How Veterans Can Receive 100% VA Pay Without a 100% Disability Rating: What Is TDIU?

“Total Disability based on Individual Unemployability, shortened to TDIU, exists to close that gap for veterans whose service-connected conditions genuinely prevent them from working, regardless of what their combined rating says on paper.

What TDIU Actually Does

TDIU pays a veteran at the full 100 percent disability rate, currently $3,938.58 per month for a single veteran with no dependents, even when their combined schedular, or standard, rating is well below 100 percent. The rating itself doesn’t change. What changes is the pay. VA extends this because the whole-person rating formula, useful as it is for measuring physical and mental impairment in the abstract, doesn’t always capture the practical reality that a specific combination of conditions has made someone unemployable, even at a rating of 60 or 70 percent.”