What you need to know about Paid Family Leave

You can use FLI benefits to care for a loved one with a serious health condition, bonding time with a child (by birth or by adoption/foster care/surrogacy, as long as it is within the first twelve months) and for yourself or for supporting someone who experienced domestic violence or sexual assault. A person does not need medical documentation to request time off for bonding with a newborn or foster/adoptive child.

You must have paid into the FLI program, and worked in New Jersey for 20 weeks, earning at least $172 weekly, or earned a total of $8,600 in the last 52 weeks from work in New Jersey.  If your employer provides a private plan, you may be covered by that plan instead of FLI. If you are not sure, you are encouraged to apply. You do not have to be a full‐time employee, nor even currently employed, to be eligible for FLI!

Your employer must be covered by the Unemployment Compensation Law (federal employees are not covered, but many New Jersey state employees are covered). In addition, your employer cannot require that you use up to two weeks of sick leave prior to using FLI.

As of July 1, 2019, you will receive 66.7 percent of your normal weekly paycheck, capped at $667 weekly.

On July 1, 2020, this increases to 85 percent, capped at approximately $881 weekly.

You can apply for FLI at the same time you apply for TDI, but you cannot receive benefits for both at the same time. You also cannot receive FLI at the same time you receive any other government disability, unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation or paid time off—though you can still receive private disability benefits.

You can only take FLI for six weeks. Remember, this increases to 12 weeks in July 2020.

You must apply for FLI within 30 days of the first day of the claim. You can apply outside of the 30 day period if you are able to justify why. When possible, you must also give your employer 30 days’ notice. Your employer will also need to fill in parts of the application.

Applications are processed in the order that they are received. Remember, payment may be delayed if your application is incomplete, or if it contains missing or conflicting information, so make sure you completely and carefully fill out all  paperwork.

You will then receive a debit card from Bank of America by mail in a plain, unmarked envelope (it may look like junk mail, so check all of your mail carefully). This is before your claim is approved and funds are applied to the card. Don’t lose it!

After your claim is processed, payments are usually issued every two weeks with a one‐week lag for processing time. Once a payment is posted, funds should be available on your debit card within two business days of the payment date. No federal income tax is withheld from your benefits unless you request a 10 percent deduction when you apply.

To help ensure a speedy process, you can:

• Apply online at https://lwd.state.nj.us/tdi/caller.aspx
• Make sure your doctors know that they need to fill out sections of your FLI claim, when relevant. Medical providers will not be automatically notified by the MyLeaveBenefits system
• Fill out your application completely and accurately
• Include your social security number on all correspondence
• Scan documents. Do not submit pictures of them
• Look out for the debit card for Bank of America in the mail. If you already have a debit card from a previous claim, the same card will be used for FLI. If you can’t find the card, contact Bank of America for a replacement

If you worked for at least 1,000 hours in the twelve months immediately prior to taking leave, gave your employer 30 days’ notice and your employer is a non‐government entity with 30+ employees, then your job is protected under FMLA and NJFLA. Otherwise, your employer is not required to provide the same or similar job for you when you return from FLI leave. Note that it’s possible to be eligible for wage replacement under FLI without being eligible for job protection under FMLA (e.g. making more than $8,600 but working fewer than 1,000 hours or for an employer with fewer than 30 employees).