Family Leave Insurance

Keeping your job while you care for your family

Washington State

Washington's paid family leave program is called Family Leave Insurance, or FLI. Originally scheduled for October 2009, due to the state’s budget shortfall, the program is now scheduled for implementation in October 2012.

FLI is slated to provide up to 5 weeks of time off with a weekly benefit of $250 to all parents with a newborn or newly adopted child. It covers all employees who have worked at least 680 hours in the previous year, and provides job protection for workers in companies of more than 25 people.

The financial security and time to care provided by paid family leave are more important than ever in times like these. EOI and the Washington Family Leave Coalition are working to expand FLI to include care for seriously ill family members and the worker’s own serious health condition, and to secure dedicated funding for the program.

State and National Updates

The Family Leave Insurance Act

The Family Leave Insurance Act of 2009 would provide 12 weeks of paid benefits to workers who need time off to care for a new child, ill family member, service member returning from combat, or their own illness. The program covers all employees who have paid into the fund and worked for their current employer for 6 months.

Benefits are tiered, with 100% of weekly earnings up to $20,000, 75% up to $30,000, 55% up to $60,000, 45% up to $97,000, 40% above $97,000. (Employees may use other leave to supplement.) Financing is shared between employers, employees, and federal government. Employees pay 0.2% of wages ($7 per month at median income). Employers with 20+ employees pay 0.2% of payroll; employers with fewer than 20 employees pay 0.1% of payroll.

States with materially equivalent or better paid leave programs may opt out, and companies with materially equivalent or better benefits can opt out and self-insure. The Department of Labor will contract with states to administer the program, and contract with the Social Security Commissioner in states that choose not to administer.

The FIRST Act

The FIRST Act (Family Income to Respond to Significant Transitions) authorizes $1.5 billion in grant funding to states to seed new programs or to bolster existing paid leave programs. States without an existing program would receive a start-up grant to develop and implement a program for up to a three-year period, along with a grant to fund 50 percent of wage replacement for paid parental leave for a six month period.

However, states that develop programs providing leave for additional purposes—such as paid family leave to care for a seriously-ill family member, injured service member in their family or paid medical leave to recover from a worker’s own serious illness — will receive additional funding. States with existing paid leave programs can apply for grants, to fund outreach and education or to offer incentives to small businesses to also guarantee job protection to workers on leave.

Washington is the second state to pass family leave insurance, and would be first in line to receive funding from the FIRST act if passed by Congress. California added paid family leave to its long-standing temporary disability insurance (TDI) program in 2004 and New Jersey will do the same in July 2009. Three other states – New York, Rhode Island, and Hawaii – have TDI programs that include paid leave following childbirth, but have not yet added paid family leave.