Disclaimer

I've done my best to read each state's program, summarize it here and provide a good reference. It's not easy so I don't expect it to be perfect. The best way to know the rules it is to use the program and I certainly have not filed a claim in every state with a program.

If you find an error in the calculations or explanations then use the Site Info link at the bottom of the page to leave me a message. Hopefully the feedback will improve the site for the future.

The links below provide a shortcut to the appropriate state sections below.

California

Family Temporary Disability Insurance (FTDI)

Came into effect mid-2004

Wage Requirement

First, you must determine your base period. Your base period is the first four quarters in the last five quarters. You must have at least $300 in wages that were subject to State Disability Insurance (SDI) taxes in that base period. That's $300 gross or pretax dollars over 12 months and not the net or taxed earnings you received in your paycheck.



Benefit Duration

You may receive up to 8 weeks of Paid Family Leave (PFL) benefits in a 12 month period from the claim date. The award does not have to be used within the a six week period. Benefits will contue to be paid out until the total award has been paid out.

Note: Effective July 1, 2020, California will extend PFL benefits from 6 weeks to 8 weeks (see SB83). Individuals may choose to delay filing their PFL claim until July 1, 2020, or after to receive the extended leave benefit.

Benefit Amount

The minimum award is $50 and the maximum weekly award in 2026 is $1,620. The award is calculated based on the highest earnings of any of the four base period quarters. Each quarter is divided into 13 weeks and a maximum Weekly Benefit Amount (WBA) is calculated based on the highest quarterly earnings. If your highest base quarterly earnings are less than $929, your WBA is $50.

If your highest quarterly earnings are between $929 and $7,154.32, your WBA is approximately 70% of your earnings. If your highest quarterly earnings are more than $7,154.32, your weekly benefit amount is approximately 60% of your earnings. At $35,078.34 of earning per quarter a ceiling or maximum WBA of $1,620 is reached. Any earnings beyond that will not affect the benefit.

Starting in 2018 California has a tiered benefit rate with 60%, 70% and a cap. Previously the benefit rate was 55% with a cap. Above is a plot showing the estimated award and yearly tax paid for each income level in $10,000 increments. Included is a note on the payback period for the award.

In otherwords, how many years of payroll taxes are needed to pay for an award for any given income level. The changes in 2018 can be seen in incomes around/under $20,000/year having a higher benefit rate and a disconnect between the benefit limit and the payroll income limit causing those with incomes around/above $100,000/year to pay more.

Starting January 1, 2025 the method of calculating the benefit will again be changing. Califoria will again lead the nation by copying the methods of other states (per SB951). Instead of income tiers, California will change the calculation to the state's average weekly wage with lower income earners receiving up to 90% of their average weekly wage and higher income earners receiving up to 70%.

Cost

A 0.9% employee payroll tax is deducted on income up to $153,164 for 2026 for Paid Family Leave and Disability Insurance coverage. The maximum tax will be approximately $1,378 per year.

Starting January 1, 2024 the taxable wage base limit listed above is removed (per SB951) so that all income will be subject to the payroll tax.

State Specifics

Prior to 2018 there was a 7 calenar day waiting period after the claim event (like a birth) before benefits were paid. This is no longer the case.

A good explanation on how the benefits are calculated is available at the state's EDD Website.

New Jersey

Family Leave Insurance (FLI)

Came into effect mid-2009

Changes in 2020

Due to low participation in the plan the New Jersey legislature made some changes in 2020. If you would like to see how the program worked in 2019 prior to the changes then check out the link here.

Wage Requirement

New Jersey uses a "base year" to deterimine eligibility for Family Leave Insurance. Your base period is the first four quarters in the last five quarters prior to the quarter in which the claim event occurs. This is a change in 2020 that has been adopted in several other states as well.



To qualify for Family Leave Insurance, you must have worked 20 weeks and earned at least $240 each week, or have earned a combined total of $12,000 in those four quarters (the base year).

Benefit Duration

You can receive up to six weeks (42 days) of benefits during the 12 month period following your claim date or until you receive benefits up to one-third (1/3) of your earnings during your base year, whichever is less.

