Workers’ compensation benefits are paid to a worker who has a job-related injury or illness. These benefits may be paid by federal or state workers’ compensation agencies, employers or by insurance companies on behalf of employers.
Disability payments from private sources, such as private pension or insurance benefits, do not affect one’s social security disability benefits.
But workers’ compensation and other public disability benefits may reduce your social security benefits. Other public disability payments that may affect your Social Security benefit are those paid by a federal, state or local government and are for disabling medical conditions that are not job-related.
Some of these are civil service disability benefits, military disability benefits, state temporary disability benefits and state or local government retirement benefits that are all based on disability.
Some public benefits do not affect or reduce your social security disability benefits.
They are:
• Veterans Administration benefits
• State and local government benefits, if Social Security taxes were deducted from your earnings
• Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
On the other hand, injured workers are also entitled to certain benefits under the workers’ compensation law. Here are the types of workers disability compensation:
• Temporary Total Disability – This benefit is payable when the injured worker is unable to work during a period when he/she is under active medical care and has not yet reached what is called “maximum medical improvement”.
In most states, compensation is paid at two-thirds of the employee’s average weekly wage, not to exceed statutory weekly maximums above which no worker is entitled to compensation. It is common worker’s temporary total disability weekly benefit to be capped by these statutory compensation limits.
• Temporary Partial Disability – A worker may be eligible for temporary partial disability compensation when he or she is able to do some work but is still recuperating from the effects of the injury, and is, thus, temporarily limited in the amount or type of work which can be performed compared to the pre-injury work.
• Permanent Partial Disability – Compensation is awarded for certain types of permanent conditions which do not cause the worker to be totally unable to work.
• Permanent Total Disability – In order to receive this type of compensation, the employee must prove that he is unable to return to work in any capacity, and that this is a permanent problem.
On the other hand, there are rulings in many states to the effect that a worker, who can perform only occasional, sporadic or undependable work, may still be deemed to be permanently totally disabled. Frequently, states’ workers compensation law permits lawyers to offer evidence of a workers age, education, training and experience in seeking to prove that the worker is incapable of substantial gainful employment.
• Disfigurement/Mutilation – A states’ workers compensation law may permit the employee to be compensated for disfigurement or scarring, frequently in the absence of any actual impairment, and sometimes in addition to actual impairment.
Disabled workers and employees are entitled to a number of benefits under the law. To know more information about how these benefits may be applicable to you as a disabled employee, you need to consult a disability compensation lawyer who is knowledgeable with these issues.
