Should I Apply for Short-Term Disability or Unemployment Compensation While I Am Awaiting Workers’ Compensation Benefits?

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Our Workers’ Compensation department is lead by Lisa Lesh, a certified workers’ compensation attorney*. If you have been injured at work and need assistance with workers’ compensation benefits, contact Lisa today for a free case evaluation. There is no fee unless you recover compensation.

You are allowed, under certain circumstances, to get unemployment compensation benefits or short term disability benefits while your workers’ compensation claim is pending. If you are totally disabled and not able to do any work at all, then you cannot get unemployment compensation benefits. But if you are able to do sustained gainful employment, even with restrictions, you can apply for unemployment compensation benefits and at least have them as a safety net until your workers’ compensation benefits come through. But with both unemployment compensation benefits and short term disability benefits, then if workers’ compensation come through, unfortunately, the employer and the carrier get to deduct all the money you received in unemployment compensation benefits or short term disability benefits before they pay you workers’ compensation benefits, even though they fought you on the workers’ compensation. It really doesn’t seem very fair, but that is the law and the law, unfortunately, is not always fair.

*Certified as a Specialist in the Practice of Workers’ Compensation Law by the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Section on Workers’ Compensation Law as Authorized by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.