Paid family leave is a legal resource that allows an employee to continue receiving benefits and pay from their company, even if they have to take time off work for family reasons.
Family-related reasons include an employee’s need to care for a seriously ill family member, an employee’s need to bond with a new child, and an employee’s need to attend a “qualifying event due to military use.” of a family member.”
Employees on paid family leave can receive compensation and benefits for up to eight weeks. The compensation to an employee on this type of leave is typically sixty to seventy percent of the employee’s weekly wage. Additionally, the employee may be eligible for paid family leave after twenty-six consecutive weeks of employment if he or she works at least twenty hours per week.
Paid family leave only provides benefits and compensation but does not protect the employee’s job. Therefore, the employee could return from his paid family leave to find that he no longer has the same position or has been dismissed. It is important to note that an employee cannot use his or her own serious health condition as a reason for being granted paid family leave.
To be entitled to paid family leave, the worker must meet the following requirements:
- The first requirement is that the employee cannot continue working due to any of the previously mentioned circumstances.
- The second requirement is that the worker is employed or intends to find a new job after his or her paid family leave.
- The third requirement is that the worker has presented a medical certificate that supports his request for paid family leave.
- The fourth requirement is that the employee must show that he has lost wages for a reason related to his family.
- The fifth requirement is that the employee must have earned a minimum of three hundred dollars from which State Disability Insurance deductions were withheld during the employee’s base period.
- The last requirement is that the employee submits an application for paid family leave no earlier than the first day of paid family leave and no later than forty-one days after the first family leave.