Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML) Five Years In: Policy Advances Quickly; Society Advances Slowly 

By Annie Garrett, PEPS Contributor (Estimated reading time: 8 minutes)

Washington State’s Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML) benefit wasn’t born yesterday! Five years in, we take a look back at how far our state has come since the policy was implemented in 2019. What’s going well, and what could be going better? To find out, we aggregated reports on the recent legislative session and reached out to Seattle area parents for input on user experience.  

Primer: What is Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML)? 

The Washington State PFML program offers a minimum of 12 weeks of paid leave for qualifying employees for specific medical and care events. This applies both to caring for oneself and one’s family. “Bonding leave” following the birth or adoption of a child is a qualifying event. Leave amounts vary according to earnings, maxing out at 90% of an employee’s paycheck up to $1456 per week. Visit the Washington Paid Family and Medical Leave website for all the ins and outs.  

Where does the money come from?  

PFML is structured like insurance, with employees paying the bulk of costs, gradually and in small increments.  Those who work at an organization with 50+ employees have premium contributions deducted as a small percentage (.074% in 2024) of each paycheck. Collectively, employees pay 71.43% and employers pay 28.57% of the premium in 2024. The annual premium rate is recalculated every October, and takes effect in January of the following year. In 2024, the premium rate actually decreased from .08% to .074% of each employee’s paycheck.  

What has changed for PFML? 

Similar to the growth and development of a young child, in its first five years, PFML has been adapting to the demands of its environment. Each year, bills have been proposed before the Washington state legislature that have addressed common concerns about the program. In 2023, the legislature passed a bill to address highly publicized concerns with the financial stability of the program, which was covered by PEPS in a 2023 post entitled “Can We Count on Paid Leave? An Update from the 2023 Legislative Session.” In 2024, the legislature took action to prevent delays in claims approvals. A delay in a claims approval can mean that a family with a newborn or newly adopted child is now going without one parent’s income at a time they were expecting it. HB 2102 Health and Wellness was passed and requires healthcare providers to adopt standards for the disclosure of healthcare information for those applying for PFML. This includes a requirement that medical certification requests are approved within seven days in order to reduce potential delays of benefit checks.  

Local parents share experiences using PFML 

Thirteen Puget Sound Area parents who used PFML within the past 2 years recently weighed in on their PFML experience*. Parents responded by survey or open comment. Three key themes emerged: overarching gratitude placed in context, intermittent frustration with paperwork and waiting periods, and some parents who experienced barriers to full enjoyment of their leave due to challenges with employers and childcare. 

Gratitude 

The most prominent theme was a sense of gratitude felt by parents for being able to spend more time bonding with their baby. Parents put their gratitude in context, as Washington is one of just 10 states (+ DC) that currently has a mandatory paid leave program. The following comments are representative of those collected from the sample of thirteen families: 

• “First off, really proud of WA state for rolling out this program. Happy to live here and partake in the benefits with our first baby this time last year.”  — Toni, parent of 2, South Seattle 
• “The fact that this exists at all is wonderful. And in the end it worked to help support time off work to be with family.”  — Mike, parent of 2, Rainier Beach 
• “I am just grateful to have the PFML option – so many people in the US do not have access to paid family leave and the stress of taking needed (I’d argue required) time off without any sort of paycheck is so depressing. I was able to take time with my child and focus on this special time together and I will be forever grateful for that.” — Joy, parent of 2, Shoreline

Challenges with paperwork and wait times 

Many parents commented at length on the issues they encountered with PFML paperwork and wait times. Issues include delays in benefits, not having a way to check the leave balance, and confusing paperwork. Two parents who used leave intermittently described that experience as particularly confusing. All that said, a few parents commented that the Employment Security Department (ESD) was supportive.  

• “It took forever to get the paperwork from the hospital…we didn’t get approved until almost a month after she was born. I also wished that website would let you know your running total hours remaining, especially when my husband used his intermittently.” — Lea, parent of 2, North Tacoma
• “My company’s benefits administrator misreported my hours which [led] to an initial denial of benefits so I needed to appeal. Without a financial cushion this would have been incredibly stressful at exactly the time you don’t want to be uploading pdf paystubs, on the phone with the unemployment office who is administering the program… That said, the people who support you over the phone with the case just want to do the due diligence so they can get you paid.”  — Toni, parent of 2, South Seattle

Societal norms 

Finally, families described ways that societal norms interfered with their ability to fully enjoy their leave. Most commonly, employers were unable to provide clear guidance on leave usage. This implies that the status quo expectation persists for American families, even if only implicitly: parents should handle leave and family matters privately. Lack of accessible infant care also impacted leave for one parent.  

• “My husband also ran into issues as an employee of UW. Their HR really didn’t understand the WA PFML program and how it interacts with some of the UW benefits…needless to say it ended up in an overpayment that we are now contesting.”  —Toni, parent of 2, South Seattle 
• “…a couple coworkers filled in certain duties during my leave, but it was inadequate and I felt compelled to still work part time, lest I return to a mountain of piled up work.” Liz also added an issue that stems from treating infant care as a private good in American society: “Affordable, quality infant care is extremely hard to come by in Seattle, so when you find it, you jump on it. We hoped to start our kiddo at 9 months old since we had PFML, but the owner wanted him to start no later than 6 months old. I am sad that we started taking him there months before our leave was over, and we had to pay for full time even though we only needed part time.” — Liz, parent of 2, Central Seattle 
• “…employers are not well informed. Even in 2022, two years into the program, my husband’s large company had no idea how PFML worked… I think as a man, they were not expecting him to take leave at all… when I went into labor his bosses were like, ‘Soooo…. you’re NOT coming into work tomorrow…?’ They called him 4-5 times during the leave to confirm his return date.”  — Jo, parent of 2, Edgewood 

Analysis: Has paid leave progressed over the past five years? 

If 2024’s legislative session is any indication, the answer would be YES! One of the most common pain points that surfaced in this survey and also in the survey we did in 2022 was that of paperwork delays, resulting in families needing savings to cover a gap in pay/benefits. The passage of HB 2102 in the 2024 Washington State legislative session will help families access paid leave benefits in a timely manner, reducing stress during an already overwhelming period of life. This suggests that Washington State is being responsive to feedback and making progress toward a more quality experience with PFML.  

Despite improvements, we are still far from catching up with peer nations both in terms of having a robust policy and the societal support needed to use it as intended. In a viral podcast from the NYTimes entitled The Deep Conflict Between our Work and Parenting Ideals, Ezra Klein interviews Caitlyn Collins, a sociology professor at Washington University in St. Louis. Klein and Collins discuss how Swedes frame family leave policies and parent/child bonding time as a right, while Americans frame it as a privilege. That parents in our Washington State survey – myself included – felt altogether “grateful” for their leave is illustrative of this phenomenon: five years in, Washingtonians still see leave as a privilege more than a right. Until we shift our mindset, societal norms may persist as a barrier to fully enjoying our leave, even as state policy advances.  

Last but not least: how can we keep evolving PFML? 

If you care about this issue, one straightforward thing a busy parent can do is follow PEPS advocacy alerts and let your legislators know where you stand on family policy matters during critical points of legislative session. In 2024, PEPS supported the successful passing of HB 2102 that will address the widely held challenge of wait periods and delays for leave. To learn more about PEPS advocacy priorities and sign up for advocacy alerts, check out https://www.peps.org/about/advocacy. And for those of you who will enjoy a longer leave period with your child, consider joining a Baby Peppers group to get community support during leave with your 5-12 month old child.  

*Names have been changed for privacy purposes 

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