Reduction in Earning Capacity (Minderung der Erwerbsfähigkeit, MdE)

Concept and assessment principle

The MdE is determined by the extent of the reduced working opportunities across the entire field of gainful employment that result from the impairment of physical and mental capacity (§ 56 para. 2 sentence 1 SGB VII). What matters is therefore not the actual loss of income in the previous occupation but the abstract restriction of the possibilities of earning a living on the general labour market; someone who continues to earn the same despite the consequences of an accident may nevertheless have an MdE of 30 percent. The assessment is made by medical experts on the basis of the experience values developed in case law and accident medicine literature (MdE tables), which provide guide values for typical functional losses – such as loss of a hand, stiffening of a joint or loss of an eye. Special occupational knowledge and experience that can no longer be used as a result of the insured event must be taken into account (§ 56 para. 2 sentence 3 SGB VII). Where there are several insured events, each MdE is determined separately.

Legal consequences

The MdE governs the entitlement to and amount of the injury pension: from 20 percent a pension entitlement exists, the partial pension corresponds to the MdE share of the full pension of two thirds of the annual earnings; from 50 percent the person is classed as severely injured. A significant change in the MdE of more than 5 percentage points leads to a reassessment of the pension (§ 73 para. 3 SGB VII). The MdE must be distinguished from the degree of disability under severe disability law (SGB IX), from the reduced earning capacity of statutory pension insurance, which looks concretely at remaining capacity in hours, and from the scale of injuries of private accident insurance, which fixes the degree of disability contractually.

Country comparison

Austria uses the same concept in § 203 ASVG with an identical system: the Versehrtenrente requires an MdE of at least 20 percent for more than three months, assessed according to medical experience values and the earning opportunities remaining on the general labour market. Switzerland has no MdE; the degree of disability under Art. 16 ATSG is determined concretely for both IV and UVG by comparing the income without and with disability, while the medical-theoretical component of the impairment is compensated separately through the integrity compensation under Art. 24 f. UVG.