COVID-19 paid leave: NJ comes out on top vs. federal – data, insiders say (updated)

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The Trump administration’s recent guidelines for who is covered under expanded paid sick and family leave rules as part of the federal COVID-19 relief package leave something to be desired, labor advocates argue.

And New Jersey’s own rules for paid sick and family leave fall ahead of what is required at the federal level, according to labor advocates and a review of New Jersey’s workplace laws.

New Jersey is one of eight states, along with Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, that offers temporary disability insurance for long-term injuries and illnesses. The others are California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington, according to A Better Balance, which tracks and compares paid sick and family leave policies by state.

“It’s definitely the case that for New Jersey workers, a lot more folks are going to end up covered, by the New Jersey law,” said Molly Weston Williamson, a staff attorney at A Better Balance.

On the federal level, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act is aimed at protecting workers and their families from losing income if they fall ill with COVID-19.

It provides two weeks – 80 hours – of sick pay and makes employees eligible for up to 12 weeks of paid family leave to care for their children whose schools or daycares are closed because of the pandemic. The measure provides refundable tax credits to businesses to cover the costs of the sick time for employees.

New Jersey’s paid sick leave law, which went into effect in October 2018, requires employers to provide 40 hours of paid sick leave each year.

Together, that would spell out three weeks for New Jersey workers, only two of which would allow the employer to get the federal tax credit.

It’s definitely the case that for New Jersey workers, a lot more folks are going to end up covered, by the New Jersey law.
— Molly Weston Williamson, staff attorney, Work and Family Legal Center

But the law has exceptions: companies with more than 500 employees, and businesses with fewer than 50 employees – if they can show the federal labor department that they cannot financially survive providing those kinds of benefits.

Those guidelines and regulations are still being hashed out, the federal labor department said.

“The Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) provides unprecedented paid leave and expanded family and medical leave and focused relief on employers with more than 50 employees and fewer than 500 employees,” a DOL spokesperson said.

“On April 1, 2020, the U.S. Department of Labor announced a new temporary rule regarding how American workers and employers will benefit from the protections and relief offered by the Emergency Paid Sick Leave Act and Emergency Family and Medical Leave Expansion Act, both part of the FFCRA.”

Size matters

As of February, there were 611,441 New Jersey workers employed at companies with at least 500 people, and 1.6 million people who worked at businesses with less than 50 people.

There are 1.4 million workers employed at companies with between 50 and 500 people—the only businesses not exempt under the federal law.

“The federal packages, I’d say, are fairly generous. I didn’t think they’re going to be enough but they’re pretty generous,” added Yana Rodgers, an economist and faculty director at the Rutgers Center for Women and Work. “It compliments what New Jersey already has.”

Representatives from New Jersey’s labor department did not return numerous requests this week for comment via phone and email.

Both the federal and state paid sick leave programs cover an employee who has COVID-19 or shows symptoms of the virus, and a worker who is advised to self-quarantine.

Both programs also cover workers who have to stay home to care for a child, and to care for a family member who has been diagnosed with COVID-19 or is self-quarantining.

But New Jersey’s paid sick leave, unlike the federal version, also covers employees at companies Gov. Phil Murphy has ordered to close; people who refuse to go to work at a business that stays open in defiance to those orders; an employee at an “essential retail business” who decides to stay home and comply with social distancing; and health care workers who are advised to self-quarantine.

“The New Jersey sick time law applies to private sector employers regardless of size,” Williamson said. The same goes for paid family leave and temporary disability insurance.

The New Jersey Family Leave Act requires businesses with more than 30 employees to offer workers their position back after taking family leave, paid or unpaid. A measure being voted on April 13, would remove that exemption.

New Jersey’s family leave program to care for sick loved ones was expanded in 2019 from six to 12 weeks – TDI last 26 weeks.

Workers can receive two-thirds of their weekly salary, capped at $667 a week under both the TDI and FLI programs. On July 1, that cap increases to 85 percent of their weekly salary, capped at $881 a week.

“NJ is one of few states that already had paid family and medical leave insurance and earned sick leave policy on the books before the crisis hit,” Rodgers said. “The U.S. still has no national legislation to provide these benefits; both the CARES Act and FFCRA are emergency benefits specific to the coronavirus pandemic.”

The bill Murphy signed in late March expands the definition of “serious health condition” during a public health emergency for someone who has to take time off work because they were diagnosed with, or exposed to, someone with COVID-19 – or to care for a family member in that same boat – so that those workers can use TDI and FLI paid benefits.

Editor’s note: A previous version of this article identified A Better Balance as The Work and Family Legal Center, which is the organization’s tag line; it was updated at 2:13 p.m. EST on April 13, 2020 to reflect this change.