How Oregon Workers’ Compensation Time Loss Benefits Work

Oregon workers’ compensation time loss benefits pay you 66⅔ percent of your average weekly wage while a work injury keeps you off the job, up to a maximum of $1,884.69 per week for injuries occurring between July 1, 2025, and June 30, 2026.¹ Your attending physician has to authorize the time off, you wait three days before the clock starts, and the insurer must issue your first check within 14 days of the employer learning about the claim.²

How Much You’ll Get Paid Each Week

The weekly amount depends on whether you can do any work at all during recovery.

If your doctor takes you completely off work, or clears you for light duty but your employer has nothing to offer, you receive temporary total disability (TTD) at 66⅔ percent of your pre-injury average weekly wage.³

If you go back to work in a reduced capacity and earn less than before, you receive temporary partial disability (TPD) covering the wage gap. The payment is the same percentage of your TTD rate as your wage loss is of your pre-injury wage. Lose 40 percent of your earnings on modified duty and you receive 40 percent of your full TTD check.⁴

The 66⅔ percent figure runs against a cap and a floor. The cap for injuries between July 1, 2025, and June 30, 2026 is $1,884.69 per week, which is 133 percent of the statewide average weekly wage of $1,417.06.¹ The floor is 90 percent of your actual weekly wages or $50, whichever is less. Very low-wage workers end up with at least 90 percent of what they were earning; everyone else gets at least $50.³

How Your Average Weekly Wage Is Calculated

The insurer looks at up to 52 weeks of earnings before the injury. Salary and regular daily or monthly pay get a straightforward conversion (monthly wages divide by 4.35). If overtime, bonuses, or irregular hours made your paychecks uneven, the insurer averages those earnings across the weeks you actually worked in the 52-week lookback.⁵

Errors here are one of the most common reasons people get underpaid. Ask the claims examiner for the wage worksheet showing which pay stubs or W-2 figures were used, and confirm that overtime, shift differentials, and bonuses were included. If the insurer refuses to correct a wrong number, you can request a hearing through the Workers’ Compensation Board.

If You Worked More Than One Job

If you held multiple jobs when you were hurt, your benefits may be based on combined earnings from all qualifying employers rather than just the one where the injury happened. Oregon calls these “supplemental disability” benefits. Each additional job has to be covered by Oregon workers’ compensation, and you have to have been actively employed in those positions at the time of injury.⁵ Off-the-books work or independent contractor pay without workers’ compensation coverage will not count. Report every employer to the insurer early so the wage calculation reflects your real earnings.

When Payments Start and How Often They Arrive

Oregon has a three-day waiting period. The clock starts the first calendar day you lose wages because of the injury and runs for three consecutive calendar days, not scheduled workdays.⁶ You don’t get paid for those three days unless one of two things happens:

Your total disability lasts at least 14 consecutive days, in which case the insurer pays the three waiting days retroactively.
You are admitted as an inpatient to a hospital within 14 days of the first onset of total disability.

Either rule applies to both TTD and TPD claims.⁷ Return to modified duty inside the first three days without crossing the 14-day line and those days stay unpaid.

Once the physician has authorized time off, the insurer must issue the first temporary disability payment within 14 days of the employer’s notice or knowledge of the claim.² After that, payments continue every 14 days for as long as your physician verifies ongoing disability.⁸ Checks are issued by mail or electronic deposit.

The insurer has 60 days from the employer’s first notice to accept or deny your claim in writing.⁹ Payments should start before formal acceptance if the physician has authorized the time off. Unreasonable delay in either paying or deciding the claim exposes the insurer to a penalty of up to 25 percent of the amounts then due, payable to you.²

Light-Duty Offers Can Cut Off Your Checks

This is where a lot of injured workers run into trouble. If your doctor clears you for light or modified duty and your employer offers a job inside those restrictions, you generally have to accept it. Refuse an approved modified job and your time loss benefits can be reduced or stopped entirely.¹⁰

You can refuse without losing benefits in four specific situations:

The job is not with the employer where you were injured or at one of its job sites.
Your physician says you are physically unable to commute to the offered site.
The site is more than 50 miles from where you were injured or customarily worked, unless it is less than 50 miles from your home.
The offered shift differs from the employer’s written scheduling policy, common practice, or collective bargaining agreement.

Accept the modified job at reduced pay and you move from TTD to TPD, with the insurer covering the proportional gap. If you think the offered job exceeds your medical restrictions, get your physician to document that in writing before you decline anything.¹¹

When Time Loss Benefits End

Time loss is temporary. Payments stop when your claim is closed, and the usual trigger is “medical stationarity”: the point where your attending physician decides more treatment is unlikely to significantly improve your condition. You may not be back to pre-injury shape, but no further gains are expected.¹²

The insurer issues a Notice of Closure spelling out any permanent disability award, how long temporary disability was paid, and your right to challenge the decision. A claim can also close if the accepted injury is no longer the primary cause of your condition, or if you skip medical appointments or a closing examination without your physician’s approval.¹³

Disputing a Closure

You have 60 days from the mailing date on the Notice of Closure to request reconsideration through the Workers’ Compensation Division, using Form 440-2223a.¹⁴ Miss that window and you lose the right to dispute the closure terms. Reconsideration is a written review, not a hearing, and it is your last chance to add new information to the record; any future hearing can only draw on what was in the file at that stage. If you still disagree with the Order on Reconsideration, you have 30 days to request a formal hearing before the Workers’ Compensation Board.

If your claim is denied outright, you can go straight to a Board hearing to challenge the denial.

Taxes and Social Security

Time loss payments are not taxable as federal income under 26 U.S.C. 104, which excludes workers’ compensation received for personal injury or sickness.¹⁵ Oregon follows the same rule, so there is no state income tax either. Nothing is withheld, and you do not report the benefits as income.

If you also receive Social Security Disability Insurance, the combined total of SSDI and workers’ compensation cannot exceed 80 percent of your average current earnings before the disability. Any excess reduces your SSDI benefit until you hit full retirement age or your workers’ compensation payments stop.¹⁶ VA benefits and SSI are exempt from the offset. A lump-sum workers’ compensation settlement can still trigger a reduction; the SSA spreads the lump sum across the period it is meant to cover.

1
Workers’ Compensation Division. Oregon Workers’ Compensation – Bulletin No. 111
2
Oregon State Legislature. Oregon Code 656.262 – Processing of Claims and Payment of Compensation
3
Oregon Public Law. Oregon Code 656.210 – Temporary Total Disability; Payment During Medical Treatment; Employer Election to Pay Supplemental Benefits; Rules
4
Oregon Public Law. Oregon Code 656.212 – Temporary Partial Disability
5
Oregon Public Law. Oregon Administrative Rules 436-060-0025 – Workers Weekly Wage Calculation and Rate of Temporary Disability Compensation
6
Oregon Public Law. OAR 436-060-0019 – Determining and Paying the Three Day Waiting Period
7
Department of Consumer and Business Services. Wage-Loss Benefits (Time Loss)
8
Workers’ Compensation Division. Workers’ Compensation Flowchart
9
Department of Consumer and Business Services. Workers’ Compensation Claims
10
Workers’ Compensation Division. What Happens If I’m Hurt on the Job
11
Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries. Workplace Injuries
12
Oregon Workers’ Compensation Division. When Your Claim Is Closed
13
Oregon Public Law. Oregon Code 656.268 – Claim Closure
14
Workers’ Compensation Division. Understanding the Reconsideration Process
15
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 104 – Compensation for Injuries or Sickness
16
Social Security Administration. How Workers’ Compensation and Other Disability Payments May Affect Your Benefits