The short answer

The Illinois workers’ compensation settlement chart is the schedule of injuries written into 820 ILCS 305/8(e), which gives each body part a maximum number of weeks of benefits. Your permanent partial disability figure comes from three numbers together: those weeks, the percentage of loss your case supports, and your own weekly rate.

The chart gives you only the first of those three numbers. The second, the percentage of loss, is decided case by case from your medical evidence. The third, your weekly rate, has a state maximum that a settlement chart will not show you. That is why two workers with the same injury can end up with very different amounts.

What is actually on the chart

Section 8(e) lists body parts and the weeks each is worth. These figures apply to accidents on or after February 1, 2006, which covers every current claim.

Maximum benefit weeks under 820 ILCS 305/8(e), for accidents on or after February 1, 2006. The person as a whole figure comes from Section 8(d)2.

Losing the tip of a thumb or finger counts as half of it, and losing four digits on the same hand counts as the whole hand. If you were paid for the same member before, Section 8(e)17 deducts that earlier award from this one.

Turning weeks into a dollar figure

Three numbers do the work.

1. The weeks, straight off the schedule above.

2. The percentage of loss of use, which is the disputed number. A partial loss is paid as that proportion of the scheduled weeks, so 20% loss of use of a hand is 41 weeks.

3. Your weekly rate, which for permanent partial disability is 60% of your average weekly wage under Section 8(b)2.1, a lower percentage than the 66 2/3% paid while you are off work.

Move the loss of use to 30% and the same hand becomes $44,280. That single percentage is worth more argument than anything else in the file, which is why the impairment report and the medical records matter so much.

Your weekly rate is capped, and not at the number you have read

You may have been told your rate is simply 60% of your wage. Illinois also sets a weekly maximum, and the maximum for permanent partial disability is much lower than the one for the benefits you receive while you are off work. The Commission publishes both on its Benefit Rates page, built on a statewide average weekly wage of $1,534.22 for the period beginning July 15, 2026.

That $1,084.66 is the most recent permanent partial disability maximum the Commission has posted, for accidents in the year beginning July 1, 2025, and it is updated annually. A worker earning $2,200 a week calculates a rate of $1,320 and is paid $1,084.66 instead. There is a floor too: $400 a week with no dependents, rising to $600 with four or more, or the actual wage if lower. A spouse and children raise that floor, not the 60% itself, so dependents change the rate only for lower earners.

Amputations take the higher maximum above and add weeks: 17 extra for an arm taken above the elbow, 70 at the shoulder joint, 27 for a leg above the knee, 81 at the hip, and 11 more for an eye that is removed. Those are the catastrophic injury cases.

The injuries the chart leaves out

Look at the schedule again and notice what is missing: backs, necks, shoulders, hips, heads. Most serious work injuries are not on it.

Those run through Section 8(d)2, which pays “that percentage of 500 weeks that the partial disability resulting from the injuries covered by this paragraph bears to total disability.” That is the person as a whole, so 5% of it is 25 weeks. A brain injury is measured the same way.

A shoulder is not an arm. Insurers have argued the opposite for years, because 253 weeks for an arm is less than 500 weeks for the body. In Will County Forest Preserve District v. Illinois Workers’ Compensation Comm’n, 2012 IL App (3d) 110077WC, the Appellate Court held that “the arm and the shoulder are distinct parts of the body, if claimant sustained an injury to his shoulder, an award for a scheduled loss to the arm would be improper.” The worker there had a torn rotator cuff repaired arthroscopically, and the court sent the case back to Section 8(d)2. If your offer values a rotator cuff as a percentage of the arm, that is the first thing to question.

Two more provisions sit outside the schedule:

• Wage differential, Section 8(d)1. If the injury pushes you into lower paid work, you can claim 66 2/3% of the difference between what you could earn before and what you can earn now, until you turn 67 or five years from the date the award becomes final, whichever is later. It is often worth far more than a scheduled award.
• Disfigurement, Section 8(c). Serious and permanent scarring to the hand, head, face, neck, arm, leg below the knee or chest above the armpit line is worth up to 162 weeks, no earlier than six months after the injury, and not for the same injury paid under 8(d), 8(e) or 8(f).