Benefit Amount

Your benefit amount is based on your average weekly wage during the base year. As described above, a "base week" is any week that you earned more than $240. Take the total amound earned in those base weeks and divide by the number of base weeks you had. This should be easy if you earned over $12,000 since you can simply divide your total earnings in your base year by the total number of weeks in a year, 52. As shown on the FLI website, this is not the case and each week must have earnings above $240 to be included as a base week.

The weekly benefit is two-thirds (2/3) of your base period average weekly wage up to a maximum of $993.

Year 2020 presents a special case as they transition from the old program to the new program. For January 1, 2020-June 30, 2020, the maximum weekly benefit is $667. As of July 1, 2020 the maximum weekly benefit increases to $881.



Cost

Starting January 1, 2026, each worker contributes 0.14% of the taxable wage base. For 2026, the taxable wage base is $151,900, and the maximum yearly deduction for Family Leave Insurance is $212.66. The taxable wage base changes each year. This can be confusing since Temporary Disability Insurance (TDI) is also a payroll tax of roughly the same amount.

State Specifics

There is no indication of a 7 consecutive day waiting period after the claim event/date following the changes of 2020.

New Jersey has a website for Family Leave Insurance (FLI) and another for both FLI and Temporary Disability Insurance (TDI).

New York

Paid Family Leave (PFL)

Come into effect January 2018

Wage Requirement

Employees with a regular schedule of 20 or more hours per week are eligible after 26 weeks of employment.

Employees with a regular schedule of less than 20 hours per week are eligible after 175 days worked. The days worked don't need to be consecutive.


Benefit Amount and Duration

The important thing to understand about New York's PFL is that a weekly maximum is set using a percent of your weekly income and a percent of the New York State's Average Weekly Wage (AWW). The AWW is updated annually and can be found here. The AWW for 2026 is $1,594.57 resulting in a maximum weekly benefit amount of $1,068.36.

Year	Weeks Available	Max % of Employee Average Weekly Wage	Cap % of State Average Weekly Wage	Cap of Weekly Benefit
2018	8	50%	50%	$652.96
2019	10	55%	55%	$746.41
2020	10	60%	60%	$840.70
2021	12	67%	67%	$971.61

If your average weekly wage is MORE than $100 then the minimum benefit amount is $100. If your average weekly wage is LESS than $100 then the state will provide your full wages. In other words, if your average weekly wage is $50 then your weekly benefit will be $50 and if your average weekly wage is $150 then your weekly benefit will be $100.

Leave can be taken either all at once or in full-day increments. You may take the maximum time-off benefit in any given 52-week period starting on the first day you take Paid Family Leave.

Cost

New York’s Paid Family Leave is entirely employee-funded. The maximum employee contribution in 2026 is 0.511% of an employee’s weekly wage up to the annualized New York State Average Weekly Wage. Deductions began July 1, 2017.

Using the 2026 AWW the payroll contribution is capped at an annual maximum of $423.71 or $8.15 per week.


State Specifics

Employees do not have to take all of their sick leave and/or vacation before using paid family leave. There is no waiting period between the event (like a birth) and when the employee becomes eligible for PFL.

Paid Family Leave only begins after birth and is not available for prenatal conditions.

You may use PFL over the 12 months following an eligilbe birth, adoption, fostering, family care, or FMLA active duty notification.

An employer may permit you to use sick or vacation leave for full pay, but may not require you to use this leave. This is an important point because you can use vacation to get time off without an immediate wage impact but that time is still considered a loss of income and does not impact your PFL payment.

New York has a good website explaining the program in more detail here.

Rhode Island

Temporary Caregiver Insurance (TCI)

Came into effect January 2014

Wage Requirement

Rhode island uses two slightly different base periods to determine eligibility.

The first option: you need to have earned at least $13,800 in wages during the first four of the last five completed quarters. This is your base period ...unless you don't quite meet the earnings requirement. Then you can use the last four completed quarters.



The second option: you need to have earned $2,300 in one of the first four quarters of the last five base period quarters and the total base period wages need to be at least 1.5 times the highest quarter earnings, and total base period earnings of at least $4,600. Again, if you don't quite reach the minimum earnings requirement then try using the last four completed quarters.

I was hoping they could make those options a little more complicated.

Benefit Duration

Temporary Caregiver Insurance (TCI) has a duration of 5 weeks. From 2014 to 2021 it was 4 weeks and in 2022 is was increased to 5 week and in 2023 to 6 weeks. Don't confuse it with Temporary Disability Insurance's (TDI) 30 weeks.

