Age is the quietest adjustment in the rating string — the last number before the final PD%, and the one nobody argues about because it comes straight off a table. But it moves real money, and in a close case it decides which side of a benefit cliff you land on. Here is exactly what it does, with every figure computed by our engine.
Ten brackets, one neutral band
PDRS Section 6 is a grid: the occupationally-adjusted rating down one axis, ten age brackets across the other — ≤21 · 22–26 · 27–31 · 32–36 · 37–41 · 42–46 · 47–51 · 52–56 · 57–61 · ≥62. The 37–41 bracket is neutral: the rating passes through unchanged. Younger brackets pull it down; older brackets push it up.
Post-occupation 30 by bracket → 24 · 25 · 27 · 28 · 30 · 32 · 33 · 35 · 37 · 38
Read the rows: a rating of 30 spans 24 to 38 depending only on the birthday — the spread widens as ratings climb, and every point carries more weeks than the one before it.
The worked pair
Same case as our occupation guide — 10% lumbar WPI, clerical group 111, 2024 date of injury at the maximum rate. The only thing that changes is the age on the date of injury:
24.00 weeks · $6,960
42.25 weeks · $12,252.50
Identical impairment, identical job: $6,960 at 21, $12,252.50 at 62 — 76% more money from age alone. (At 40, the neutral band, the same case rates 10% PD and $8,772.50.) The age segment is the second-to-last number in the string, so a wrong birthday is one of the fastest rating errors to spot — and one of the most common data-entry slips in DEU summary ratings.
Where it bites
Cumulative trauma dates. In a CT claim the date of injury is itself a legal determination (Lab. Code §5412) — and moving it can move the age bracket, the rate year, and the era all at once. Checking the other side’s math. Because age is mechanical, an opposing rating that used age at evaluation instead of age at injury is simply wrong — recompute it. The cliff cases. When a combined rating sits near a threshold like 70% and its life pension, one age bracket can be the whole ballgame.
Check it yourself
Enter the same impairment in the calculator and slide the date of birth — the string, the weeks, and the dollars recompute live. The age table the engine uses was verified cell-by-cell against the official 2005 PDRS. Every term in this guide is defined in the glossary.