Dive Brief:

• Connecticut's legislature has passed a bill adopting 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave for workers in the state. The governor has promised to sign the legislation.
• The bill amends Connecticut's leave law to give employees and self-employed workers 12 weeks of paid leave over 12 months. The measure also allows two additional weeks of benefits for a serious health condition during pregnancy that results in incapacitation.
• There is no minimum eligibility requirement for hours worked and the leave will be funded by an employee payroll tax. The measure takes effect in January 2022.

Dive Insight:

Although momentum seems to be increasing, so far only a handful of states and the District of Columbia offer paid family leave.

Under New York's paid family leave law, qualified employees in 2019 are eligible for up to 55% of pay for 10 weeks. Earlier this year, New Jersey overhauled its paid family leave law. The state doubled the number of weeks that employees can take for paid family leave to 12 weeks, redefined qualified employers that have to provide job-protected leave to include those with 30 employees, and broadened the definition of family members. In 2018, Maryland passed a paid sick leave bill granting qualified employees one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours of work, as well as unpaid, job-protected leave for workers at smaller organizations not covered by the law's paid leave component. Similar laws have been enacted in California, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Going even further, Maine recently passed a law mandating accrued paid leave for any purpose.

While the federal Family and Medical Leave Act provides for up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave, no federal laws currently require paid leave. However, proposals are under consideration on Capitol Hill and some have received the approval of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Forty percent of employers offer paid parental leave for birth and non-birth parents, according to Mercer's 2018 Survey on Absence and Disability Management. This represents an increase from 2015, according to Mercer, when only 25% of employers had such policies in place.