Benefit Amount

The weekly benefit is 4.62% of total high quarter wages in base period (the last 4-5 quarters). The minimum weekly benefit is $107 per week and is based on a $10.10 per hour minimum wage. The maximum weekly benefit is $978 and is based on the 2026 Average Weekly Wage (AWW).

Not content with simplicity, Rhode Island adds to the benefit with a dependency allowance. The allowance is the greater of $10 or 7% of the weekly benefit rate up to five dependents. That means the maximum weekly benefit with five dependents can swell to $1,320.

Cost

Rhode Island deducts 1.3% of an employee's first $74,000 of pay. The maximum tax will be approximately $962 per year.

State Specifics

There is no waiting period. Disability insureance, for situations like non-job related illness, require 7 days of unemployment. It can be confusing.

Rhode Island had a very nice but very ugly Quick Reference Guide but the links are now all broken. A new website has been launched and at least the FAQ site isn't broken anymore. An alternative is the TDI/TCI Guide for Employers that has similar information.

Washington

Paid Family and Medical Leave

Comes into effect January 2020

Wage Requirement

Washitonians will be eligible to apply for benefits in January 2020. "Premiums," known as "taxes" in the rest of the universe, began to be paid as payroll taxes starting January 2019. To be eligible for benefits an employee needs to have worked 820 hours during the previous year.

The funny thing is that the "previous year" can either be the first four of the last five quarters, similar to how California establishes a base period, or it can be the previous four quarters like a calendar might define the "previous year."



Benefit Duration

Washitonians are entitled to benefits for up to 12 weeks. But in Washington 12 weeks is sometimes 16 weeks and can even be 18 weeks in extreme cases if Paid Family Leave is used in combination with Paid Medical Leave - which you probably thought were ONE program from the title. To be clear, on this site the benefit duration is 12 weeks in the calculations.

Benefit Amount

The weekly benefit is calculated in three easy steps.

Step 1) Calculate your average weekly wage by taking your total wages from the two highest base period (previous 4-5 months) quarters and dividing that total by 26. In other words, during the previous year (in Washington this can be up to 15 months) you will need to find the two quarters (13 weeks each) with the highest earnings and calculate the average weekly wage by dividing by the number of weeks in two quarters which is 26. Round down to the nearest dollar.

Step 2) Determine if the average calculated in Step 1 is over or under 1/2 the State Average Weekly Wage (SAWW). The State Average Weekly Wage in 2026 is $1,475 and is calculated every year. In this case 1/2 the SAWW is $738.

Step 3) Calculate the weekly benefit with additional sub-steps! I bet you didn't see that coming. You could argue that Step 3 should have been a sub-step of Step 2 in the first place but I digress.

See! Three easy steps and you're done. In summary, figure out your average weekly wage from the previous 12-15 months. An average below 1/2 the State Average Weekly Wage ($738) will get you an award of 90% of your average. An average above 1/2 the State Average Weekly Wage (SAWW) will get you an award of $663.75 plus 50% of the average above $738 (i.e. Weekly Award = (90% x $738) + (50% x (Your Average Weekly Earnings - $738)). The minimum weekly award is $100 and the maximum weekly award is $1,327.

Cost

As mentioned above, "Premiums," known as "taxes" in the rest of the universe, will begin to be paid as payroll taxes starting January 2019. Washington deducts 0.6% of an employee's first $147,000 of pay. The income cap is the social security cap for 2026, which is a limit for FICA payroll taxes - possibly also known as "premiums" in Washington. In a similar fashion to FICA taxes the Washington Paid Family and Medical Leave taxes are supposedly "split" between the employee paying 37% and the employer paying 63%. This is nonsense and political magic. The 63% the employer is paying is money that would have been paid in wages to the employee. The cost to the employee is 0.6% with a maximum cost per year of $882.00.

State Specifics

There is no waiting period.

Washington has several flyers describing the program for years prior to 2021 and found the best to be the Employee FAQ and the Award Calculation Flyer. Another overview from May 2020 is Patient and Family Guide. Nothing as good was available for 2021.

Currently, the best website for the program in the current year is: Find out how Paid Family Leave works. Unfortunately, it's light on details. At least the details that I'm looking for.

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