The Time to Care Act Is a Huge Win for Maryland Workers and Families

The General Assembly overrode Gov. Hogan’s veto of the Time to Care Act days before the close of this year’s legislative session, guaranteeing nearly all Maryland workers paid time off to deal with major life events like a new child or a serious injury. This victory will make Maryland a better place to work, raise a family, grow up, and grow old.

Maryland’s law is one of the strongest in the country. Here’s what it does:

• The law guarantees essentially all workers in the state the ability to take up to 12 weeks of partially paid leave to care for a new child, to care for a family member with a serious health condition, or to treat their own serious health condition. Benefits will be available beginning in January 2025.
• Low-wage workers will receive weekly benefits equal to 90% of their average weekly pay. The benefit rate gradually declines for higher-wage workers, with an initial $1,000 per week cap. Beginning in 2026, the cap will be adjusted for inflation. The Board of Public Works has authority to suspend inflation adjustments (including possible downward adjustments) during an economic downturn.
• The law provides limited job protection to most workers who take leave, enabling them to take time off without fear of losing their job. This includes most workers excluded from job protection under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act.
• Workers and employers will pay for benefits through modest payroll contributions, similar to other social insurance programs such as unemployment and Social Security. The Maryland Department of Labor is required to conduct periodic studies to determine the required contribution rate. Existing research indicates that the required rate will likely be well under 1% of taxable wages. Contributions will begin in October 2023, allowing the paid leave fund to build reserves before benefits begin.
• Generally, workers and employers will share responsibility for contributions, with workers paying between 25% and 75% of the total. The Maryland Department of Labor is tasked with setting the worker and employer shares. Companies with fewer than 15 employees are not required to contribute. The law calls for (but does not actually require) the state to temporarily pay the worker share for anyone taking home less than $15 per hour, ending in mid-2026.

This is a massive step forward for Maryland workers, families, and communities. Currently, three-quarters of private-sector workers nationwide are not guaranteed any paid leave from their employers for major life events, including 94% of workers in low-wage occupations. And while federal law provides unpaid, job-protected leave to many workers, carve-outs exclude large numbers of workers from these protections.

Taking significant time off without pay is not an affordable choice for most workers:

• About 16% of workers nationwide needed to take family or medical leave in the last two years but were unable to, according to a 2016 survey by the Pew Research Center. Another 12% took less time off than they needed.
• Among workers with unmet need for time off, more than two-thirds said they could not afford to take the leave they needed and about half said they were afraid that doing so could cost them their job.

The Time to Care Act will provide needed supports for all workers, and is especially important for women and workers of color:

• The Pew survey found that one in five women needed leave but were unable to take any.
• Latinx workers were more likely than white workers to forgo needed time off, and Black workers were twice as likely as their white counterparts to do so.
• Workers taking home less than $30,000 per year were more than twice as likely as those making at least $75,000 to need leave but not take any.
• Half of Latinx workers and three out of five low-wage workers received no pay at all during their time off.

Time to Care Act will bring significant and wide-ranging benefits, based on evidence gathered by a Maryland expert commission:

• Public health benefits: Evidence links paid leave guarantees to lower infant mortality, improvements in mothers’ mental health, a 33% drop in upper respiratory complications among infants, and increased ability for aging adults to live at home. Research shows that children in low-income families see especially large health benefits.
• Economic benefits: A study found that California’s paid leave guarantee decreased the number of mothers of young children with family income below the federal poverty line (currently about $26,000 for a family of four). While paid leave enables parents to take more time off during the first few weeks of a child’s life, research shows that it can also enable mothers to return to the paid workforce sooner. Studies have linked paid leave to improvements in productivity and declines in turnover. Small and large businesses alike are faring well in states that already guarantee paid family and medical leave, generally reporting positive or neutral impacts on their bottom line.

While passage of the Time to Care Act is a major victory, the law is not perfect. Lawmakers should work to fix the law’s current weaknesses:

• The law excludes certain home care workers – who are overwhelmingly women of color and typically take home deeply inadequate wages – from job protection. This means that they are entitled to paid leave benefits, but might not have a job once they are ready to return to work. While seniors and Marylanders with disabilities have a legitimate need for continuity of care, this exclusion places too much risk on workers.
• Even workers who have job protection aren’t fully protected, due to a loophole allowing businesses to claim that allowing a worker to return after taking leave would cause a “substantial and grievous economic injury” to business operations. The law doesn’t define this standard or specify what sort of proof businesses would have to provide if they want to fire workers for using their earned leave.
• The state will stop paying contributions for workers taking home less than $15 per hour in mid-2026. While most workers will be guaranteed at least $15 per hour by this time, our minimum wage law does not offer the same protections to tipped workers, young workers, and workers in certain industries.