State and District Updates
San Francisco, California
Paid Parental Leave Ordinance (PPLO)
For our San Francisco clients, the OLSE has confirmed that the PPLO wage cap for 2025 will be decreasing to $2,402 from 2024’s cap of $2,700. Additionally, you can find the updated 2025 calculator here.
Under the SF ordinance, employers are required to supplement an eligible employee’s PFL parental leave benefits up to 100% of an employee’s weekly salary, or a weekly maximum amount that is determined each year by the City, whichever amount is lower. In our book of business, most clients provide salary continuation up to full pay, even if the employee’s salary is above the weekly SF PPLO cap.
Connecticut
A small reminder that Connecticut’s Paid Sick and Safe Leave Law will begin on January 1, 2025 and apply to employers with 25 or more employees. If you want to read our full overview on the law, you can find it in this newsletter.
District of Columbia
The DC Paid Family Leave 2025 Notice to Employees is now available – you can download here. As a reminder, all DC employers must post the notice within the workplace and provide it to all covered employees no later than February 1, 2025. We recommend that you provide it by January 1, 2025, if possible.
Hawaii
The Aloha state has released the 2025 maximum weekly benefit amount and maximum weekly wage base for the Hawaii Temporary Disability Insurance (TDI), Workers’ Compensation (WC), and Prepaid Health Care (PHC) laws. Effective January 1, 2025, the maximum weekly benefit will be increasing to $837 per week (from $798 in 2024). Employee TDI contributions remain the same at 0.5% of the first $1,441.72 with a cap of $7.21 per week. Please ensure you update your pay offsets accordingly to align with these changes.
Maine
The Pine Tree state’s upcoming Paid Family and Medical Leave program recently received some updates that were approved and adopted just this month. If you need a refresher before this summary of key differences, we gave a run-down on the upcoming ME PFML in this newsletter. Most of what was provided under this ruling could be interpreted as clarification or development of already established components of the program. You can read the full rules here (Word Document). Some key parts we found interesting are:
- The definition for what is considered “good cause” has been added, to clarify circumstances where the application deadline may be waived should the employee be prevented from filing due to a serious health condition or other inability to file.
- An employee’s weekly benefit amount will be based on the state average weekly wage published on the July 1 date immediately preceding the starting date of the leave, or the date the application for benefits is made (whichever is earlier). The amount established will remain the same throughout the life of the claim.
- An employee’s notice to their employer of the need for PFML leave must be made in writing.
- Applications for a private plan may be made after April 1, 2025, with an application fee of $250 for a review of the application.
- The definition of health care provider includes those qualified under FMLA.
- Any leave taken under FMLA or Maine’s Family and Medical Leave Act within the 12-month period preceding ME PFML leave that was not concurrently taken with ME PFML, will be reduced from ME PFML.
With the program becoming available as of May 1, 2026, this likely won’t be the last of any changes to the program.
New Hampshire
It’s that time of year for the New Hampshire Paid Family and Medical Leave (NHPFML) program’s annual changes. As of January 1, 2025, the maximum weekly benefit an employee could potentially receive will increase from $1,945.38 to $2,031.92.
As a reminder, the NH PFML program is an optional income replacement program that employers or individual employees may voluntarily opt-into. Employers must have a physical location in New Hampshire to provide coverage, or for their employees to be eligible for individual coverage. Employers do not have to pay for the employee’s contribution if the employee opts in as an individual. The contribution rate is assessed individually for each employer who opts into the program and will be determined on a company-by-company basis.
If you are a Larkin Company client and choose to enroll in the NH PFML program, please let us know as soon as possible, so we can administer your leaves accordingly. If you have individual employees who opt into the program, please provide Larkin with this information as well.
New York
The NY Department of Labor has released Frequently Asked Questions about the Prenatal Leave Law coming into effect on January 1, 2025. For a refresher on the upcoming law, we encourage you to check out the newsletter we released earlier this year.
To highlight a couple of the more pertinent answers that you may have been fielding these past few months since the law’s announcement: Paid Prenatal Leave is a separate employee entitlement from other leave policies and laws. This law can apply to time off for fertility treatment or care appointments, including in vitro fertilization; end-of-pregnancy care appointments; prenatal appointments. All private-sector employees are eligible for the 20 hours of leave as of January 1, 2025. Lastly, usage of paid prenatal leave can be in as small as hourly increments, and the 52-week period of which leave can be taken is counted forward from the first usage of leave.
Oregon
As a friendly reminder, there are a couple changes coming up that are effective January 1, 2025 for both Paid Leave Oregon (PLO) and the Oregon Family Leave Act (OFLA). OFLA’s brief stint of including leave to effectuate the legal process required for the placement of a foster child or adoption will end as of December 31, 2024. PLO will pick up from there and will include it as a reason under family leave for the foreseeable future.
