How VA Math Works

If you have two 50 percent ratings, they do not add up to 100 percent. Under 38 CFR 4.25, VA uses the whole-person concept. If your first disability is rated at 50 percent, VA considers you 50 percent disabled and 50 percent healthy. A second 50 percent rating is then applied only to the remaining healthy 50 percent, not the whole person.

VA ranks your disabilities from highest to lowest. It applies the highest rating first. Then, it takes the next highest rating and applies it to the remaining healthy percentage. For example, a 50 percent rating leaves a person 50 percent healthy. A second 50 percent rating applies to that remaining 50 percent healthy portion, which equals 25 percent. The 50 percent and 25 percent are combined to reach a 75 percent combined rating before rounding.

After all disabilities are combined using the whole-person method, the final raw percentage is rounded to the nearest 10 percent. A raw rating of 74 percent rounds down to a 70 percent final combined rating, while a raw rating of 75 percent rounds up to an 80 percent final combined rating.

Because each subsequent rating applies to a progressively smaller healthy percentage, it takes increasingly more disabilities to move a combined rating higher. A 10 percent rating added to an existing 80 percent combined rating only adds 10 percent of the remaining 20 percent healthy portion, which is just 2 percent.