Family & Medical Leave

One way states can help women facing family and medical responsibilities is by adopting the policies reflected in the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). The FMLA requires larger employers to allow workers to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to recover from their own illnesses or to care for certain family members in certain circumstances.¹ Unfortunately, nearly 40 percent of workers are not covered by the FMLA.² The Report Card examines whether states have expanded family and medical leave coverage to cover more people (e.g., laws that apply to employers with fewer than 50 employees) and/or to provide more generous family and medical leave benefits than the federal law does (e.g., by allowing leave for participation in children’s education activities).

Does the state have a family and medical leave law that offers protections in addition to those provided by the federal law?

States receive a "meets policy" if they provide paid family and medical leave. States receive a "limited policy" if they expand the federal FMLA for private sector employees but do not provide paid leave. States that have not expanded upon the federal policy for private sector employees receive a "no policy."

The 2010 Report Card uses a different source for this indicator than in 2007, therefore there is no comparison to 2007.

State	Strength of Policy	Change from 2007
Mississippi	No Policy	N/A
Alabama	No Policy	N/A
Alaska	No Policy	N/A
Arizona	No Policy	N/A
Arkansas	No Policy	N/A
California	Meets Policy	N/A
Colorado	No Policy	N/A
Connecticut	Limited Policy	N/A
Delaware	No Policy	N/A
District of Columbia	Limited Policy	N/A
Florida	No Policy	N/A
Georgia	No Policy	N/A
Hawaii	Limited Policy	N/A
Idaho	No Policy	N/A
Illinois	Limited Policy	N/A
Indiana	No Policy	N/A
Iowa	No Policy	N/A
Kansas	No Policy	N/A
Kentucky	Limited Policy	N/A
Louisiana	Limited Policy	N/A
Maine	Limited Policy	N/A
Maryland	No Policy	N/A
Massachusetts	Limited Policy	N/A
Michigan	No Policy	N/A
Minnesota	Limited Policy	N/A
Missouri	No Policy	N/A
Montana	No Policy	N/A
Nebraska	No Policy	N/A
Nevada	Limited Policy	N/A
New Hampshire	No Policy	N/A
New Jersey	Meets Policy	N/A
New Mexico	No Policy	N/A
New York	No Policy	N/A
North Carolina	Limited Policy	N/A
North Dakota	No Policy	N/A
Ohio	No Policy	N/A
Oklahoma	No Policy	N/A
Oregon	Limited Policy	N/A
Pennsylvania	No Policy	N/A
Rhode Island	Limited Policy	N/A
South Carolina	No Policy	N/A
South Dakota	No Policy	N/A
Tennessee	Limited Policy	N/A
Texas	No Policy	N/A
Utah	No Policy	N/A
Vermont	Limited Policy	N/A
Virginia	No Policy	N/A
Washington	Meets Policy	N/A
West Virginia	No Policy	N/A
Wisconsin	Limited Policy	N/A
Wyoming	No Policy	N/A

Policy Indicator Counts

Meets Policy:

3

Limited Policy:

16

Weak Policy:

0

No/Harmful Policy:

32

Better:

0

Same:

0

Worse:

0

Data Sources: 1) National Conference of State Legislatures, "State Family and Medical Leave Laws that Differ from the Federal FMLA," September 2008, available at
http://www.ncsl.org/Portals/1/documents/employ/fam-medleave.pdf, accessed September 8, 2010; 2) National Women's Law Center, unpublished data, collected July 2010.

Footnotes

¹ The Family and Medical Leave Act, 29 U.S.C. § 2601 et seq., applies to businesses with 50 or more employees and requires them to allow workers to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave a year to care for a newborn, newly-adopted child, seriously ill child, spouse, or parent, or to recover from their own serious health conditions.

² National Partnership for Women and Families, “Family and Medical Leave Act,” undated, available at http://www.nationalpartnership.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ourwork_fmla..., accessed September 21, 2010.