A compiled reference of 30 verified statistics on slips, trips, and falls in US retail: injury counts and rates read directly from Bureau of Labor Statistics source tables (2023-2024), which store formats and jobs fall most, how long fall injuries last, what they cost insurers, and what happens when a fall becomes a premises liability case. Every figure is drawn from a named public source (the Bureau of Labor Statistics, CDC, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, OSHA, Liberty Mutual, The Hartford) and independently checked before publishing. The famous fall statistics that failed verification, including the ubiquitous $70 billion figure, are documented with their tracing trails.
Key statistics
6 highlights from this report
Key statistics
Key takeaways
Worker falls in retail are measured in extraordinary detail by the federal government, and they show an elevated rate, long recoveries, and rising claim costs. Customer falls in retail are not publicly measured at all, and several famous numbers filling that vacuum do not survive tracing.
Retail's same-level fall rate runs 40% above the all-industry average: 20.6 vs 14.7 per 10,000 FTE.
Slip-and-fall claims doubled to 20% of small-business claims; the average claim hit $45,000.
Falls are America's #1 cause of ER visits: 8.87 million in 2023.
The median premises liability award is $98,000, 4x the all-tort median; plaintiffs win 38.4%.
Same-level falls cost US employers $10.5 billion a year, the #2 injury cost nationally.
Retail's fall share of injuries is normal (26.4% vs 26.1%); it's the rate that's elevated.
How we built this report
The retail cut of this data is essentially unpublished elsewhere: we downloaded the BLS injury workbooks and read the retail rows directly, in August 2026.
- Federal source tables, not summaries
BLS Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses tables (2023-2024 reference period), the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (2024), CDC WISQARS (2023), and OSHA citation data were read from the source files, cell by cell.
- Insurer and court data with years stated
Liberty Mutual's Workplace Safety Index and The Hartford's claims analysis are current; the Bureau of Justice Statistics tort study is from 2005 and is labeled as such because it remains the only national public source for trial outcomes.
- Derived figures labeled
Two findings are our own arithmetic on BLS cells (share comparisons); they carry a "Computed" badge.
- Independent review
Written by one co-founder, reviewed by the other before publishing.
Scope caveats: BLS injury data covers workers, not customers; no public national dataset of retail customer falls exists (see the measured-vs-unmeasured panel below). The Hartford's claims data is small-business-wide, not retail-specific, and is labeled accordingly. Liberty Mutual's dedicated retail index was last published for the 2020 data year.
The headline rate, from BLS injury tables
Retail floors put workers down at a rate about 40% above the national average. Counting restricted-duty cases, retail's same-level rate is 34.7 vs 22.5. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2023-2024 reference period.
Retail falls, by the numbers
30 verified figures in six themes, from the shop floor to the courtroom.
The retail floor, measured
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses (bls.gov), retail trade recorded 62,590 days-away-from-work injuries from falls, slips and trips in the 2023-2024 reference period, 46,540 of them same-level falls. And a correction worth making: retail's fall share of injuries is ordinary; it is the rate that is elevated, because retail's overall injury rate (105.2 per 10,000 FTE) runs well above the 86.6 all-industry figure.
Statistic 1
Retail trade recorded 62,590 days-away-from-work fall, slip and trip injuries; 46,540 were same-level falls.
Bureau of Labor Statistics, SOII case tables (2023-2024)
Statistic 2
Retail's same-level fall rate is 20.6 per 10,000 FTE versus 14.7 all-industry (days-away cases); including restricted duty, 34.7 versus 22.5.
Bureau of Labor Statistics, SOII rate tables (2023-2024)
Statistic 3
Counting restricted duty and job transfer, retail falls reach 102,710 cases a year, 78,370 of them same-level.
Bureau of Labor Statistics, SOII DART tables (2023-2024)
Statistic 4
Falls are 26.4% of retail lost-time injuries, statistically identical to the 26.1% all-industry share: retail's injury mix is normal, its rates are not.
RapidEye Research computation from BLS SOII cells (2026)
Statistic 5
Retail is 12.9% of private-industry lost-time injuries but 15.0% of all same-level falls; retail floors are overrepresented in the national fall count.
RapidEye Research computation from BLS SOII cells (2026)
What this means: the popular framing ("27% of retail injuries are falls, so retail is unusually fall-prone") gets the number nearly right and the meaning wrong. The real story is a rate elevated 40% by the physical environment: hard floors, spills, entry mats, stockroom clutter.
