When New Jersey enacted its paid family leave program nearly 15 years ago, it became only the third state in the nation to provide employees with paid time off to take care of a new child or sick relative.
But today, the program’s coverage gaps have put New Jersey behind other states in protecting workers, advocates and experts say.
Because federal and state job protection laws are separate from the paid family leave protection, more than 1 in 5 workers in the state — or, 840,000 — were at risk of being fired if they used the paid family leave insurance in 2019, according to a research brief from New Jersey Policy Perspective, a progressive think tank.