Eligibility Requirements for Parental Leave Benefits in California
Updated: Oct 30, 2020
Note: Effective 1/1/2021, amendments to CFRA will expand to apply to smaller employers and remove numerous other limits. This post has been updated where applicable (in red) to reflect the amendments.
This is the second of a series of posts to demystify parental leave benefits in California for expecting parents.
This post summarizes the eligibility requirements for different parental leave benefits in California. Many details may be relevant for each person’s specific situation, I will discuss each benefit in more detail in future posts. Subscribe to upcoming benefits resources using the subscription box at the bottom of our website.
This post has two sections, the first section is about unpaid job protected leave, the second section is for wage replacements during the leave. Note that these benefits also cover some non-pregnancy related disability or family care needs, we won’t discuss them in this article so we can focus on the topics relevant to parental leave.
Job Protection Benefits
Good news - Effective 1/1/2021, this becomes much easier. If your employer employs more than 5 people, you are eligible for PDL. If your employer employs more than 5 people AND if you also meet the work tenure requirements (Over a year, and 1250 hours in the preceding 12 months), then CFRA also apply to you. No need for a complicated decision tree anymore!
The eligibility requirements[1] are generally defined around three themes:
Employer size or type
Employee specifics such as the length of service or worksite
Eligible reasons for the leave.
Before we dive in - in plain English and to save you some time, here are some fairly clear-cut cases for your quick reference.
If these simple cases don’t exactly fit your situation, it doesn’t necessarily mean you are ineligible. Read-on for more details, or try our customized parental leave planning tool.
California Pregnancy Disability Leave (PDL)
What it is: PDL[2] provides unpaid, job-protected leave for a reasonable period of time up to 4 months of leave per pregnancy.
Covered employers are persons or entities that:
- regularly employ five or more persons, or
- is the state or any political or civil subdivision of the state and cities
Covered employers does not include a religious association or corporation not organized for private profit.
Eligible employees are all full-time or part-time employees. No length of service is required, even brand new employees are eligible.
Eligible reasons for this leave are disability by pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition
Note: Effective 1/1/2021, the CFRA will be expanded to include smaller employers, thereby NPLA will no longer be needed.
California New Parent Leave Act (NPLA)
What it is: NPLA[3] provides unpaid, job-protected leave for up to 12 weeks to bond with a new child within one year of the child’s birth, adoption, or foster care placement.
Covered employers are persons or entities that:
- employ 20 or more persons, or
- is the state or any political or civil subdivision of the state and cities
Eligible employees are those who work at a worksite with at least 20 employees within 75 miles, is not subject to CFRA or FMLA, and meet the following length of service requirements:
- more than 12 months of service with the employer, and
- at least 1,250 hours of service with the employer during the previous 12-month period
Eligible reasons for this leave are to bond with a new child within one year of the child’s birth, adoption, or foster care placement.
California Family Rights Act (CFRA)
What it is: CFRA[4] provides unpaid, job-protected leave for up to 12 weeks in a 12-month period.
Covered Employers are persons or entities that:
- employs 50 or more persons (Effective 1/1/2021,this requirement becomes 5 or more persons)
- is the state or any political or civil subdivision of the state and cities
Eligible employees are those who work at a worksite with at least 50 employees within 75 miles (Effective 1/1/2021,this requirement no longer exists), and meet the following length of service requirements:
- more than 12 months of service with the employer, and
- at least 1,250 hours of service with the employer during the previous 12-month period
Eligible reasons for the leave are birth, adoption, or foster care placement of your child, or for your own serious health condition or that of your child, parent or spouse.
Important Considerations Related to Eligibility
The scenarios below[5] are details that may be important to you, if you need help to account for these in your parental leave plan, use our customized parental leave planning tool and mention your specific work history.
1. After being on leave for many weeks of PDL, some mothers may worry that they no longer meet the 1250 hours requirement for the bonding leave under CFRA/NPLA. Good news – this is not something you need to worry about if your CFRA/NPLA immediately follows the PDL, because for a mother who takes CFRA/NPLA immediately after PDL, the “12-month period” for calculating the 1250 hours requirement is the period immediately preceding her first day of pregnancy disability leave, not the first day of the subsequent CFRA/NPLA leave.