Which stores, which jobs
The subsector rows of the same BLS tables show where the risk concentrates, with some surprises: at gas stations, falls outrank being struck by objects as the top injury event, and at pharmacies falls are 2.6 times contact injuries.
Statistic 6
Supermarkets have the highest same-level fall rate in retail: 28.6 days-away (50.9 including restricted duty) per 10,000 FTE.
Bureau of Labor Statistics, SOII (2023-2024)
Statistic 7
At gasoline stations, falls (26.1 total fall rate) outrank contact-with-objects injuries (22.7) as the leading injury event; at pharmacies, falls are 2.6x contact injuries and 38% of all lost-time injuries.
Bureau of Labor Statistics, SOII (2023-2024)
Statistic 8
For cashiers, falls are the single largest injury category: a 15.1 fall rate out of a 45.3 total, ahead of contact (12.1) and overexertion (11.0).
Bureau of Labor Statistics, SOII occupation tables (2023-2024)
Statistic 9
First-line retail supervisors carry a 34.5 fall rate, stockers and order fillers 33.8, retail salespersons 30.4, all well above the 14.7 all-industry same-level benchmark.
Bureau of Labor Statistics, SOII occupation tables (2023-2024)
What this means: fall risk tracks floor conditions, not job drama: the wettest, most-trafficked, most-cluttered formats (grocery, garden, fuel) top the table, and the people who walk the floor all day fall most.
How long a fall lasts
Falls are not minor injuries. The median fall costs 13 days away from work versus 8 for all injury events, and a third of same-level falls cost 31 days or more.
Statistic 10
Median days away: 13 for falls/slips/trips versus 8 for all events; falls to a lower level run a median 20 days.
Bureau of Labor Statistics, SOII severity tables (2023-2024)
Statistic 11
102,410 of 310,690 same-level fall cases (33%) involved 31 or more days away from work; across all fall types, 35% ran 31+ days.
Bureau of Labor Statistics, SOII severity tables (2023-2024)
Statistic 12
Retail work fatalities from falls: 40 of retail's 258 workplace deaths in 2024 (15.5%); nationally, falls caused 844 of 5,070 work deaths. In retail, violent acts (104) kill more than twice as many workers as falls.
Bureau of Labor Statistics, Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (2024)
What this means: the modal fall is a multi-week absence in a sector already running 45% annual turnover; a third become month-plus absences that force backfill hiring.
What falls cost
According to Liberty Mutual's Workplace Safety Index (libertymutual.com), falls on the same level cost US employers $10.5 billion annually, and same-level falls have ranked #2 among injury-cost causes in all 25 years of the index. The dedicated retail edition (last published for the 2020 data year) put retail's serious-injury bill at $5.39 billion, with same-level falls the #2 driver at $1.08 billion.
Statistic 13
Falls on the same level cost US employers $10.5 billion a year, the #2 cause of serious workplace injury cost; all serious injuries cost $58.78 billion.
Liberty Mutual Workplace Safety Index (2025 edition, 2022 injury data)
Statistic 14
The US retail industry loses nearly $5.39 billion a year to serious nonfatal workplace injuries; falls on the same level are the #2 cost driver at $1.08 billion (20.1%), and the two fall categories combined are $1.44 billion (26.7%).
Liberty Mutual Workplace Safety Index: Retail (2023 edition, 2020 data year)
Statistic 15
Retail's same-level fall cost rose from $0.98 billion (18.6% of the total) in the 2019 data year to $1.08 billion (20.1%) in the 2020 data year; the 2020 figure reflects a COVID-distorted year, so both are shown.
Liberty Mutual retail indices (2022 and 2023 editions)
Statistic 16
Overexertion and falls on the same level have been the #1 and #2 causes of serious workplace injury cost in every edition across the index's 25-year history.
Liberty Mutual Workplace Safety Index (2025)
What this means: a quarter of retail's injury cost is people hitting the floor, and the national ranking has not moved in a quarter century. Floors are the most persistent unsolved hazard in commerce.
From injury to claim to courtroom
According to The Hartford's decade-comparison of small-business claims (thehartford.com; December 2025), slip, fall and customer-injury claims doubled from 10% to 20% of claims and the average claim more than doubled to $45,000. The only national public data on trial outcomes remains the Bureau of Justice Statistics' tort trial study (bjs.ojp.gov; 2005 data, labeled as such).
Statistic 17
Slip, fall and customer-injury claims doubled from 10% to 20% of small-business claims over a decade, moving from the 5th to the 3rd most frequent claim type; the average claim rose from $20,000 to $45,000.
