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New Jersey Short Term Disability or TDI

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What benefits will an employee with a short-term disability in

New Jersey receive?

New Jersey is one of only 5 U.S. states with a state-mandated short term disability program, usually called TDI or Temporary Disability Insurance. Under New Jersey law, employees who cannot work are paid 2/3 of their salary (or 66.6%) for up to 26 weeks.

Under the New Jersey Temporary Disability Benefits Law, employees are entitled to cash benefits when they cannot work because of an illness or injury that is not work-related. In New Jersey, and nationwide, employees who are disabled due to a work-related illness or injury are covered under workers’ compensation, popularly called workers’ comp.

Any employee in the state who is covered by Unemployment Compensation Law is also protected by a mandatory disability insurance system. In addition, employees of Rutgers University, the

State

University system, the

College of

Medicine and Dentistry and the New Jersey Institute of Technology are also covered.

Every employee of the State of New Jersey is covered by this program. In addition, counties and other local governments may elect to join the program (but are not required to.)

In New Jersey, as in the other states, there is a one-week waiting period for disability payments. This means that someone with a short-term disability receives no income or benefits for the first week. However, if the employee is disabled for 3 weeks or more, they are retroactively paid for the first week, as well. An employee who is only disabled for only 2 weeks will be paid for the second week, but will not be paid for the first week.

California, New York, Rhode Island and Hawaii also have various forms of state-mandated short-term disability programs.  By far the best of these is the California program, where workers can collect up to $728 per week for up to 52 weeks when they are disabled.

In the remaining 45 states, a number of companies do provide short-term disability benefits to employees, but that is solely at the company’s discretion. There is no law that requires them to do so. Some companies simply pay workers a portion of their salary when they have a short-term disability. Others supply company-paid short-term disability insurance. Still other companies make short-term disability insurance available to employees through the group health insurance program. In some cases this coverage is at an additional cost, over and above group health insurance.

There is no federal program that provides short-term disability payments to workers. Under the Social Security disability benefits program, only those who are permanently disabled receive benefits.