How Much Does Workers’ Comp Pay in Massachusetts?

Massachusetts workers’ compensation pays 60% of your average weekly wage if a work injury keeps you out entirely, and two-thirds of that wage if the injury is permanent and totally disabling. Both are capped at $1,922.48 per week for injuries on or after October 1, 2025, with a floor of $384.50.¹ So how much workers’ comp pays in Massachusetts depends on three things: what you earned before the injury, which benefit category your disability falls into under Massachusetts General Laws chapter 152, and whether separate lump-sum payments apply for permanent loss of function or scarring.

Your Average Weekly Wage Sets the Number

Every wage-replacement check starts from your Average Weekly Wage (AWW). Add your gross earnings from the 52 weeks before the injury, including overtime and bonuses, and divide by 52.² If you earned $78,000 that year, your AWW is $1,500.

Worked for the employer less than a year? The calculation uses your actual weeks worked, and the insurer fills the rest of the 52-week window with what a coworker in the same type of job earned over a full year.² That keeps a newer employee from having their benefit deflated by weeks they weren’t even on the payroll.

Temporary Total Disability: 60% of Your AWW

If your injury stops you from working at all, Section 34 pays 60% of your AWW, up to $1,922.48 per week for injuries on or after October 1, 2025. The floor is $384.50, and if your AWW falls below the floor, you receive your full AWW instead.³ These benefits last up to 156 weeks, roughly three years.⁴

The math in practice: a worker earning $75,000 a year has an AWW around $1,442 and a weekly benefit near $865. Someone earning $170,000 has an AWW around $3,269, but their check is capped at $1,922.48. The cap bites harder for higher earners than most people expect.

Partial Disability: 60% of the Wage Gap

When you can still work but at reduced hours or lower pay, Section 35 pays 60% of the difference between your pre-injury AWW and what you can now earn. That weekly amount cannot exceed 75% of what your total disability benefit would have been.⁵

Example: pre-injury AWW of $1,200, current earning capacity of $700. The $500 gap times 60% gives you a $300 weekly partial benefit. Check the ceiling: 75% of the $720 total-disability rate is $540, so the $300 stays under.

Partial benefits can run up to 260 weeks. The combined total of Section 34 and Section 35 payments generally cannot exceed 364 weeks (about seven years). If the insurer agrees or an administrative judge finds you have a permanent partial disability, that combined cap extends to 520 weeks (ten years).⁵

Permanent and Total Disability: Two-Thirds of Your AWW, Potentially for Life

For injuries that permanently keep you out of any gainful work, Section 34A pays two-thirds (66.67%) of your pre-injury AWW, subject to the same $1,922.48 maximum and $384.50 minimum. These benefits start once your temporary total and partial benefits are exhausted.⁶

Section 34A payments can continue for life and may be adjusted upward each year by a cost-of-living adjustment, with the insurer reimbursed from the Workers’ Compensation Trust Fund for the supplemental amount.⁷

Lump Sums for Loss of Function and Scarring

Section 36 pays separate one-time amounts on top of your weekly benefits. For a permanent loss or impairment of a body part, the payment equals the State Average Weekly Wage on your injury date multiplied by a set number of weeks tied to that body part. Using the current SAWW of $1,922.48:⁸

Loss of dominant arm: 43 weeks × SAWW (about $82,667)
Loss of dominant hand at the wrist: 34 weeks × SAWW (about $65,364)
Loss of vision in one eye: 39 weeks × SAWW (about $74,977)
Loss of hearing in both ears: 77 weeks × SAWW (about $148,031)
Loss of vision in both eyes: 96 weeks × SAWW (about $184,558)

Partial losses are paid proportionally. Losing 50% of the use of your dominant hand pays roughly half the full-hand amount.

Permanent scarring from a work injury pays a separate lump sum based on the scar’s size, location, and severity. Facial scars pay the highest per-inch rate, followed by arms, hands, and legs. The statute caps the total.⁹ Scars on extremities, the torso, and surgical sites qualify too, not only visible scars on the face and neck.

