How Much Does Workers Comp Pay
Workers comp pays a fraction of what you used to take home, with a hard ceiling that depends entirely on the state you got hurt in. The same shoulder injury at the same wage can pay $824 a week in one state and $1,838 a week in another. The federal government does not set a national workers comp rate. Each state writes its own, federal employees fall under a separate system called FECA, and the variance between them is huge.
This page walks through the math the way the state statutes actually do it: the wage you start from, the percentage applied to that wage, the cap that overrides everything if your wages are high, and the categories of benefits that get paid on top of the weekly check.
The wage your benefit is calculated from
Almost every state starts the calculation from your average weekly wage, usually written AWW. The AWW is typically your gross earnings (before taxes) for the 52 weeks before the injury, divided by 52. Overtime usually counts. Tips count if they were reported. Bonuses count in some states and not in others.
If you worked less than 52 weeks at the job, states use a shorter look-back, or in some cases the wages of a comparable worker at the same employer. If you worked two jobs at the time of the injury, several states let you combine wages from both. This part of the law matters more than most people realize. A $50 difference in your AWW can move the weekly check by $33, and that compounds across 200 weeks of payments.
The two-thirds rule
Most states pay temporary total disability (the weekly check you get while you cannot work) at two-thirds of the AWW. That is roughly 66.67 percent. A few states pay 60 percent. Pennsylvania pays a sliding scale that drops below 66 percent at very high wages. Iowa pays 80 percent of the spendable (after-tax) weekly earnings, not the gross. Texas pays 70 percent of the AWW in the first 26 weeks for most workers, then 75 percent if wages are below a threshold.
The two-thirds figure is not magic. It is meant to mirror what an after-tax paycheck used to look like, because the workers comp benefit is not taxed under federal law (per the IRS, workers compensation paid under a workmen’s compensation act is excluded from gross income). If you earned $900 a week gross before the injury, two-thirds of that is $600, and that $600 lands in your bank account without federal income tax taken out. The check is smaller. The take-home gap is narrower than the headline suggests.
The state cap
Every state caps the weekly benefit at a multiple of the state average weekly wage (SAWW). Most states cap at 100 percent of SAWW. A few cap at 150 percent. A few cap below 100 percent. This cap is what creates the huge variance between states.
To see the cap in action, take a worker earning $1,500 a week. Two-thirds of that is $1,000. In a state where the maximum weekly benefit is $824 (roughly the 2025 Mississippi figure), the worker gets $824, not $1,000. In a state where the maximum is $1,800, the worker gets the full $1,000. Same injury, same wage, $176 a week difference. Over a typical 100 week TTD period, that is $17,600.
Per-state weekly maximums and the full statutory math live on every state’s page on this site. The federal SAWW data comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the state-by-state numbers come from each state workers comp board.
What pays on top of the weekly check
The weekly check is only one part of what a workers comp claim covers. The other parts:
All approved medical treatment. Doctor visits, surgery, physical therapy, prescriptions, mileage to and from the doctor, durable medical equipment. There is no deductible and no copay. The carrier pays the provider directly. Some states let you pick the treating doctor; some assign one from a panel.
Vocational rehabilitation. If you cannot return to your old job, the carrier pays for retraining, job placement, or in some states a small additional weekly stipend while you are in a training program. Vocational rehab is a benefit most injured workers leave on the table because they did not know it was available.
Permanent partial disability (PPD). Once you reach maximum medical improvement, the doctor assigns an impairment rating, and the rating triggers a separate PPD award. PPD is paid on top of the TTD you already received, not instead of it. The amount depends on the state’s schedule of injuries and your impairment percentage.
Death benefits and burial costs. If the injury is fatal, the surviving spouse and dependent children get weekly payments (usually two-thirds of AWW, capped the same way), and the state covers burial up to a statutory amount. Federal employees under FECA have a separate death benefit schedule.
Settlement. A lump sum that closes the case. Settlements are not a separate benefit, exactly. They are a negotiated buyout of the weekly payments and the future medical exposure. Settlement value depends on the impairment rating, the remaining weeks of compensation owed, the projected future medical, and the state’s rules on closing out future medical.
What does not get paid
Workers comp does not pay for pain and suffering. There is no category for it. A jury verdict for a car accident includes pain and suffering; a workers comp check does not. This is the central trade in the system. You give up the right to sue your employer for negligence in exchange for guaranteed wage replacement and medical, with no proof of fault required.
Workers comp also does not replace 100 percent of lost wages, even at the top end. If you were a high earner, the cap usually leaves a real income gap, and that gap is the lever insurance carriers use to push for an early settlement. The math will rarely make you whole. It is meant to keep you out of foreclosure while you heal.
If your injury was partially caused by a third party (not your employer), you may have a separate negligence claim that does pay for pain and suffering. See the workers comp vs personal injury guide for when both claims can run in parallel.
Social Security and the workers comp offset
This part trips up older injured workers. If you collect Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and workers comp at the same time, your combined benefit is capped at 80 percent of your average current earnings, calculated by the Social Security Administration. If your workers comp check plus your SSDI check exceed that 80 percent, the SSDI is reduced (offset) by the excess. The workers comp side is not reduced. The offset rule is administered by the SSA, not the state. There are settlement-structuring techniques (sometimes called Hartman language) that reduce the offset, and a settlement that ignores this can cost a worker tens of thousands in lost SSDI.
Related
- How long does workers comp last for the duration limits on each benefit type.
- TTD vs TPD vs PPD vs PTD for what each of the four benefit categories actually means.
- Federal workers comp (FECA) for federal employees who fall outside the state system.
- Workers comp settlement chart for the per-state weekly rates and full statutory tables.