The Hartford small-business claims analysis (2025)
Statistic 18
Premises liability was 11% of the 16,397 tort trials in the only national study, the 3rd most common type; plaintiffs won 38.4% of premises trials versus 51.6% of all tort trials.
Bureau of Justice Statistics, tort bench and jury trials study (2005 data)
Statistic 19
The median premises liability award was $98,000, four times the $24,000 all-tort median; jury trials awarded a $100,000 median versus $65,000 in bench trials, and 94% of premises cases went to juries.
Bureau of Justice Statistics (2005 data)
Statistic 20
Unintentional falls caused 8,870,302 nonfatal emergency department visits in 2023, the #1 cause in every age band except 15-24 and roughly 3x the second-place cause; adults 65+ account for 3.85 million of them.
CDC WISQARS leading-causes data (2023)
Statistic 21
Walking-working-surface violations ranked only #9 among OSHA's most-cited standards in retail (28 federal citations in the latest year); retail floor hazards are a civil liability story far more than an enforcement story.
OSHA frequently cited standards, NAICS 44 (2024-2025)
What this means: the regulator barely polices floors; the courts price them. For an operator, the exposure is the $45,000 average claim and the $98,000 median verdict, not the OSHA fine, and the defense in both is documented floor condition.
What is measured, and what is not
Counts, rates, subsectors, occupations, severity, and fatalities, published by BLS down to the store format. Everything in groups 1-4 above.
No national public dataset exists. Insurer aggregates (The Hartford) are small-business-wide, court data is all-premises and dated, and ER data is all-locations. Any precise "customer slip-and-fall" statistic you encounter is either private data or invented.
That vacuum is where the fabricated numbers live. Three famous ones, traced:
"Slip and falls cost American businesses $70 billion annually (National Safety Council)."
A 20-year-old number cited as current. The figure traces to an NSC publication from around 2003 and appears in no current NSC material. The defensible modern figure is Liberty Mutual's $10.5 billion for same-level falls (2025 index).
"Premises liability victims receive about $4 billion annually, per the DOJ."
Contradicted by the DOJ's own data, by orders of magnitude. The Bureau of Justice Statistics' actual figures (666 premises plaintiff winners at a $98,000 median) put trial awards in the $65-300 million range. No DOJ document supporting $4 billion exists.
"The average slip-and-fall settlement is $X" (any specific number).
No public national settlement dataset exists. The closest defensible figure is The Hartford's $45,000 average claim, which is an insurer's claim average across small businesses, not a settlement average, and we label it that way.
What this means: when a fall becomes a dispute, the operator's best evidence is a time-stamped record of what the floor actually looked like. The measurement gap that lets bad statistics thrive is the same gap that loses claims.
Cite this study
Academic or press use: copy a ready-made reference. RapidEye is the publisher.
Quick FAQ
How common are slip-and-fall injuries in retail?
62,590 days-away-from-work fall injuries a year in retail trade (46,540 same-level), rising to 102,710 including restricted-duty cases, per BLS 2023-2024 tables. Retail's same-level fall rate of 20.6 per 10,000 FTE runs about 40% above the all-industry 14.7.
What does the average slip-and-fall claim cost?
$45,000 on average for slip, fall and customer-injury claims at small businesses, more than double a decade ago, per The Hartford (2025). At trial, the median premises liability award is $98,000, but plaintiffs win only 38.4% of premises cases (Bureau of Justice Statistics).
Is the $70 billion slip-and-fall figure real?
It traces to a National Safety Council publication from around 2003 and appears in no current NSC publication. Use Liberty Mutual's current figure instead: same-level falls cost US employers $10.5 billion a year, the #2 workplace injury cost.
Which retail stores have the most falls?
Supermarkets top the same-level fall table at 28.6 per 10,000 FTE, followed by building-material and garden dealers, gas stations, and pharmacies, all well above the 14.7 all-industry rate, per BLS subsector data.
Data sources
Every figure traces to one of these named public sources, read from the original tables and documents before publishing. Years are stated inline, including the 2005 court study that remains the only national public source of its kind.
Bureau of Labor StatisticsOccupational injury tables and fatal injury census, 2023-2024bls.gov
Centers for Disease Control and PreventionWISQARS leading causes of ED visits, 2023cdc.gov
Bureau of Justice StatisticsNational tort bench and jury trial studybjs.ojp.gov
OSHAFrequently cited standards for retail tradeosha.gov
Liberty MutualWorkplace Safety Index, national and retail editionslibertymutual.com
The HartfordSmall-business claims decade comparison, 2025thehartford.com