SALEM — This Labor Day weekend, working Oregonians needing to take time off work to care for important personal and familial life events started receiving paid leave benefits through the state’s new paid family and medical leave program, Paid Leave Oregon. Employees can apply for benefits online by visiting frances.oregon.gov/Claimant.
Offering paid leave is critical to making Oregon’s economy strong, allowing employees to keep their jobs during important life events and improving worker retention and production. Oregon legislators first championed and passed Paid Leave Oregon in 2019 (House Bill 2005), making Oregon one of just 11 states, along with Washington, D.C., to offer paid family and medical leave.
In addition to the Paid Leave Oregon plan, in 2023 Democrats passed legislation to support working families, including Oregon’s first-ever state-based child tax credit (House Bill 3235) providing up to $1,000-per-child for qualifying families struggling to make ends meet and impactful solutions to the child care shortage.
Most workers will be able to take up to 12 weeks of paid leave annually through the program, although those who are pregnant, have given birth or have health issues related to childbirth, may be eligible for up to 14 weeks of paid leave.
Employees were eligible to receive benefits for leave taken on or after Sept. 3, and payments will begin going out in mid-September.
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