More and more states are adding paid family and medical leave (PFML) laws to help workers ensure some of their wages continue even during a serious illness — of their own or for a family member — or the birth of a child. If you have employees in states such as California, New York, New Jersey, or Rhode Island, you were one of the first employers to have PFML responsibilities. And now Connecticut, Massachusetts, Washington, Maine, New York, Washington D.C., Illinois, and Oregon have added requirements.
If your state is considering one of these laws, you may be curious about what it means for your payroll tax collection or how the benefits will work for your employees. We’ve pulled together a state-by-state guide for paid family leave requirements and how they impact your business.
Yes, the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) requires employers to guarantee employees time off for family or medical reasons and offer them a job with comparable pay and benefits — though not necessarily the same job — when they return. When it became law in 1993, FMLA was intended to offer some stability for employees who needed to take time away from work to deal with a major medical issue of their own or care for a seriously ill family member.
Up until then, there was no federal protection like this for workers, including women and men who took time off after the birth or adoption of a child. Whether or not an employee would have a job when they got back to work depended on the state they lived in or their company’s employment policies.
However, while the FMLA guarantees up to 12 weeks’ leave, that time is unpaid. Companies with fewer than 50 employees are also exempt from the federal law. So, many states have opted to require employers to provide a paid option to go a step further to offer some income while an employee is out on leave. Most of this funding is paid through taxes collected from the employee, employer, or both — but typically collected and remitted to the state by the employer. Employers can typically set up any PFML withholding contributions they’re responsible for when configuring their small business payroll.
Choose your state below to see if there are specific paid family and medical leave (PFML) requirements where you do business or if a program is pending.