Benefits At The Right Time and The Right Place

We all need time off from work sometimes to care for ourselves and for our families. In the United States, eight states already support this need with official policies that created Paid Family and Medical Leave insurance funds - and this is a great start! But in California, as many as two thirds of people taking leave from work did not claim their benefits in any given year [1]. Research has shown that lack of awareness and widespread confusion about the program hinders many people from claiming their benefits [2].

What if workers could learn about and become enrolled for Paid Family and Medical Leave, at the moment they realize that they need them?  In theory, that’s what the current policy attempts to do; Employers are mandated to provide employees information about the program when the employee makes the employer aware of their need. However, research has shown that this does not actually happen - either because the employee never approaches the employer with his or her need, or because the employer themselves are unaware of their responsibilities.  Could we reach more workers and provide better support in some other way?  What if, the email reminder you get about your upcoming appointment also has a link to apply for paid leave at the same time? What if  you could check your eligibility for job protection and paid family leave in your third trimester, in the same tool you use to track your pregnancy or to make medical appointments?

Building such a seamless user experience would require effective collaboration between public and private sector, but in theory it would be possible.

A wireframe of a medical appointment app enabling a pregnant women to check her Paid Family and Medical leave eligibility and coverage.

References:

[1] Estimated as the difference between the 15% of Americans who take leave for a qualified FMLA reason, as found in a report titled, Employee Leave Taking Patterns, Produced for the U.S. Department of Labor, Chief Evaluation Office. Rockville, MD: Abt Associates Inc, and the estimated 5% of Californians who claimed Disability Insurance and Paid Family Leave according to Impact of Increasing State Disability Insurance Wage Replacement Rate, a 2018 report by the California EDD

[2] New America’s Implementing Paid Family and Medical Leave