136
Opinion of the Court
to join a wait-and-see rule for most cases with a predict-the-future method when the disability results in no current decline in what the worker can earn.
Our view, as it turns out, coincides on this point with the position taken by the Director of the Office of Workers' Compensation Programs (OWCP), who is charged with the administration of the Act, and who also construes the Act as permitting nominal compensation as a mechanism for taking future effects of disability into account when present wage-earning ability remains undiminished. See Brief for Director, Office of Workers' Compensation Programs 12-21, 24-31. The Secretary of Labor has delegated the bulk of her statutory authority to administer and enforce the Act, including rulemaking power, to the Director, see Director, Office of Workers' Compensation Programs v. Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co., 514 U. S. 122, 125-126 (1995); Ingalls Shipbuilding, Inc. v. Director, Office of Workers' Compensation Programs, 519 U. S. 248, 262-263 (1997), and the Director's reasonable interpretation of the Act brings at least some added persuasive force to our conclusion, see, e. g., Skidmore v. Swift & Co., 323 U. S. 134, 140 (1944) (giving weight to agency's persuasive interpretation, even when agency lacks "power to control"); Robinson v. Shell Oil Co., 519 U. S. 337, 345-346 (1997).
There is, of course, the question of how high the potential for disability need be to be recognized as nominal, but that is an issue not addressed by the parties, and it would be imprudent of us to address it now with any pretense of settling it for all time. Here it is enough to recall that in those cases where an injury immediately depresses ability to earn wages under present conditions, the payment of actual compensation holds open the option of modification under § 22 even for future changes in condition whose probability of occurrence may well be remote at the time of the original award. Consistent application of the Act's wait-and-see approach thus suggests that nominal compensation permitting
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