New Jersey Family Leave Insurance
In March of 2008, New Jersey became the second state to implement paid family leave. The Family Leave Insurance (FLI) law, like its California counterpart, allows six weeks to care for a new child or a seriously ill relative, including domestic partners or civil union partners. It provides up to two-thirds of salary, with a cap of $524 a week, paid for through payroll deduction, which would amount to about $33 a year for the average worker (although the contribution rate was lowered by half in the beginning of 2011). As with the California law, job protection is not provided.
Cry Wolf Quotes
We are about to place a mandate on our struggling employers that does not exist in 48 other states. This is not a welcoming message to companies looking to expand here or explore New Jersey as a place of investment.
New Jersey is anti-business. This bill creates even more of an anti-business climate. ... It's one more mandate, one more tax, one more reason for the move to Pennsylvania.
So when businesses are already looking for opportunities over the rivers and past the bay, what does our Senate do? It decides to insist that business provide paid time off for family leave...There is a reason that only two states have enacted this legislation. It is because states do not want to lose the businesses that make up the backbone of their budgets. New Jersey senators don't care because this is other people's money anyway. They can stand and pontificate over how they are helping people while those same citizens' employers say ... goodbye.
The state must stop trying to impose mandates and requirements on businesses that our competitors in other states simply don't have to deal with.
