55% of wages for up to six weeks.
AB Wire
California Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday signed a bill expanding the state’s pioneering family-leave law to help more low-income workers and provide better benefits, reported the Los Angeles Times.
“It’s a real pleasure to be able to sign another bill that helps ordinary Californians, working men and women,” Brown said.
The action comes 15 years after California became the first state in the nation to guarantee workers paid time off to care for a new child or ailing family member.
California’s program provides workers — men or women — with 55% of their wages for up to six weeks, reported the Times.
The measure Brown signed into law will allow people earning close to minimum wage to be paid 70% of their salary while on leave, while workers with higher pay, up to $108,000 annually, will get 60% of their salary during leave. The change takes effect in 2018. It comes one week after California raised its minimum wage to $15 by 2022.
Brown said globalization has put pressure on wages and benefits. “California is doing more probably in the aggregate than any other state,” he said. “We’re trying to compensate for the gross inequality that is not an abstraction but it’s bringing down the lives of a lot of people who live in California.”
Brown signed the bill in a packed ceremony in his office surrounded by advocates for the poor and by Californians who will benefit. Vivian Thorp from Alameda County talked about being a single mother who is on leave to care for an ailing parent.
In a statement, President Obama lauded California’s new law as setting a good precedent for the rest of the country.
“This is great news for California,” Obama said. “Yet millions of Americans still don’t have access to any form of paid leave. Congress needs to catch up to California — and to countries all over the world — by acting to guarantee paid family leave to all Americans. As long as I am president, I will continue to do everything I can to ensure that working Americans have access to this basic security.”
Read the full story here: http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-paid-family-leave-california-20160411-story.html