Workers Compensation
Average Weekly Wage
Section 10 of the Illinois workers compensation act governs the computation of the injured workers average weekly wage. The average weekly wage is important in a workers compensation case because the TTD rate of 66 2/3 percent and PPD rate of 60% is computed off the average weekly wage. Hence, the higher the wage the higher the TTD rates and PPD rates will be, subject to the state maximums at that time. The leading Illinois Appellate case on how the four methods of computation of the average weekly wage is Sylvester v. Industrial Commission. (1) By default, average weekly wage is "actual earnings" during the 52-week period preceding the date of injury, illness or disablement, divided by 52. (2) If the employee lost five or more calendar days during that 52-week period, whether or not in the same week, then the employee's earnings are divided not by 52, but by the number of weeks and parts thereof remaining after the time so lost has been deducted. (3) If the employee's employment began during the 52-week period, the earnings during employment are divided by the number of weeks and parts thereof during which the employee actually earned wages, (4) Finally, if the employment has been of such short duration or the terms of the employment of such casual nature that it is impractical to use one of the three above methods to calculate average weekly wage, regard shall be had to the average weekly amount which during the 52 weeks previous to the injury, illness or disablement was being or would have been earned by a person in the same grade employed at the same work for each of such 52 weeks further same number of hours per week by the same employer.