Workers’ Comp Settlement Chart by Body Part (2026)

Search for a “workers’ comp settlement chart by body part” and you’ll find pages promising a dollar figure for a hand, an arm, or a knee. No state publishes one, because no state pays that way. What every state publishes instead is a schedule of weeks — a fixed number of weeks of pay assigned to each body part for permanent partial disability (PPD). Your dollar amount is that week count multiplied by your state’s own rate rule, and the rate rule is different in every state.

This chart pulls the verified 2026 PPD schedules for seven states — Georgia, Michigan, New Jersey, Virginia, Minnesota, Colorado, and New York — straight from each state’s statute or official rate notice, shows exactly how each state turns weeks into dollars, and walks through two worked examples so you can see the arithmetic yourself. For how your weekly benefit amount is set in the first place, see our companion piece on how your workers’ comp weekly check is calculated.

Why There’s No Single “Dollar Amount” Chart

Three things vary by state, and all three have to line up before you get a dollar figure:

1. The weeks. Each state’s schedule assigns a fixed number of weeks to a body part — an arm might be 200 weeks in one state and 330 in another.
2. The percentage. A doctor rates your loss — either as a “loss of use” percentage of the specific body part, or, in Georgia and Minnesota, as an impairment percentage under a medical ratings guide.
3. The rate. Some states pay a percentage of your wages, capped at a state maximum. Colorado pays a flat rate unrelated to wages. Michigan and New Jersey don’t let you compute a public dollar total at all, because the missing piece is tax-dependent or table-dependent in a way this article can’t fill in for you.

Multiply weeks × percentage × rate and you get a dollar figure. Skip any one of them and you’re guessing.

PPD Weeks by Body Part: 7-State Comparison

The table below shows the maximum scheduled weeks for total loss of each body part (100% loss of use, or the top of the impairment scale). Your actual weeks are this number multiplied by your percentage of loss.

Why Minnesota is all dashes: Minnesota doesn’t use a body-part schedule at all. It rates injuries as a percentage of the whole body under Minn. Rules ch. 5223, then pays a lump sum from a dollar table keyed to that percentage — explained below. There’s no “hand = X weeks” figure to show.

Colorado’s labels differ slightly from the other states because its statute names the amputation point directly — “hand below wrist,” “arm at shoulder,” “leg at hip” — rather than a generic “hand” or “arm.” The weeks above use Colorado’s own wording.

New Jersey’s hand and foot each have two values because N.J.S.A. 34:15-12(c) pays more weeks once the loss of function reaches 25%: below that threshold you get the lower figure, at or above it you get the higher one.

Some states also schedule body parts not shown here (hearing loss in New York, New Jersey, Virginia and Georgia; Virginia’s disfigurement cap and pneumoconiosis stages; Georgia’s “body as a whole” category). Those aren’t included because this chart is limited to the body parts common across all seven states’ public schedules.

How Each State Turns Weeks Into Dollars

Getting from “weeks” to “dollars” is where these states diverge the most. Here’s each state’s rate rule, in plain terms.

New York

Two-thirds of AWW, capped at the state’s maximum for your injury date. New York resets its cap every July 1: $1,222.42/week for injuries from January through June 2026, and $1,281.50/week (minimum $384.45) for injuries from July 2026 through June 2027 (NY Workers’ Compensation Board, Subject Number bulletin). Run your own numbers on the New York calculator.

Virginia

Same two-thirds formula, but Virginia’s compensation year runs July 1 to June 30. Injuries from January through June 2026 use a $1,463.10 maximum ($365.78 minimum); July through December 2026 uses $1,507.01 ($376.75 minimum) (VWC, Notice of 2026 Rates). All compensation, temporary and permanent combined, is capped at 500 weeks under Va. Code § 65.2-518. See the Virginia calculator.

Georgia

Two-thirds of AWW, capped at a flat $800/week — in effect since July 1, 2023, with no increase confirmed since (Georgia SBWC, Summary of Provisions). Georgia’s statute names the AMA’s Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment, 5th edition, as the rating standard. See the Georgia calculator.

Michigan

No two-thirds formula here: Michigan pays 80% of your after-tax AWW, the same rate used for total disability, so the dollar figure depends on your tax situation, not just gross pay. That can’t be computed from public wage tables, so we don’t publish a Michigan dollar total — enter your own weekly compensation rate (from your benefit notice) into the Michigan calculator for a total, or leave it blank for weeks only.

New Jersey

Ignore any per-body-part dollar figure you see for New Jersey. Its statute doesn’t pay a percentage of wages for scheduled injuries — the rate comes from a table keyed to the total weeks your award covers, and the current 2026 version of that table lives only on the state’s own PDF; most secondhand reproductions get it wrong. Use the official 2026 schedule for the rate and the New Jersey calculator for the weeks.

