Hand Injury at Work: Compensation and Settlement Math

Hand injury at work compensation usually comes in two parts: weekly checks while you're off work, then a permanent award based on how much use of the hand you've lost. In states with a schedule, the award is the weeks given for a hand times your loss-of-use rating times your weekly benefit. In New York, a hand is worth 244 weeks of benefits at 66⅔% of your average weekly wage.

Injury	Benefits that often apply	What the rating turns on
Cut or tendon laceration	Medical care, short time off	Range of motion after healing
Fracture of the hand or wrist	Time off, possible surgery	Grip strength, motion, healing of the joint
Crush injury	Longer time off, therapy	Loss of motion and feeling
Carpal tunnel or other repetitive injury	Medical care, sometimes surgery	Nerve tests, grip and pinch strength
Loss of a finger or part of one	Scheduled award for that finger	Which finger and how much was lost
Loss of the whole hand	Scheduled award at 100%	Full weeks in the schedule

Fingers and thumbs have their own, shorter schedules: in New York a thumb is 75 weeks, and each finger has its own number (Workers' Compensation Law § 15(3)). We checked the hand and thumb weeks on November 7, 2026.

Run your own numbers

Pick the body part, then add your gross weekly wage, your state's rate and the rating from your doctor's permanency report.

The calculator starts with a hand at 20% loss of use and a $900 weekly wage. That's about $600 a week, 48.8 weeks of award (about $29,300) and 8 weeks of time off (about $4,800), around $34,100 in all. If your state caps the weekly benefit, enter the cap; higher earners hit it first.

How the loss-of-use rating is set

After treatment ends and you reach maximum medical improvement, a doctor examines the hand and gives a percentage. Many states use the American Medical Association's Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment. New York uses its own impairment guidelines, published by the Workers' Compensation Board. Either way, the doctor measures things like motion at each joint, grip strength and sensation.

The insurer can send you to its own doctor, and the two ratings can differ. On a hand in New York, each 1% is 2.44 weeks of benefits, so a 20% rating from your doctor against 10% from the insurer's is a gap of 24.4 weeks. That's worth checking line by line.

Repetitive injuries have their own timing

Carpal tunnel and other injuries that build up over time don't have a single accident date. States treat them as occupational diseases or cumulative injuries, and the deadline to report usually runs from when you knew, or should have known, the condition was work-related. Tell your employer in writing as soon as a doctor connects it to your job.

Taxes

Workers' comp benefits for a job injury aren't federal taxable income (26 U.S.C. § 104(a)(1)). That includes a lump-sum settlement paid under a workers' compensation act.

Questions to ask about an offer

1. Which weekly wage did the insurer use, and does it include overtime?
2. What rating is the offer based on, and whose doctor gave it?
3. Does the offer close future medical care for the hand?
4. Is any time off still unpaid?
5. How much of the award goes to the lawyer under your state's fee rule?