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Josh Goodbaum: Hey, Amanda!

Amanda DeMatteis: Hi, Josh. What are we going to talk about today?

Goodbaum: I want to talk about Connecticut Paid Leave. This is a big thing that’s happening for Connecticut’s workers in 2022. It started in 2021, but now in 2022, people who are sick, who can’t make it to work, under certain circumstances, can be compensated even if they don’t get sick pay from their employers. Tell us about that.

DeMatteis: Yeah, this is a huge benefit to Connecticut employees. So, if you are out of work for a qualifying medical reason, you can be compensated and entitled to 12 weeks of paid leave benefits.

A lot of questions: How do I get these benefits? How much is the benefit? What do I do?

There’s a great website that you want to check out, and that’s CTPaidLeave.org. But I wanted to go through these pieces of information for Connecticut employees to help them out if they’re needing medical leave at some point in the future.

So, the first thing that’s really important is you have to submit your claim no more than 30 calendar days from the date when paid leave benefits are requested. So, don’t wait – if you need medical leave, you only have 30 days from the date that that leave is requested to go online and submit the claim. Doing so is super easy. Again, go to CTPaidLeave.org; there’s a little blue box on the righthand side where you can submit a new claim. Start right there, walk through the steps, it’s super easy.

There’s a couple things you need to do after you initiate that first claim. The first is you need employer verification. There’s a form, again right on the website, that you can download and you can send to HR or your boss – whoever the appropriate person is to fill out this information for you. They need to complete that employer verification, get it back to you, and you need to upload it as part of your claim for the paid benefits. You have to submit that employer verification no later than 10 days after the new claim submission is made. So, you make that claim submission, you start the claim, you only have 10 days to get that employer verification back. So you’re going to want to download it, get it to your employer, get it back ASAP, and submit it as part of your claim.

Next, there is some supporting documentation that you may have, whether that be medical documentation or other documentation that Connecticut Paid Leave asks you for. You only have 15 calendar days from the time that you submit that new claim. So, again, you submit that claim, you get that employer verification in within 10 days, and if you have any supporting documentation at all, that needs to be submitted within 15 days. Really short time periods here, so make sure you stay on top of this.

Afterwards, though, the decision is made fast. Once they have all that documentation – your claims submission, the employer verification, any supporting documentation that you submit – they have five business days to give you an answer as to whether or not you qualify for benefits, which is really, really great.

So, what are the benefits? Well, number one, benefits payments are made on Tuesdays, and they are paid two weeks in arrears, so there’s going to be a little lull in between the time that you go out on leave and the time that you actually start receiving those benefits. The benefits are capped in Connecticut and it’s all based on what the minimum wage is. So, right now, in May of 2022, our minimum wage is $13 per hour. The maximum benefit currently for the Connecticut Paid Leave is 60 times that minimum wage, which comes out to be $780 a week.

Luckily for Connecticut employees, our minimum wage is going up incrementally over the next year or so. So, on July 1 of this year, the minimum wage is going to bump up to $14 an hour, which will make the maximum benefit for Connecticut Paid Leave $840 a week. Then again on June 1 of 2023 – so next June – the minimum wage is going to bump up again to $15 an hour, and that will make the maximum benefit for Connecticut Paid Leave $900 for a weekly benefit.

So, some good money available to Connecticut employees. A great resource if you need to go out on medical leave and you otherwise wouldn’t be compensated for that time. Again, take a look at CTPaidLeave.org. Thank you so much for watching!

Goodbaum: Thanks, Amanda!

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