Paid Family and Medical Leave by State: Weeks and Pay

The Family and Medical Leave Act "entitles eligible employees of covered employers to take unpaid, job-protected leave for qualifying family and medical reasons and requires continuation of their group health benefits under the same terms and conditions as if the employee had not taken leave." The Department of Labor's page lists the reasons: the birth of a child and care for the newborn within a year, placement of a child for adoption or foster care, care for "the employee's spouse, child, or parent who has a serious health condition," and "a serious health condition that makes the employee unable to perform the functions of his or her job." Leave "may be taken intermittently or on a reduced schedule when medically necessary," which is what makes dialysis three mornings a week or a parent's chemotherapy cycle workable.

Eligibility is where half the workforce drops out. You must "work for a covered employer" (a private employer with "50 or more employees for at least 20 workweeks in the current or preceding calendar year," or any public agency or school), must "have worked for the employer for 12 months," must "have worked 1,250 hours during the 12 months prior to the start of leave," and must "work at a location where the employer has 50 or more employees within 75 miles." A home health aide at a 30-person agency, a line cook at a single restaurant, a new hire in month eleven: none of them is covered, and the leave, when it exists for them, comes from the state.

A state paid family and medical leave program is insurance: you and your employer pay a small percentage of wages into a state fund, and when you need leave the fund pays a share of your wage for a set number of weeks. We opened each state's program page or statute on October 27 and 28, 2026. The table gives, in the state's own words, the weeks of family leave and medical leave, the benefit formula and 2026 cap, who is covered, and when benefits started or will start. Where a state has only a paid sick leave law, or nothing, the row says so and links what we checked.

• Count your weeks under each. The FMLA protects up to 12 weeks per year; your state may pay for more or fewer, and may pay family and medical leave separately. The protected weeks and the paid weeks overlap only where your employer runs them together.
• Give notice early. The FMLA asks for 30 days' notice when leave is foreseeable; most state programs want a claim filed before or within days of the leave. Late notice can delay the first check by weeks.
• Get the medical certification right. Your clinician fills in a form for each system. Ask the clinic which staff member handles leave forms and give them the deadline; a form that sits on a desk is the most common reason a check is late.
• Keep your health insurance. Under the FMLA your employer must continue group coverage on the same terms; you still owe your share of the premium, so ask payroll how it will be collected while no paycheck is coming.
• Know the job-protection gap. Several state programs pay benefits without separately guaranteeing your job; the FMLA guarantees the job without paying. If you are outside the FMLA, read your state's row for whether the state program protects the position.

Pregnancy-related conditions are a serious health condition under the FMLA, and bonding with a new child is a qualifying reason for both parents. Two newer federal laws sit alongside: the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act requires reasonable accommodations during pregnancy and recovery at employers with 15 or more workers, and the PUMP Act requires break time and a private space to express milk; our guide to pumping at work covers that one. In the states with paid programs, the weeks for a new child are usually the most generous in the table, and they can be split between parents.

The FMLA's family list is spouse, child and parent. Several state programs are broader and reach siblings, grandparents, grandchildren, domestic partners and, in some, "any individual related by blood or affinity whose close association is the equivalent of a family relationship," which is the definition that lets you care for the aunt who raised you. Read the coverage line in your state's row for the exact list before you assume you are out.

The conditions that need weeks rather than days, sickle cell crises, kidney failure and dialysis, lupus flares, a stroke in a parent, a high-risk pregnancy, fall hardest on Black households, and so does working at the small employers and in the hourly jobs the FMLA does not reach. Paid leave is the difference between managing an illness and losing the job that carries the insurance to treat it. The state programs in the table are young and little used by the people they cover; the claim form is the whole lever. Our guides to Social Security disability for sickle cell, lupus and kidney failure cover the next step when the illness outlasts the leave.