Minnesota Worker’s Compensation Lawyer Joshua Borken
When you are hurt at work, it is the responsibility of the worker’s compensation system in Minnesota to make sure that you are taken care of. It will pay your medical bills and it will cover your lost wages. However, not everyone is lucky enough to be able to live the life they want to live off one job alone. In fact, the workers most prone to injury are often those who work multiple jobs. When you get hurt at one job, worker’s compensation will take care of you, but how does it work when you have other jobs you can no longer do because of that injury?
Average Weekly Wage Calculation For Multiple Jobs
For all the issues that the worker’s compensation system can have, surprisingly their willingness to cover lost wages for those with multiple jobs isn’t one of them. That is not to say getting lost wages from all your jobs will be any easier than getting worker’s compensation itself, but it does have a system in place for making it happen.
When you are hurt at one job and cannot work any of your jobs, lost wages are covered the same as lost wages from having only a single job – Average Weekly Wage Calculation. This equation calculates how much you make per week from all your jobs in order to calculate your lost wages. In most cases, this is done by looking at your past 26 weeks of wages. For jobs other than where you were injured, only pay stubs alone will be used to calculate your average weekly earnings while your injury job can use other estimates.
Wage loss benefits from worker’s compensation are often one of the most valuable parts of the process. Medical bills aren’t especially fun to pay off, but without the ability to work, you don’t have the money to pay all your other bills or even keep your family fed. This is why it is crucial that the average weekly wage calculation is a correct one. The unfortunate reality is that the more jobs you add into the calculation, the larger the room for error is. Often the average weekly wage calculation can fail to account for bonuses and overtime when there is only one wage to average out, when they are multiple jobs, it becomes just that much more difficult.
Multiple Job Security After a Work Injury
While receiving lost wages and compensation for your injury is important, to those who work multiple jobs due to need, there is only one thing they are wondering. They want to know if they will be fired from either job for getting injured. The good news is that you are protected from punitive firing by the job where you were hurt. You can be fired, but the reason cannot be because you filed for worker’s compensation or needed to take time to heal from a work injury.
The bad news, however, is you are not afforded the same protection at your second job where you were not injured. You may be able to take sick days or vacation time to heal from a work injury at another job, but if you cannot work at your second job, it is their right to let you go. This should be expected for injuries that may take months to recover from, and particularly when your injuries will prevent you from doing that second job to the full extent. This means that while one job is secure, any other job is not. Unfortunately, choosing to try and continue working a second job to prevent losing it will also be highly detrimental to your worker’s compensation claim.
Need Help? Contact Joshua Borken Today!
If you work multiple jobs, as many do, we can’t help you with job security at those multiple jobs, but we can help you get the compensation that you need while you recover from work-related injuries. If you have been hurt on the job in Minnesota, contact us today.