2. Time off on PDL counts towards the 12-months requirement for CFRA/NPLA, but it does not count towards the 1,250 hour requirement.
3. If you work from home, for determining whether there are 20 or 50 employees at your “worksite” for CFRA/NPLA eligibility, the “worksite” is where you report into and get your work assigned from. So, if you work from home but report into an office with 50 or more employees, you may still be eligible for CFRA/NPLA. Note: Effective 1/1/2021 this requirement no longer exists.
4. The 12-months requirement does not need to be a consecutive 12-months, if you had a break in service for the same employer (not exceeding 7 years), you may still be eligible for CFRA/NPLA.
The Federal FMLA may run concurrent to the PDL, CFRA, and NPLA. Although in many cases the California state benefits (PDL + CFRA, or PDL + NPLA), are more generous than FMLA, there are cases where Federal FMLA can be more generous. For example, if both parents work for the same employer, the employer may limit the combined leave to 12 weeks, but this limit applies differently under FMLA and CFRA/NPLA:
- FMLA: Spouses may be subject to the combined 12 weeks leave limit.
- CFRA/NPLA: Both parents, regardless of marital status, may be subject to the combined 12 week leave limit. Note: Effective 1/1/2021 this limit no longer exists.
For purposes of determine your benefits, your employer should follow whichever offers more benefits. Use our customized parental leave planning tool to account for your specific situation.
State Wage Replacement Benefits
There are two portions of wage replacement from California state, one for pregnancy-related disability (State Disability Insurance or “SDI”) and another one for bonding (Paid Family Leave or “PFL”). Before we get lost in all the details, let me mention two Important things:
1. Although both are part of the State Disability Insurance program, you need to submit two separate claims, remember!
2. There are specific dates to file these claims to avoid risking losing your benefits. The dates are mentioned below.
Many of the requirements are similar for the SDI and PFL, so I grouped the similar requirements, and then highlight the differences.
Eligibility requirements that are common to both SDI and PFL:
1. Be unable to do your regular or customary work
2. Be employed or actively looking for work at the time your disability or family leave begins.
3. Have lost wages because of your disability (for SDI), or because of caring for a seriously ill family member or bonding with a new child (for PFL).
4. Have earned at least $300 from which State Disability Insurance (SDI) deductions were withheld during your “base period”, you can check your previous paychecks to confirm this deduction was made (see the bottom of the post for details on how the “base period” is defined).
Eligibility requirements that are different for SDI and PFL:
1. Reason for the claim
- SDI is for disability, you need to remain under the care and treatment of a licensed physician/practitioner or accredited religious practitioner in order to continue receiving benefits.
- PFL is for bonding with a new child.
2. Claim form submission time
- SDI: no earlier than nine days after your first day of disability begins but no later than 49 days after your disability begins or you may lose benefits.
- PFL: no earlier than the first day your family leave begins, but no later than 41 days after your family leave begins or you may lose benefits.
3. Waiting period
- SDI has a waiting period of 7 days, the actual benefit payment starts on the 8th date.
- PFL has no waiting period.
4. Medical certification
- SDI requires you to have your physician/practitioner complete the medical certification portion of your disability claim.
- PFL, medical certification is needed for care claim but not for bonding claim.
Base Period Calculation [6]
The California EDD has a very helpful table to define base period. To use this table, first look up the month your claim begins on the right side of the table, then refer to the quarters in gray to the left, this is your base period.
For example, if your claim begins in April, then your base period is from January to December of the prior calendar year.
Any questions or comments? Leave a message in the comments area, or contact us.
#PenguinforParents #MaternityLeave #ParentalLeave #BondingLeave #PaternityLeave #FMLA #CFRA #PDL #PFL #SDI #NPLA
[1] https://www.dfeh.ca.gov/employment/pdl-cfra-npla-fmla/ [2] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=12926.&lawCode=GOV
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=12945.&lawCode=GOV [3] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=12945.6.&lawCode=GOV [4] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=12945.2.&lawCode=GOV [5] Cal. Code Regs., tit. 2, § 11087 (e) [6] https://edd.ca.gov/Disability/Calculating_PFL_Benefit_Payment_Amounts.htm