Determination of Disability Income in the Case of Below-Average Earned Income

Facts

J., a national of Bosnia and Herzegovina, entered Switzerland in 1991 and worked as a textile worker from July 1994 to July 2001. She has been incapable of working since July 2001. In September 2002, she applied to the IV (Disability Insurance) for a disability pension. The IV office of the canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden initially denied her pension claim, but then awarded her a quarter pension effective from 1 February 2003. The Cantonal Court of Appenzell Innerrhoden overturned the objection decision and awarded the insured person a half disability pension. The Federal Office for Social Insurance (BSV) appealed against this decision.

Considerations

The Federal Court states that in determining the disability income, it must be examined whether the earned income achieved without health impairment is significantly below the industry-standard average wage. If this is the case, a parallelization of the comparative incomes must be carried out. For this, a deviation of the actually achieved earnings from the industry-standard LSE (Lohnstrukturerhebung) table wage of at…