Disability Benefits

Louisiana divides workers’ compensation disability benefits into four categories, each with its own test and its own rate. Which category applies turns on what the injured worker can still do, not on how serious the injury looks. All four are set out in La. R.S. 23:1221. This page explains that statute rather than reprinting it.

Temporary total disability

Temporary total disability benefits are paid at sixty-six and two-thirds percent of wages for as long as the disability lasts. La. R.S. 23:1221(1)(a). Two limits decide most disputes. No temporary total benefit is awarded for any period in which the worker is in fact engaged in employment or self-employment, whatever its nature or character. And where the worker is not working at all, temporary total disability must be proved by clear and convincing evidence, unaided by any presumption of disability. La. R.S. 23:1221(1)(b) and (1)(c). The award ceases once the worker’s physical condition has resolved to the point that a reasonably reliable determination of the extent of disability can be made. La. R.S. 23:1221(1)(d).

Permanent total disability

Permanent total disability is paid at the same rate, sixty-six and two-thirds percent of wages, and carries the same two limits: it is not awarded while the worker is engaged in any employment or self-employment, and it must be proved by clear and convincing evidence, unaided by any presumption of disability. La. R.S. 23:1221(2)(a) through (2)(c). This is the hardest category to establish. Evidence that suitable work is available is commonly what moves a claim out of this category and into supplemental earnings benefits.

Supplemental earnings benefits

Supplemental earnings benefits apply where the injury leaves the worker unable to earn ninety percent or more of the wages earned at the time of injury. They are payable monthly at sixty-six and two-thirds percent of the difference between average monthly wages at the time of injury and the average monthly wages the worker earns, or is able to earn, in any month afterward in any employment or self-employment. Average monthly wages are computed by multiplying wages by fifty-two and dividing the product by twelve. La. R.S. 23:1221(3)(a)(i).

Where the worker is not receiving any income from employment or self-employment and the employer has not established earning capacity under La. R.S. 23:1226, the benefit is paid in the manner provided by La. R.S. 23:1201(A)(1). La. R.S. 23:1221(3)(a)(ii). Where the worker is not working, or is earning less than he is able to earn, the amount treated as earning capacity is what the worker could have earned in a position the employer proves was offered to him, or proves was available to him in his or the employer’s community or reasonable geographic region. La. R.S. 23:1221(3)(c)(i).

Supplemental earnings benefits are subject to a maximum of 520 weeks, with one full week counted against that maximum for each week compensation is paid under that paragraph. They can also end earlier: at the end of any two-year period after temporary total disability ends during which supplemental earnings benefits were not payable for at least thirteen consecutive weeks, or when the worker retires, although the period during which they may be payable cannot be less than 104 weeks. La. R.S. 23:1221(3)(d).

Permanent partial disability and the schedule of losses

Separate from the three categories above, the Act lists specific anatomical losses and fixes compensation solely for anatomical loss of use or amputation. La. R.S. 23:1221(4). The percentage of anatomical loss of use or amputation must be established under the most recent edition of the American Medical Association’s Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment. La. R.S. 23:1221(4)(q). Losses the schedule does not name, including permanent disfigurement and permanent hearing loss resulting solely from a single traumatic accident, are compensated under a catch-all provision at up to sixty-six and two-thirds percent of wages for a period not exceeding one hundred weeks. La. R.S. 23:1221(4)(p).

These categories interact. Where compensation has been paid under one of them, the number of weeks paid is deducted from the number of weeks allowed under another, with the fifty-thousand-dollar catastrophic payment described below expressly excepted from that deduction. La. R.S. 23:1223.

The fifty-thousand-dollar catastrophic injury payment

In addition to any other benefits under the Act, a worker is entitled to a sum of fifty thousand dollars, payable within one year after the date of the injury, where the injury results in paraplegia or quadriplegia, in the total anatomical loss of both hands, both arms, both feet, both legs or both eyes, or of one hand and one foot, or any two of those, or in third degree burns of forty percent or more of the total body surface. La. R.S. 23:1221(4)(s). This payment is not available for every serious work injury. It is limited to the injuries the provision lists.

The weekly rate limits

Every weekly indemnity rate described above is subject to a maximum and a minimum weekly compensation rate, which the Louisiana Workforce Commission sets each year by reference to the statewide average weekly wage. The limits that apply are those in effect on the date of the accident, not the date of payment, so a long-running claim is paid at the rate fixed by its own accident date.

Why the category matters

Which category a claim falls into drives everything else: the weekly amount, how long it can last, and what the employer must prove to reduce or stop it. When benefits are denied, reduced, or converted from one category to another, the dispute is usually about the evidence of what the worker can still earn, not about the arithmetic.

The full current text of the statute is published by the Louisiana Legislature at La. R.S. 23:1221. This page was last reviewed in October 2026.