The golden dome of the State House. (Photo by Andy Metzger) field_54b3f951675b3

THE MASSACHUSETTS PAID Family and Medical Leave program is truly life-changing.  Since the law went into effect in 2021, more than 200,000 Massachusetts workers have used the program to take paid time off work to care for their health or to care for a sick family member. The program has paid more than $1.6 billion in benefits to stabilize workers’ incomes for the weeks or months they can’t work. Massachusetts is one of a dozen states to offer this benefit.

New mothers and fathers can pay their bills while they care for their newborn baby or adopted child.  Major surgery no longer means rushing back to work to pay rent or risk eviction.  The financial stability the law provides gives workers the freedom to take care of themselves and their loved ones in life’s most challenging moments, which ultimately improves their health and keeps more people in the labor force.

As the word spreads, more people are applying. As a result of increasing awareness about Paid Family and Medical Leave benefits and operational improvements at the Department of Family and Medical Leave over the past year, approved applications grew from 112,000 in FY22 to 160,000 in FY23, a 40 percent increase.  Yet, anecdotally, there are still many workers who miss out on benefits they’ve earned because they don’t know what they don’t know.

The law makes employers responsible for notifying their workers about Paid Family and Medical Leave in writing, in the worker’s primary language. And it provides for financial penalties for employers who fail to do so.  But almost three years after the law took effect, despite receiving hundreds of complaints about large and small employers, the Department of Family and Medical Leave has yet to issue a single penalty. Awareness has also been held back by a lack of funding for a public information and outreach campaign.

Awareness is not the only barrier to accessing the benefits. For a dishwasher or cook who doesn’t own a computer or printer, the need to find medical forms online, download and print them, bring them to their doctor, and then fax or mail them to the state can be prohibitive. Doctor’s offices can fax forms for patients, but required identification documents must be in color, meaning fax is not accepted. It doesn’t help that the state’s list of acceptable IDs is stricter than the Registry of Motor Vehicles, Massachusetts voting laws, and other states’ programs. As a result, the number one denial reason for three years in a row has been a lack of sufficient documentation. Most of these denials are fixed on appeal, but those who fail to navigate the appeals process successfully are often the most vulnerable: disabled, elderly, low-tech, low-wage, and immigrant workers.

Fortunately, there are a number of solutions to these barriers.  The Department of Public Health has partnered with Department of Family and Medical Leaave to provide funding for a public awareness campaign starting this fall. The agency is planning to start enforcement and collection of financial penalties for non-compliant employers. In-person assistance with document submission is being considered, following the example of the Department of Unemployment Assistance. These are crucial improvements to eliminate barriers to access. Finally, several bills have been introduced in the Legislature that would make the program more transparent and accessible.

One bill would require employers to give workers information about the law, and the required medical form, at the time they make a request for qualifying leave. The federal Family and Medical Leave Act  requires such notice at the time of an event that triggers eligibility, as does nearly every other state with paid family and medical leave benefits. The same bill requires the state to report detailed and disaggregated data in its annual report to reveal disparities based on race, language, geography, income, and other categories. Enhanced notification and enhanced reporting will ensure the right information is available to make the best decisions, both individually and collectively.

Another bill would return eligibility for paid family and medical leave benefits to some workers who are classified as independent contractors.  The original bill, passed in 2018, granted eligibility to “covered contract workers” who receive a 1099-MISC tax form, if the business they worked at hired a majority of 1099-MISC workers. Unfortunately, in 2019, the IRS changed the name of its independent contractor tax form from 1099-MISC to 1099-NEC. The Department of Family and Medical Leave interpreted this change as ending eligibility for tens of thousands of covered contract workers. The new bill would remove the reference to specific IRS tax forms and restore eligibility to covered contract workers.

Yet another bill would require the department to publish appeals hearing decisions. It is difficult enough to appeal any benefit denial, especially for a new program with at-times unclear or changing rules. This common-sense bill would increase transparency and understanding by providing access to detailed explanations of eligibility or non-eligibility in a variety of cases.

As the Legislature and the Healey administration push forward policy solutions, everyone can help make paid family and medical leave a success. If you work in the healthcare field, you can ask patients if they’ve applied and help them find the application forms online. If you’re a neighbor or coworker of someone taking leave, you can spread the word and offer your color printer to help them get the right documents submitted. If you own or manage a business, you can make sure your company is compliant and ask your employees requesting leave if they need help.

Together, we can make sure every Massachusetts worker has access to this life-changing program when they need it.

Deb Fastino is the executive director of the Coalition for Social Justice and David McKenna is an employment law staff attorney with Greater Boston Legal Services.