Death and Survivor Benefits

If the injury is fatal, Section 31 pays a surviving spouse two-thirds of the deceased worker’s AWW, capped at the SAWW. The minimum is $110 per week, with an additional $6 per week for each dependent child under 18. Combined spouse-and-child payments cannot exceed $150 per week.¹⁰

Weekly payments continue as long as the surviving spouse remains unmarried, with total payout capped at 250 weeks times the SAWW at the time of injury, plus applicable COLAs. If the spouse remarries, payments shift to dependent children at $60 per week each. After the weekly maximum is exhausted, an unremarried spouse may keep receiving payments during periods when they are not fully self-supporting.¹⁰

Medical Benefits Have No Cap

The insurer must cover all reasonable and necessary medical care for a work-related condition: emergency treatment, hospital stays, specialist visits, prescriptions, physical therapy, and mileage to appointments.¹¹ There is no week limit on medical benefits; they continue as long as treatment is needed. The insurer pays providers directly, so bills should not come to you.

Your employer picks the provider for the first visit. After that, you choose. The insurer can require periodic evaluations with its own physician and can deny treatment it considers unnecessary, with an appeal available to the Department of Industrial Accidents.¹¹

Vocational Rehabilitation

If you cannot return to your previous job but could work in a different capacity, the Office of Education and Vocational Rehabilitation evaluates whether retraining is necessary and feasible. Approved programs run up to 104 weeks.¹² If the insurer refuses to fund the program, the state funds it from the Workers’ Compensation Trust Fund and assesses the insurer at least double the cost. Request vocational rehabilitation within two years of any lump-sum settlement to preserve eligibility.

When the Money Starts

There is a five-calendar-day waiting period before wage benefits begin. The insurer has 14 days from receiving the employer’s injury report to investigate and decide whether to pay.¹³ In practice, first payments usually arrive within three to four weeks.

If your disability lasts 21 calendar days or more, you get paid retroactively for the initial five-day waiting period. Payments are issued weekly once they start. You have four years from the date you knew your injury was work-related to file a formal claim with the insurer.¹⁴

Taxes and the Social Security Offset

Workers’ compensation benefits are fully exempt from federal income tax, whether paid as weekly checks, a lump-sum settlement, or medical coverage. Massachusetts does not tax them either. Two carve-outs: if workers’ compensation reduces your Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), the portion attributed to Social Security may be taxable, and retirement plan benefits triggered by a work-related disability are taxable to the extent they turn on age or years of service rather than the injury.¹⁵

If you collect both SSDI and Massachusetts workers’ compensation, federal law caps the combined amount at 80% of your pre-disability average earnings. When the two together exceed that threshold, Social Security reduces your SSDI by the excess until you reach full retirement age or your workers’ compensation stops.¹⁶ The offset can meaningfully shrink your combined income when workers’ comp alone is close to the 80% line.

Lump-Sum Settlement Instead of Weekly Checks

Section 48 lets you and the insurer agree to a lump sum in place of ongoing weekly payments. The amount reflects the present value of your remaining benefits, discounted for the risk and uncertainty of continued litigation. A DIA conciliator, administrative judge, or administrative law judge must approve every lump-sum agreement.¹⁷

Some protections are built in. If the insurer or a judge has already accepted liability, the settlement cannot cut off future medical benefits or vocational rehabilitation. No settlement can require you to give up future employment rights, bar a new workers’ compensation claim, or waive wrongful discharge or breach of contract claims; any such release is void. Without an attorney, the agreement must be specifically approved by a judge as in your best interest.¹⁷

1
Mass.gov. Minimum and Maximum Compensation Rates
2
Mass.gov. Form 127 – Average Weekly Wage Computation Schedule
3
General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 152 Section 34
4
Mass.gov. Types of Workers Compensation Benefits
5
General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 152 Section 35
6
General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 152 Section 34A
7
WCRIBMA. Circular Letter No. 361 – Cost of Living Adjustments Payment and Reimbursement Schedules
8
General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 152 Section 36
9
Mass.gov. Scarring, Loss of Function, and Disfigurement (Sec. 36)
10
General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 152 Section 31
11
Mass.gov. Learn About Workers Compensation Benefits
12
General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 152 Section 30H
13
Mass.gov. The Injured Workers Guide to Workers Compensation
14
Mass.gov. Statute of Limitations
15
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 525 (2025), Taxable and Nontaxable Income
16
Social Security Administration. How Workers Compensation and Other Disability Payments May Affect Your Benefits
17
General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 152 Section 48