Most people who search for what workers’ comp pays are asking about a check. They got hurt on a job, the paychecks stopped, and they need to know what New York replaces and for how long.
We’ve handled these claims for decades, most of them for construction and labor-law clients, and the honest answer has two moving parts: a weekly rate that the state resets every July, and a duration that turns entirely on how a doctor and the Board classify the injury. Get both, and the rest of the system makes sense.
How Much Workers’ Comp Pays in New York
Start with the rate, because it caps everything else.
For a work injury on or after July 1, 2026, the maximum weekly benefit is $1,281.50 and the minimum is $384.45. Those figures hold through June 30, 2027, then reset again.
The maximum is not a policy choice made fresh each year. It is a formula. Under Workers' Compensation Law Sections 2(16) and 15(6), the maximum equals two-thirds of the New York State Average Weekly Wage for the prior calendar year, a number the Department of Labor sets by March 31. The Board then applies it every July 1. The 2026 maximum reflects a state average weekly wage that crossed $1,900.
What you actually receive
Your own benefit is not the maximum. It is two-thirds of your average weekly wage, calculated over the 52 weeks before the injury, then multiplied by your degree of disability and capped at that statewide maximum.
A few examples make the math concrete.
- A worker earning $900 a week, totally disabled, receives $600 a week (two-thirds of $900).
- A worker earning $1,500 a week, totally disabled, receives $1,000 a week.
- A worker earning $2,400 a week, totally disabled, receives $1,281.50, not $1,600. The cap takes the rest.
That last line is where high earners feel the system. A union foreman or a skilled tradesperson can lose several hundred dollars a week against actual earnings, every week, and comp does nothing about the gap.
The minimum matters too, and it just changed shape. For years the floor sat at $150 a week. It climbed in stages and, as of July 1, 2026, it locks to one-fifth of the state average weekly wage, which is how it landed at $384.45. It now moves with wages instead of freezing for a decade.
The Question Inside the Question: Rate vs. Cost
Search “how much is workers’ comp” and you get two answers wearing the same words. We separate them for clients on day one.
The benefit rate is what an injured worker receives. Everything above is the benefit rate.
The premium is what an employer pays an insurer to carry the risk. It is priced off payroll and the job’s classification code, a roofer’s exposure is not a bookkeeper’s, and it is regulated by the New York State Department of Financial Services. That number never comes out of a worker’s benefit.
How Long Does Workers’ Comp Last in New York?
This is the question the rate tables never answer, and it is the one that decides the size of a claim. Duration in New York runs off classification, not off a single clock. The Board recognizes four categories.
Temporary total and temporary partial disability
Every injury starts here. Temporary total means you cannot work at all while you heal. Temporary partial means you can do some work at reduced capacity. Both pay two-thirds of your average weekly wage scaled to your degree of disability, subject to the cap.
Temporary benefits run until one of two events ends them: you return to work, or a doctor finds you have reached maximum medical improvement, the point where further recovery is not expected. That finding is where a temporary claim becomes a permanent one, and where the insurer’s independent medical examiner tends to appear.
Permanent total disability
If your wage-earning capacity is permanently and totally lost, benefits have no week limit. They can run for life at two-thirds of your average weekly wage, under the cap.
Permanent partial disability, the part with a clock
Most serious permanent claims land here, and the duration depends on which of two tracks the injury follows.
For a non-scheduled injury, meaning the back, neck, spine, head, lungs, or other body parts not on the statutory schedule, and an accident on or after March 13, 2007, benefits run for a capped number of weeks tied to your loss of wage-earning capacity. The Board sets the cap by statute:
| Loss of wage-earning capacity | Maximum weeks |
|---|---|
| Greater than 95% | 525 |
| Greater than 90% through 95% | 500 |
| Greater than 85% through 90% | 475 |
| Greater than 80% through 85% | 450 |
| Greater than 75% through 80% | 425 |
| Greater than 70% through 75% | 400 |
| Greater than 60% through 70% | 375 |
| Greater than 50% through 60% | 350 |
| Greater than 40% through 50% | 300 |
| Greater than 30% through 40% | 275 |
| Greater than 15% through 30% | 250 |
| 15% or less | 225 |
At the top of that table, 525 weeks is roughly ten years of payments. At the bottom, 225 weeks is a little over four. The percentage that decides which row you land on is heavily contested, because a few points of wage-earning capacity can mean years of benefits. That is the fight in most classification cases.
