A bill approved on the final day of the General Assembly’s session will allow workers who are receiving temporary disability insurance (TDI) to work some hours if they are able and still receive a partial benefits payment.
Rhode Island is one of five states (plus Puerto Rico) that offer TDI, a safety net for people who are temporarily unable to work due to a sickness or injury unrelated to their jobs. Funded through a 1.4-percent tax paid by employees, TDI fills the gap between workers’ compensation, which pays for job-related injuries, and Social Security’s long-term disability program.
The weekly TDI benefit is 4.62 percent of the worker’s salary for his best-paid quarter in a year (delayed by three months) – or roughly 60 percent of his regular pay – up to $588. In addition, parents may get a dependency allowance of $10 or 7 percent of their benefit (whichever is higher) for each of up to five children.
But under current TDI rules, anyone who works even part-time is disqualified from the program, though idle employees who still get their salary or sick or vacation pay do qualify.
The new law, introduced at Gov. Donald L. Carcieri’s request and sponsored by state Sen. Kevin A. Breene (R-West Greenwich), will allow a person to collect TDI while returning to work part-time, but reduce the TDI benefit by the amount of wages being earned. Anyone earning more through part-time work than the TDI benefit would be disqualified.
The law will go into effect Jan. 1. A similar policy already governs the state unemployment insurance program.
“This bill allows those who have been sidelined from work by injury to start back to work as soon as they can for as much as they can without penalizing them,” Breene said in a news release. “It just seems like common sense to me. I am glad to work with the governor to empower people to take care of themselves as much as they are able.”
