No organizations voiced opposition to the bill this year.
He has spent weeks vetoing many other social spending bills on the grounds that state revenues are coming in lower than expected this fiscal year.
Newsom’s decision came down to the wire on the final day for the governor to act on legislation. I’ve paid into this system since I was 18 years old.” Down to the wire “It was pretty difficult and it affected me emotionally,” said Schminke, 42. When Schminke gave birth to her second daughter three years ago, the leave program would pay 60% of her income she still could not afford it. If she could have taken more time off to bond with her daughter it would have been “life-changing,” she said. Her doctor told her the stress was negatively affecting her milk supply, said Schminke, a breastfeeding advocate. She worked until her delivery date, took two weeks of vacation after giving birth, then returned to work. “It would reduce my income so much and so drastically that my husband and I just wouldn’t have been able to even buy essentials and pay rent.” “There was just no way I could take it,” Schminke said. At the time, the family leave program only paid 55% of workers’ incomes. Kiera Schminke, a Carlsbad mother of two, learned of paid family leave when she was pregnant with her first daughter seven years ago.īetween her husband’s full-time job and her part-time work as an adjunct professor, they were just able to pay the bills, she said, but it wouldn’t have added up if she had taken paid leave. The Employment Development Department told the Legislature in a Senate floor analysis that this would increase funding for the program, but it “would not offset the additional benefit payments over time.” ‘There’s just no way.’ The bill this year will pay for increased benefits by removing a payroll tax shield on earnings above $145,600, effectively raising the contributions from higher earners. Last year Newsom vetoed similar legislation to raise family leave payments, saying it would create unbudgeted costs. ‘Until now, workers who couldn’t afford a 40% pay cut were being forced to keep working against their doctor’s orders.’ Katherine Wutchiett, staff attorney at Legal Aid at Work From 2017 to 2019, leave claims by workers making less than $20,000 a year declined while they rose for all other workers - increasing the most for those making $100,000 or more, according to the Employment Development Department. Higher-income people have been more likely to take time off. Research shows paid family leave is linked to improved maternal health and child development. “Today we’re taking an important step to ensure more low-wage workers, many of them women and people of color, can access the time off they’ve earned while still providing for their family.”Īdvocates for the legislation - a coalition of gender equity, child and maternal health and anti-poverty groups - say the program has fallen behind other states and California doesn’t provide enough to allow low-income workers to take the leave. “California created the first Paid Family Leave program in the nation 20 years ago,” Newsom said in a statement. The boost, outlined in SB 951, will begin in 2025, and higher earning Californians will pay for it through larger contributions from their paychecks. That will be a boost from the current program and will apply to those who make as much as $57,000 a year. Gavin Newsom signed a family leave bill today that will enable lower-income workers to recoup up to 90% of their income when they take time off to care for a new child or a sick family member.
The bill increases leave payments to 90% of paychecks for lower-income workers in 2025, so more of them can afford time off for maternity leave or to care for ill family members.
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