Washington
The Washington Paid Family and Medical Leave mandatory workplace poster for 2025 is now available and can be found here. Please ensure you update your current posters as soon as possible, and no later than January 1, 2025. The benefit guide, Employer’s Paid Leave Benefits Toolkit, and the Employer Wage Reporting and Premiums Toolkit were also recently updated.
Canada Updates
Newfoundland and Labrador
Déjà vu! We recently covered how some other provinces in Canada recently passed bills to remove the requirement for an employee to provide a medical certificate for sick leave in certain circumstances. Following in Ontario and Quebec’s footsteps, Newfoundland and Labrador has passed a similar bill of their own, Bill 101, which received royal assent as of December 4, 2024. The bill removes the requirement under the Labour Standards Act (LSA) where an employee would need to provide their employer with a medical certificate for a period of 3 or more consecutive days of sick leave. As a reminder, sick leave in this province is an entitlement of 7 days within a year. An employer is still within their right to establish their own sick leave requirements and policies and apply them should an employee need further time off beyond what is provided for under the LSA. These changes are in effect immediately, as of the date of royal assent.
In other news, the province passed a separate bill, Bill 82, which also received royal assent on December 4, 2024, and is now law. Effective immediately, Bill 82 provides some more changes to the LSA, with a new leave for long-term illness or injury and organ donation, as well as amendments to reservist leave.
Long-Term Illness, Long-Term Injury, And Organ Donation
Once an employee has at least 30 days of continuous employment, they will be eligible for this new entitlement. The leave can be up to 27 weeks within a 52-week period, or 104 weeks if an illness or injury is a result of a criminal offense that the employee was not a part of or contributed to. Leave can be taken in minimum 2-week increments, and should the employee return to work during a partial week, then the week counts as an entire week for tracking purposes. Unless the leave is unforeseeable, employees will need to provide at least 2-weeks’ written notice to their employer prior to the beginning of their leave stating the estimated length of absence.
Reservist Leave Amendments
Under the definition of “service” for reservist leave, this now means Canadian Forces military skills training, training required for imminent deployment, or deployment, and includes a period of time for treatment, recovery or rehabilitation in respect of a physical or mental health problem that results from such service. The duration of leave was also amended, now being 24 months within a 60-month period, unless the leave is a result of a national emergency. Lastly, the period of which an employee is required to provide written notice to their employer of their intention to take leave has been lowered to 30 days. Previously, service was only limited to deployment or training required for imminent deployment, with a leave duration being defined as a period necessary to accommodate the period of service, and a 60-day notice requirement of intention to take leave.
Ontario
The Ontario government has introduced Bill 229, the “Working for Workers Six Act, 2024”. While the bill proposes multiple regulatory changes to a variety of topics, the most relevant to leave of absence administration are the amendments to the Employment Standards Act (ESA). The potential changes to the ESA will align with benefits provided under federal Employment Insurance (EI), should the bill be approved.
You may recall from a previous newsletter that there would be an incoming new benefit for adoptive and surrogate parents through the EI program. In Ontario, Bill 229 would create a new 16-week leave due to the placement of a child for parents going through adoption and surrogacy. This new leave would therefore correspond with the upcoming addition to EI benefits.
Aside from this, the bill proposes another new leave: a 27-week long-term illness leave for an employee’s own serious medical condition. This new leave will also correspond with EI benefits, with the already existing sickness benefits which are 26 weeks in duration – not counting the 1 week waiting period. As the only sick leave currently available under the Ontario ESA is 3 days, we’re sure this will be a welcome change to both employers and workers operating within the province.
An employee’s entitlement to either leave requires that they be employed by their employer for at least 13 consecutive weeks. We will keep you updated should Bill 229 receive royal assent.
Quebec Parental Insurance Plan (QPIP)
The Quebec maximum insurable earnings (MIE) benefit rates and premium rates for 2025 have now both been released. The premium rates for QPIP in 2025 will remain the same as they are in 2024. Therefore, the premium rate for 2025 is 0.494% for salaried workers and 0.692% for employers. However, the Maximum Insurable Earnings (MIE) are increasing from $94,000 to $98,000. This means that the maximum premium for salaried workers will be $484.12 and $678.16 for employers in 2025.
Further, because of the maximum insurable earnings increase, the maximum weekly QPIP benefit amount has increased. The maximum weekly benefit for the Basic Plan is $1,319 and for the Special Plan, it is $1,413. Also, during weeks 8-32 of the basic plan for shareable parental benefits, the maximum weekly benefit amount is $1,036 (see the second column and third row of the Pregnancy and Birth table).
