Temporary disability

Your rate is set by your date of injury and does not change as the years pass — except below.

2023 and 2024 are the same figures, and that is not a typo. The State Average Weekly Wage fell in the twelve months ending March 31, 2023 — from $1,651 to $1,642 — so no adjustment was triggered and the 2024 rates carried over unchanged (DWCDWC Division of Workers’ Compensation, part of the Department of Industrial Relations. Administers the system. Information Services Center: 1-800-736-7401. Newsline 2023-84). A table built on the assumption that rates rise every January is shifted by a year from 2023 back.

For 2026, the maximum applies to workers earning $2,646.16 a week or more; the minimum applies below $396.91. The State Average Weekly Wage rose from $1,704 to $1,789 — an increase of 4.98826% — which is what drove the 2026 figures. Unlike permanent disabilityPD Permanent Disability. Compensation for lasting impairment. A different and much lower weekly rate — 2026 maximum $290/week., temporary disability does index to wage growth each year. That distinction matters and almost nobody explains it.

The number that drives everything, and the one most often understated on the first check. Your average weekly wage should include overtime, if it was regular; bonuses and commissions; concurrent employment — earnings from a second job count; in-kind wages — employer-provided lodging, meals, fuel; tips, where reported; and shift differentials and premium pay. For workers with irregular hours, seasonal work, or variable earnings, the law provides a catch-all method designed to reach a figure that fairly reflects earning capacity — not simply the last few thin paychecks.

Check the first benefit notice against your own pay records. An average weekly wage calculated off base hourly pay alone, for someone who regularly worked overtime or held a second job, is the most common and most correctable error in a California claim — and it compounds across every week of benefits.

For dates of injury on or after January 1, 2008: 104 compensable weeks within five years of the date of injury. Read that carefully. It is not 104 weeks from when payments start. It is 104 weeks inside a five-year window that begins on the date of injury. Which produces a real trap: a worker whose claim is denied and litigated for four years has, in practical terms, about one year left to draw 104 weeks of benefits. The clock ran while the case was being fought.

This list is closed. There is no catch-all for catastrophic injury. A worker with a devastating spinal cord injury gets 104 weeks; a worker with an amputation gets 240.

A gap the Legislature has not closed: if your treatment was wrongly denied and the denial was later overturned on Independent Medical ReviewIMR Independent Medical Review. The appeal from a UR denial. 30 days (10 if the dispute is only over drugs on the MTUS Drug List)., the weeks you spent waiting still count against your 104. Two bills would have fixed this — AB 1213 (2023–24) and SB 1346 (2024). Both failed. As of August 2026 there is no IMR-delay exception to the 104-week cap. The delay is the worker’s to absorb.

This is the most valuable section on this page. When a temporary total disability payment is made two years or more from the date of injury, the payment is computed using the average weekly earnings limits in § 4453 in effect on the date the payment is made — not the date of injury. And if the current minimum happens to be lower, the payment is not reduced. It is a one-way ratchet.

HOFMEISTER v. WCABWCAB Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board. The court system that decides these cases. 23 district offices statewide. (1984) 156 Cal.App.3d 848

“The statute makes no reference to rates in effect on the date of ‘injury.’” Where payment has been delayed two or more years, the weekly earnings amount is set at the statutory rate on the date of payment. The purpose was to relieve workers of the consequences of inflation during the delay.

• Check the average weekly wage on the first benefit notice — Against your own pay records — overtime, second job, bonuses, tips, in-kind wages.
• Count your compensable weeks against the five-year window — And check the nine-condition list if any of it applies.
• Add two years to your date of injury — Every TTD payment after that date should be at the current year’s rail. If it is not, the difference is owed.
• Audit the payment dates — Every late check carries the automatic 10% — supposed to be added without asking.