Oregon’s paid family and medical leave program will begin collecting money to fund the new initiative from workers and businesses with 25 or more employees on Jan. 1.
Starting next year, workers will pay 0.6% of their gross wages every paycheck and big employers will contribute an additional 0.4%.
For a worker who earns $5,000 in monthly gross pay, the worker will pay $30 a month into the paid leave fund and the employer will pay $20. If they work for a company with fewer than 25 employees, they will pay $30 a month and their employer will pay nothing.
All workers in the state except federal employees, independent contractors and people who work for tribal governments who earn at least $1,000 in a year and pay into the program will be eligible automatically for coverage, even if they work for a business with fewer than 25 employees. But they won’t be able to access the new benefit until at least September.
For the first eight months of 2023, the state will build up a fund that it will tap starting in September to pay benefits to workers who take time off to care for a new baby or other loved one, to address their own medical needs or for other specific circumstances covered by the program created under House Bill 2005 in 2019.
Once benefits start flowing, workers will be able to take up to 12 weeks of paid leave annually, and in some cases a total of 14 weeks if they are pregnant, have given birth or have health issues related to child birth, according to the state.
The state program Paid Leave Oregon, which is housed at the Employment Department, launched a campaign earlier this month to educate employers about the program using paid radio, social media and digital media ads.
A public information campaign targeted to workers will not launch until “after January,” communications officer Angela Yeager said during a Nov. 2 meeting of the paid leave program’s advisory committee.
Oregon will join 10 other states and Washington D.C. in offering some sort of paid leave program.
Oregon workers were originally supposed to start receiving paid leave benefits in January, three-and-a-half years after lawmakers passed the law to create the program. But state leaders made key decisions that delayed the program and benefits are now expected to become available in September. Meanwhile, Oregon workers will miss out on approximately $453 million in benefits they would likely have tapped if the program had started on time, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported.
The program will cover leave for the birth or adoption of a child, for serious illness or injury, for taking care of a seriously ill family member and for survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking or harassment, according to the state.
Employers with fewer than 25 employees will not be required to pay into the program but they can choose to pay into it if they wish to access grants to cover costs such as overtime or a temporary replacement worker. Those small employers will still need to collect and remit contributions from employees even if they decline to pay into the program themselves. Paid Leave Oregon has an employer tool kit online to help employers understand the program.
If you have a news tip about Paid Leave Oregon, please contact Hillary Borrud at hborrud@oregonian.com or Jamie Goldberg at jgoldberg@oregonian.com.
— Hillary Borrud; hborrud@oregonian.com
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