I wish more states would!

I like this a lot. I have never heard of any states doing this. I wish all states did.

I like this idea too. I wish Canada would look into it!

Hell yea! Love anything that makes it easier to run a family smoothly.

Wow. Interesting to here the comments supporting it. All I heard on the NJ Talk Radio (101.5) for the past few months was how awful this is and how the state will regulate it.

It's a pretty complicated issue and the main concern is what ways will people find to take advantage of it. For example, how will the state track how many "sick grandmothers" a person is taking care of? Will they keep track of who the "ill" person is, so siblings don't both try to claim for a parent?

Also, small business owners HATE this plan. It is a really huge burden on them to have to pay two employees. There was also the concern of making sure the person-on-leave will have a job when they return. So, the # months they were gone, the company has invested this time into a new employee, only to have to fire them.

Essentially this is a great idea, there are just a lot of things that go into it and I know that not everyone is supportive of it, which is probably why it's not very common in other states.

This is great. However, there will always be some people who take advantage of the system to see if they can get over.

This might be a really good idea, once we get past all of the issues TidalWave brought up. If I have a child, it would be great if I could take off 6 weeks and then my husband could take off another 6 weeks - so our child would get really great care for the first 3 months of his/her life.

i think that it's great for NJ and the other states to pass this piece of legislation. it's really important to be able to care for your family and now they are making it a bit more feasible if the time comes.

The federal version (unpaid, but at least you get the time off) only applies to employers with more than 50 employees, so that might be a compromise...
Even though, I live in a state with no law mandating even unpaid maternity leave, and work for an employer with less than 50 employees so they federal law doesn't apply, and it SUCKS

My boyfriend lives in PA but works in NJ. I wonder if he's eligible if a situation ever comes up.

I believe that the companies would not be the ones paying the employee...it's the state that does it. Here in CA an employee goes on maternity leave and gets paid disability leave from the state, and when they are done with that they get an additional 6 weeks of PFL. The catch is that there are taxes taken out of every one of my paychecks for disability leave, but I'll never have children in LA so my money is paying for someone else's benefit.

Overall, I do think it is a nice perk for families, but I think the $900/week payout in CA is just crazy.

Good for NJ...putting families first. PA BLOWS!

so maybe i should get a job in jersey, then....

ashcwebb we actually do have this in Canada. You can claim EI during your maternity leave. And I think they pay 95% of your salary. But I could be wrong on the figure.

It's good for the people in the state that have jobs that do not offer Maternity Leave and things of that sort. But I live in NJ and it seems that there is a huge majority of people here somewhere that do manage to take advantage of the system. Not to mention we are in such bad shape fianancially right now and in unbelievable debt.

Whiplashgirlchild, you BF is eligible because he is employed through NJ.

Many European countries already do this! In fact, I believe that France give you a super long paid maternity leave and they give you free day care and education. All states need to step it up for at least maternity leave!