How It Works

If you contribute to the California State Disability Insurance fund (look for CA SDI on your pay stubs), you are eligible to receive income replacement through two state-run insurance programs:

• State Disability Insurance (SDI) when you are on leave for your own temporary disability or serious illness, including pregnancy-related disability, which generally begins at least 4 weeks before birth and lasts 6-8 weeks after.
• Paid Family Leave (PFL) when you are on leave to care for a seriously ill family member or to bond with a new child

Remember that PFL and SDI provide replacement income, but they do not protect your job or require your employer to hold your job for you. You need to separately qualify for Pregnancy Disability Leave or the California Family Rights Act to make sure that your job will be held for you while you are away from work.

Click here for information about the SDI program.

Workers who are eligible for Paid Family Leave (PFL) or State Disability Insurance (SDI) may receive 60% or 70% (depending on their rate of pay) of their weekly wages up to a maximum weekly benefit amount. The benefit amount is determined by weekly wages in the base period. View this chart to learn more about the base period and your estimated weekly benefit amount.

Workers do not need to take all eight weeks consecutively. PFL can be taken intermittently on an hourly, daily or weekly basis as needed.

Health Benefits of Paid Family Leave

Paid Family Leave is a crucial workplace support that has both immediate and long-term benefits to the health, well-being, and economic security of California workers and their families.

Quality bonding time for parents and caregivers in the first year of life promotes an infant’s growth, brain development, and long-term ability to form healthy attachments. Studies show that Paid Family Leave makes bonding possible by doubling the length of leave parents take, and access to bonding time is key to establishing breast/chestfeeding—which is healthiest for babies and contributes to strengthening a child’s immunity and decreases the risk of SIDS. Early studies showed that California’s Paid Family Leave program contributed to doubling the median duration of infant breast/chestfeeding. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) suggests that the economic security created by accessing paid leave is a key important element in the prevention of domestic violence in this 2017 report.

Paid Family Leave is also a crucial support for family caregivers who provide care for adults, seniors, or other family members with a serious or chronic health condition. A recent survey showed that Paid Family Leave improves a caregiver’s ability to care for loved ones, whether this means arranging care, taking a loved one to medical appointments, or staying by a loved one’s side while they are in the hospital. PFL has decreased enrollment of elderly family members in nursing homes. For ill children, having a parent or close family member with them in the hospital reduces the amount of time they need to stay by half.*

The important health benefits of Paid Family Leave are only a few reasons why it’s so critical to increase access to this benefit for all workers and families.

*Source : Arora, K., & Wolf, D. A. (2017, November 3). Does Paid Family Leave Reduce Nursing Home Use? The California Experience. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 37(1), 38-62. DOI: 10.1002/pam.22038. The Widening Gap: Why America’s Working Families Are in Jeopardy— and What Can Be Done About It. New York, NY: Basic Books).