VA TDIU eligibility checker: 60% and 70%.

The short version

Under 38 CFR 4.16(a), VA can assign a total disability rating based on individual unemployability (TDIU) when service-connected disabilities keep you from securing or following a substantially gainful occupation and you meet a percentage threshold: one disability rated 60% or more, or two or more disabilities with at least one rated 40% or more and a combined rating of 70% or more. If you do not meet the thresholds, 4.16(b) still allows an extra-schedular referral.

The two schedular thresholds

What counts as "one disability"

The regulation lets VA treat several conditions as one disability for the 60% or 40% test when they are: (1) disabilities of one or both upper extremities, or of one or both lower extremities, including the bilateral factor; (2) disabilities from a common etiology or a single accident; (3) disabilities affecting a single body system, such as orthopedic, digestive, respiratory, cardiovascular-renal or neuropsychiatric; (4) multiple injuries incurred in action; or (5) multiple disabilities incurred as a prisoner of war. Enter the combined rating of that group as the "highest single rating" in the checker.

Marginal employment

Marginal employment is not substantially gainful. The regulation generally treats employment as marginal when earned annual income does not exceed the U.S. Census Bureau poverty threshold for one person, and it can also be marginal on the facts (for example work in a protected environment such as a family business or sheltered workshop) even above that threshold. VA also looks at the nature of the job and why it ended. Nonservice-connected conditions and prior unemployability status are disregarded once the percentage thresholds are met.

Worked examples

• One disability rated 60%: meets the single-disability threshold.
• Back condition 40%, knee 20%, combined 52% (rounds to 50%): the 40% test is met but the combined rating is below 70%, so the schedular threshold is not met.
• Back condition 40%, PTSD 50%, combined 70%: one rating is 40% or more and the combined rating is 70%, so the threshold is met.
• Single disability 50%: below 60%, so the schedular threshold is not met unless related conditions are grouped as one under 4.16(a).

Meeting the numbers is only the first step. VA must also find you unable to secure or follow substantially gainful employment because of service-connected disability.

Common mix-ups

• Using the combined rating alone. With two or more disabilities one must be 40% or more as well.
• Counting nonservice-connected conditions. They are disregarded for the thresholds.
• Assuming that missing the thresholds ends the claim. 4.16(b) provides extra-schedular review.
• Treating this checker as a decision. VA decides unemployability on the evidence.