Minnesota

Minnesota skips weeks entirely. A doctor rates your injury as a percentage of your whole body under Minn. Rules ch. 5223, and that percentage picks a dollar band from a statutory table — a one-time lump sum, not a weekly check. A new, higher table took effect for injuries on or after October 1, 2026, so the same rating pays differently depending on which side of that date your injury falls on (Minnesota 2026 Session Laws, ch. 103, § 10). A sample of the bands:

For example, a 10% whole-body rating for an injury on September 1, 2026 falls in the “5.5% to under 10.5%” band under Table A: 10% × $121,800 = $12,180.00. The identical 10% rating for an injury on October 15, 2026 falls under Table B instead: 10% × $146,297 = $14,629.70 — a difference driven entirely by injury date, not by anything about the injury itself. The full 20-band table for both periods is on our Minnesota calculator page.

Colorado

Colorado pays scheduled PPD injuries at a flat rate that ignores your wages — $459.45 per week for injuries in the July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027 benefit year, under the state’s 2026 Max Benefits Order. A worker earning minimum wage and a worker earning six figures with the same 20% hand injury get paid the exact same weekly rate.

For injuries not on the schedule — back and neck are the common examples — Colorado uses a different, whole-person method: “rating % × an age factor (1.80 at age 20 or younger, down to 1.00 at 60 or older) × 400 weeks, paid at the TTD rate within a 2026–2027 range of $150.00–$804.46 per week. Combined TTD and PPD are capped at $202,297.46 (whole-person rating 19% or less) or $328,049.94 (20% or more) for 2026–2027” (C.R.S. § 8-42-107.5; DOWC 2026 Max Benefits Order). We aren’t running that calculation because the full age-factor table isn’t independently confirmed — treat it as background, not a number to plug in. See the Colorado calculator.

Worked Examples

These are hypothetical numbers built to show the arithmetic — they are not settlement estimates for a real claim. Use the workers’ comp settlement calculator with your own wage and rating for that.

New York — hand, 50% loss of use, AWW $1,200

• New York’s hand schedule is 244 weeks. At 50% loss: 244 × 0.50 = 122 weeks.
• Rate: 2/3 × $1,200 = $800.00/week, which falls under New York’s maximum, so the full $800.00/week applies.
• 122 weeks × $800.00/week = $97,600.00.

Virginia — hand, 20% loss, AWW $900

• Virginia’s hand schedule is 150 weeks. At 20% loss: 150 × 0.20 = 30 weeks.
• Rate: 2/3 × $900 = $600.00/week, which falls between Virginia’s minimum and maximum, so $600.00/week applies.
• 30 weeks × $600.00/week = $18,000.00.

Colorado — hand below wrist, 20% loss

• Colorado’s hand-below-wrist schedule is 104 weeks. At 20% loss: 104 × 0.20 = 20.8 weeks.
• Rate: the flat $459.45/week — Colorado ignores wages entirely for scheduled injuries.
• 20.8 weeks × $459.45/week = $9,556.56.

Notice that a 20% hand injury pays a completely different amount in Virginia ($18,000 at this wage) than in Colorado ($9,556.56, regardless of wage) — not because one injury is “worse,” but because the two states built different formulas.

PPD Is Only Part of a Workers’ Comp Settlement

Everything above covers permanent partial disability — payment for a lasting loss after you’ve healed as much as you’re going to. It isn’t your whole workers’ comp case. A real settlement can also include:

• Temporary disability benefits paid while you were out of work recovering, calculated separately from PPD and covered in our weekly benefit guide.
• Medical expenses — past and, in many cases, future treatment tied to the injury.
• Negotiation. Settlements often resolve disputed issues (the rating itself, whether the injury is work-related, future medical exposure) for a lump sum that doesn’t map cleanly back to a weeks-times-rate formula.

There’s no reliable published average for what these add up to across cases, so we’re not going to invent one. The PPD schedule tells you one verifiable piece of the math — not the final number on a settlement check.

FAQ

Is there an official chart that shows the dollar amount for each body part?
No. States publish a schedule of weeks per body part, not dollars. The dollar amount depends on your percentage of loss and your state’s rate rule, so the same injury pays differently in different states.

How many weeks is a hand worth in workers’ comp?
It depends on the state: 150 weeks in Virginia, 160 in Georgia, 215 in Michigan, 244 in New York, 260–300 in New Jersey depending on the percentage of loss, and 104 in Colorado (“hand below wrist”). Multiply the applicable figure by your percentage of loss for your actual weeks.

Why don’t all states pay the same amount for a similar injury?
Three variables differ by state: the scheduled weeks for that body part, how the loss percentage is rated, and how the rate is calculated from that percentage. States with similar weeks can diverge sharply once you apply the rate rule — compare Virginia’s wage-based rate to Colorado’s flat rate above.

Does my permanent partial disability payment cover my whole workers’ comp settlement?
No. PPD is typically one component. Temporary disability payments already received, ongoing or future medical costs, and negotiated resolution of disputed issues can all be part of a final settlement alongside, or instead of, a scheduled PPD award.

What if my state isn’t one of the seven listed here?
This chart covers only states whose PPD schedules we’ve verified against an official statute or state agency source. If yours isn’t listed, check your own state’s workers’ compensation agency for its schedule of weeks and rate rule before assuming any figure above applies to you.

This article is general information, not legal advice. Workers’ compensation schedules, rates, and effective periods change, and impairment ratings are determined case by case. Verify current figures with your state’s workers’ compensation agency, and talk to a licensed attorney in your state before relying on any number here for a real claim.