Why the same injury is worth different amounts

Since September 1, 2011, permanent partial disability in Illinois has been set by Section 8.1b. A physician writes an impairment report using the American Medical Association’s Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment, measuring lost range of motion, lost strength and muscle atrophy. The Commission then weighs five factors:

• the reported level of impairment
• the occupation of the injured employee
• the age of the employee at the time of the injury
• the employee’s future earning capacity
• evidence of disability corroborated by the treating medical records

The statute then adds the sentence that drives most disputes: “No single enumerated factor shall be the sole determinant of disability.” The Commission also has to explain in a written order how it weighed anything beyond the impairment rating. So a 5% AMA rating is evidence, not a verdict, and a roofer and an office worker with identical ratings can properly end up with different awards, because the same lost motion costs them different amounts of work.

An estimate is still worth having, and the arithmetic above will get you close. Treat it as a range to test an offer against rather than a figure the Commission is bound to reach.

Special rules that quietly change the math

• Carpal tunnel from repetitive work. For accidents on or after June 28, 2011, it is measured against 190 weeks rather than 205, and the award “shall not exceed 15% loss of use of the hand,” rising to 30% only “for cause shown by clear and convincing evidence.”
• Two members at once. Losing both hands, both feet, both eyes, or any two of those members, is permanent and total disability under Section 8(e)18, a different and much larger award.
• Old injuries count, because a prior scheduled award for the same member is deducted from the new one.

A settlement is more than the permanency figure

The chart values one line item. A settlement contract usually resolves several: unpaid temporary total disability, medical bills incurred, whether future medical care stays open, and the permanency figure. Closing future medical is final, and it deserves the most attention if you may need more treatment.

Three rules frame the deal:

• Nobody settles privately. Under 820 ILCS 305/23, a worker cannot waive compensation rights “except after approval by the Commission.”
• Approval is not a rubber stamp. The Commission’s guidance for unrepresented workers says “the Arbitrator’s approval is discretionary rather than a required act,” and that the arbitrator will ask about concerns and explain the rights being given up.
• Fees are capped at 20% of the compensation recovered on an initial claim, unless the Commission allows more after a hearing (820 ILCS 305/16a).

Workers’ compensation also pays nothing for pain and suffering, unlike a claim against a negligent driver or contractor, which is why a third party case can matter so much. We cover when one exists in our posts on suing your employer for a work injury and the 1099 construction worker’s options, and it runs on the separate deadline in our piece on the Illinois car accident statute of limitations.

How to check an offer against the chart

• Find the right body part first. If the injury is to a back, neck, shoulder, hip or head, the measure is 500 weeks, not a scheduled member.
• Do the arithmetic backwards. Divide the offer by your weekly rate to get the weeks, then by the scheduled weeks. That is the percentage being paid, and it is the number to argue about.
• Check the wage behind the rate. Average weekly wage is calculated under Section 10 and can include overtime, so a rate built on base pay alone may be too low.
• Ask what happens to future medical care. A fair looking number is a bad deal if it closes treatment you still need.
• Ask whether a wage differential fits better if you came back to a lower paying job.
• Watch two deadlines. Notice to your employer is due “as soon as practicable, but not later than 45 days after the accident,” and the claim itself must be filed with the Commission within three years of the accident, or two years after the last payment of compensation, whichever is later (820 ILCS 305/6).

Preguntas frecuentes

Talk to an Illinois workers’ compensation lawyer

If you have an offer in front of you, the useful question is not what the chart says. It is what percentage of loss the offer pays, and what it closes.

Lawyer Furqan handles Illinois workers’ compensation claims, including construction accidents, for workers across Cook County, among them Bridgeview, Oak Lawn, Skokie, Niles and the surrounding suburbs.

Call 847-800-8978 or contact us online. The consultation is free, there is nothing upfront, and you owe no attorney’s fee unless we win. Illinois caps the fee on a workers’ compensation claim at 20% of the compensation recovered.

Sources and authorities cited

• Workers’ Compensation Act: 820 ILCS 305/8, 305/8.1b, 305/6, 305/16a, 305/19, 305/23
• Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission: Benefit Rates, Pro Se Settlement Contracts
• Will County Forest Preserve District v. Illinois Workers’ Compensation Comm’n, 2012 IL App (3d) 110077WC

This article is general legal information about Illinois law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Every claim turns on its own facts and medical evidence. Talk to a lawyer about yours.