One timing note that changes the answer entirely: for accidents before March 13, 2007, these caps do not apply. Older claims can pay as long as the partial disability and the wage loss continue.
Scheduled loss of use
For a scheduled injury, meaning a specific body part like an arm, hand, leg, foot, finger, or eye, the duration is a fixed number of weeks set by Workers' Compensation Law Section 15, adjusted for the percentage of permanent loss a doctor assigns. The award is the weeks multiplied by your benefit rate. Our colleague Jeffrey Antin laid out the body-part week values and worked the dollar math in his breakdown of the 2025 benefit rates, so we won’t repeat the full schedule here. The point for duration is simple: a scheduled award is a set quantity of weeks, decided up front, not an open-ended stream.
How New York Compares to Other States
People search “workers’ compensation rates by state,” and we understand the instinct. It is a harder question than it looks, and an honest guide should say why rather than hand over a tidy table that is wrong by August.
Every state runs its own workers’ comp system with its own maximum, and most tie that maximum to their own state average weekly wage. So a “national rate” does not exist. New York’s maximum sits toward the higher end, because New York wages are high and the state pays two-thirds of them. A state with lower average wages will show a lower maximum for the same injury, and each of those numbers resets on its own schedule.
Two facts stay constant across state lines, though. First, comp is partial wage replacement everywhere, never full. Second, no state’s workers’ comp system pays for pain and suffering. Comparing raw maximums misses both.
What Workers’ Comp Does Not Pay
Here is the limit we make sure every client hears early, because it drives the most important decision in a serious case.
Workers’ comp pays medical treatment and partial lost wages. That is the whole list. It pays nothing for pain and suffering, nothing for emotional distress, nothing for loss of enjoyment of life, and it caps wage replacement at two-thirds under the maximum. Comp is also the exclusive remedy against your own employer under Workers' Compensation Law Section 11, which means you generally cannot sue the employer for negligence.
You can, though, sue a party that is not your employer. On a construction site that is often a property owner, a general contractor, or an equipment manufacturer whose choices helped cause the injury. That separate personal injury case can reach the full lost wages and the pain and suffering that comp will never touch. Both tracks run at once, and the comp carrier holds a lien under Workers' Compensation Law Section 29 against what the lawsuit recovers. We walk through how the two systems interact in our guide to workers’ comp and third-party claims.
For an injured worker deciding what to do next, the rate and the duration tell you what the comp check will be. Whether there is a third party to pursue tells you whether that check is the whole story. On most construction cases we handle, it is not.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does workers’ comp pay in New York in 2026?
For injuries on or after July 1, 2026, the maximum weekly benefit is $1,281.50 and the minimum is $384.45, per the New York Workers’ Compensation Board’s Schedule of Maximum Weekly Benefit. Your own benefit is two-thirds of your average weekly wage multiplied by your degree of disability, capped at that maximum. A worker earning $1,500 a week who is totally disabled receives $1,000 a week.
How long does workers’ comp last in New York?
It depends on classification. Temporary benefits run until you return to work or reach maximum medical improvement. Permanent total disability has no week limit. A permanent partial disability that is not a scheduled body part runs for a capped number of weeks tied to your loss of wage-earning capacity, from 225 weeks up to 525 weeks for accidents on or after March 13, 2007. Scheduled body-part injuries pay a fixed number of weeks set by statute.
How is the New York workers’ comp rate calculated?
The maximum is two-thirds of the New York State Average Weekly Wage for the prior calendar year, set by the Department of Labor and adjusted every July 1. Your individual benefit is two-thirds of your own average weekly wage over the 52 weeks before the injury, reduced by your degree of disability and capped at the statewide maximum.
Does workers’ comp cover pain and suffering in New York?
No. It pays medical treatment and partial lost wages only. When a party other than your employer helped cause the injury, a separate personal injury case can recover the pain and suffering and full wage loss that comp cannot.