who are at risk of contracting COVID-19 on the job, others have been far more measured or have declined to meaningfully change their policies. In contemplating state responses to COVID-19, this Comment makes two novel contributions to legal scholarship: First, it categorizes states into one of four groupings along a spectrum of coverage, from most likely to extend workers' compensation benefits to at-risk employees to least likely. Second, it contends that both historical and economic principles counsel states to adopt a selective coverage approach to pandemic workers' compensation. Under a selective coverage approach, states adopt a presumption of coverage for certain workers, such as first responders and grocery store clerks, who are most at risk of contracting pandemic diseases through the course of their work