Workers' Comp Settlement Chart: What It Really Shows and How to Read One

A workers' comp settlement chart is what most injured workers hope to find: a table that says "this injury is worth this much." You will see them online under many spellings, sometimes searched as "workmans comp settlement chart," "work comp payout chart," or with a state name added, such as a Pennsylvania settlement chart. Almost all of the dollar-value versions are unreliable, and we deliberately do not publish one. What does exist, in many states, is a legally defined schedule of benefits, and learning to read it is the closest thing to a real chart.

This guide explains why a single national dollar chart misleads, how a real schedule is built, how to work through it with a clearly labelled hypothetical, which factors move a result up or down, and how to find your own state's official schedule. Workers' compensation is a state system, so everything here is a general pattern, not a prediction about your claim.

Why one national dollar chart is misleading

A chart that lists a dollar figure beside each injury has to ignore almost everything that decides the real number. Four problems come up again and again:

• Benefits are set state by state. The percentage of wages paid, the weekly maximum, the list of covered body parts and the number of weeks assigned to each are all written by state law, and the same injury can be valued very differently across state lines.
• Your own wage drives the dollars. A weekly benefit is a share of your average weekly wage, so two workers with the same injury in the same state can receive different weekly rates. Our average weekly wage guide shows how that starting figure is set.
• Most outcomes are private. Many claims end in agreements that are not reported in any uniform way, so a chart of "average settlements" usually has no verifiable source. That is also why our guide to state settlement rankings explains that no trustworthy national leaderboard exists.
• A settlement is not a schedule award. A negotiated settlement can include or exclude future medical care, wage loss, rehabilitation and disputed issues, so it does not line up with a lookup table.

What a real settlement chart looks like

In many states, permanent injuries to specific body parts are paid from a schedule, often called scheduled-member benefits, scheduled loss of use or a schedule loss. The statute lists body parts such as an arm, leg, hand, foot, finger or eye and assigns each a number of weeks of benefits for a total (100%) loss of use. That list is the real chart. The usual structure behind it is:

Estimated award = weeks assigned to the body part × percentage of loss × weekly benefit rate

The percentage comes from a doctor, usually when you reach maximum medical improvement, and the weekly rate comes from your wage, subject to the state's limits. Our guide to MMI explains how ratings are assigned and disputed. Not every state uses this exact structure. Some convert an impairment rating to weeks with a per-point factor, as described in our Texas guide, and California adjusts a rating for occupation and age before converting it. Treat the formula above as the common starting point, then confirm your state's version.

A worked example using invented numbers

The example below shows only how the arithmetic fits together. It does not describe any real state, schedule or claim.

If you already have the schedule weeks, your rating and your weekly rate, you can run this arithmetic yourself with our permanent partial disability estimator, which has no built-in numbers so that you enter your own state's figures.

Factors that raise or lower a result

Even with a schedule in hand, several inputs determine where a real claim lands. This table is qualitative, because the size of each effect depends on state law and on the facts.

What a chart cannot tell you

Even an accurate schedule answers only the permanent-impairment slice of a claim. It does not value medical treatment, which is generally a separate benefit, and it does not capture wage-replacement checks already paid, vocational rehabilitation, penalties for late payment in some states or the value of future medical care that a settlement may close. Injuries to the spine, neck, head or psychological conditions are often not scheduled at all and are valued through a whole-person rating or an earning-capacity analysis. States built around wage loss, such as Pennsylvania as described in our Pennsylvania guide, work differently from body-part charts. For the full picture of what goes into a case, see how much your workers' comp case may be worth.

How to find your state's actual schedule

1. Start with your state's workers' compensation agency. Most publish the schedule of benefits, rate sheets and impairment-rating guidance, or point to the statute that contains them.
2. Match the date of injury. Schedules, maximum rates and rating rules can change, so use the version that applies to your injury date.
3. Find the body part and its weeks. If your injury is not listed, ask whether it is valued through a whole-person rating or another method.
4. Confirm your weekly rate. Check the percentage of wage and the weekly maximum on the agency's current rate sheet.
5. Ask your doctor for the rating report in writing and note which edition of the impairment guides was used.

Our twelve in-depth state guides each describe how that state values permanent injuries and link to its agency. For any other state, search for its workers' compensation commission, board or division and look for a .gov address.

Frequently asked questions