VARIATION IN PAID FAMILY AND MEDICAL LEAVE MODELS

In January 2023, New Hampshire became the first state to implement a voluntary paid family and medical leave program.¹ In addition to expanding paid family and medical leave to state employees and allowing employers to purchase coverage for their employees through the state program, under the voluntary program, individuals who do not have a comparative paid family and medical leave program can purchase it through this new program which provides paid family and medical leave for six weeks at 60 percent wage replacement. After the program's first year, just 3 percent of New Hampshire's workforce enrolled in New Hampshire's Paid Family and Medical Leave (NH PFML).2 To assess whether voluntary programs like New Hampshire's sufficiently meet the need for paid family and medical leave, we conducted a case study analysis comparing the reach of NH PFML with universal state-run paid family and medical leave programs in two New England states, Connecticut and Massachusetts.
Through expert interviews and data analysis of administrative claimant data, important differences emerged between New Hampshire's voluntary program and universal state-run paid family and medical leave programs. First, is that after the first year of New Hampshire's voluntary paid family and medical leave program, just 3 percent of New Hampshire's workforce has enrolled in the program, compared to universal state-run programs, which cover 70-100 percent of the state's workforce.3 Within the first year of NH PFML, 445 claims were filed, compared to nearly 20,000 and 40,000 filed claims in Connecticut and Massachusetts, respectively, during the first year of their paid family and medical leave programs. When accounting for differences in workforce sizes in each state, enrollment in NH PFML is still significantly lower than in Connecticut and Massachusetts. The claimants from New Hampshire's program are younger and more likely to be female compared to the Connecticut and Massachusetts programs: 78 percent of claims in New Hampshire came from individuals who were under the age of 45, and 78 percent of claims were from women.4 Sixty-seven percent of claims during the first year of New Hampshire's voluntary program were for childbirth and child bonding, significantly higher than other universal state-run programs who report about 25 percent of their claims for child bonding.5 One explanation for this finding is that the voluntary program has a seven-month waiting period. Hence, individuals are likely to only pay into the program for events they can plan for, such as childbirth and child bonding. We find that a voluntary paid-leave program has a different goal than a universal state-run program: the New Hampshire voluntary program aims to provide as many New Hampshire employees access to paid family and medical leave without requiring all employees pay into the program. In contrast, a universal state-run program aims to provide paid family and medical leave to as many employees as possible to reduce inequality in access.