California Maternity Leave

(Click on the image to see a large/readable version of it.)

I had the honor of attending a Mom's group of women that are going to give birth in the next couple of months using the care of my midwife. (Who is awesome, by the way! I'd like to give a shout out for her apprentice Ellah who I've been working with quite a bit also.)

Here we are, all big bellied women who are scheduled to pop in the next couple of months and there's so much confusion about maternity benefits. In the state of California there are no less than 4 various laws and acts, some federal, some state, specifying what leave you get, if or how much you get paid, and some of them overlap each other. Your leave specifics depend on the following:

• your company size (50+ employees withing 75 miles)
  
• your company classification (manufacturing vs. other)
• how long you've worked for your company and how many hours you've logged
  
• whether or not your company pays into the State Disability Insurance program (SDI). (Which is a company choice.)
  
• what type of birth you end up having (caesarian or vaginal birth)
• and of course if you're lucky enough to work for a company that has their own policy that's more than the state one; lucky you! (like Google with 18 weeks of full pay, where you can take it however you want, like coming back after 3 months and working half time at full pay for another 3 months.)
  

I hope this chart helps you. In all my research, I have found it to be 100% accurate at the time of this post. The gist is that for the state of California and post vaginal birth, we get 4 months off with our job and benefits protected. If your paycheck has a line item paying into SDI, then you'll get 55% of your salary up to a cap for the first 3 months of that. The last month is no pay, just job and benefits protection. This all depends on company size and other details.

Prior to birth you will get paid for 4 weeks off (55% of salary up to a cap), with the first week unpaid through California SDI (assuming your paycheck has that line item). Your company (not you) can choose to use a week of your paid time off, or sick leave, to pay you during that first week, then the next 4 weeks are paid through SDI.

If you don't use this pre birth time off, you lose it. You can not add it to your post birth leave. Also, if you end up going into labor later than expected, and end up being out of work for 6 weeks prior to giving birth, you will only get SDI pay for 4 weeks, after that first unpaid week, and then you don't get paid anything the last week. It's a tricky thing to time, because nobody really knows when you'll go into labor, assuming you're not having a scheduled caesarian.

If you end up going into labor one week after you left work, you will only get paid if your company was going to use your PTO or sick leave for that first unpaid week of SDI. You won't get any of the pre birth paid part of SDI.

It's so confusing. But count your blessings if you live here in California. We have some of the best maternity benefits in the US. Most other people get 6 weeks unpaid, except that their company can choose to bleed out all of their sick and PTO leave to pay them. Can you imagine coming back to work with a 6 week old in childcare where you no longer have any PTO or sick leave to take if your child gets sick? Most childcare places won't take a sick child, so what do you do? I suppose hope that your work is flexible. Which mine is. Ridiculously so, actually. I'm a very luck person to work where I do for a variety of reasons, one of which is how flexible and accommodating everybody is. Yeah for my company! and Yeah for working in California!

Here's another great article about CA Maternity Leave.