Permanent disability: weeks and dollars

Enter your final permanent disability percentage above. The tool converts it to weeks under Labor Code § 4658(d), applies the weekly rate under § 4453(b), and shows the statute beside every number. Free, nothing is saved, works on a phone.

The two-step arithmetic nobody explains

Step one: the percentage becomes weeks. § 4658(d) pays a sliding number of weeks per point — 3 weeks per point at the bottom of the scale, 16 at the top. A 32% rating is 145 weeks. The points are deliberately not worth the same amount: the schedule pays more per point as the disability deepens.

Step two: each week pays a rate. For injuries on or after January 1, 2014, the rate is two-thirds of your average weekly earnings, floored at $160 and capped at $290 a week — § 4453(b)(9). That cap has not moved since 2014. It is not indexed to anything. Anyone earning about $435 a week or more hits it, which is nearly everyone working full time.

Three ways the input is probably wrong

A rating below 15% after major surgery. Fusions, joint replacements, and multi-operation injuries usually rate higher. A low rating after major surgery is one of the most common signs that something in the rating string went wrong — decode the string before accepting the number.

Earnings that put you against the cap. If two-thirds of your earnings clears $290, the cap decides your rate, not your wage — and every extra dollar you earned changes nothing. Worth knowing before comparing your check to a co-worker's.

A pre-2014 date of injury. The old § 4453(b)(6)–(b)(8) tables set different caps by rating band, and the pre-2013 § 4658(d) carried 15% bump-up and bump-down rules this page does not model. The tool uses the correct era table for the rate, and says so.