Employee payroll deductions that will fund Connecticut’s impending paid-leave program have officially begun, and could raise as much as $400 million over the next 12 months.
But paid-leave overseer Andrea Barton Reeves has plenty to worry about in 2021 besides simply collecting the money.
Gov. Ned Lamont said Wednesday that the COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the need for Connecticut’s coming paid family and medical leave program and is no reason to delay its implementation.
Published December 31. 2020 10:38AM | Updated December 31. 2020 2:34PM
Mark Pazniokas, The Connecticut Mirror
Gov. Ned Lamont said Wednesday that the COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the need for Connecticut s coming paid family and medical leave program and is no reason to delay its implementation. I think we ve learned over the course of the last nine and a half months in COVID that, surely, paid medical leave makes so much sense, Lamont said. Because otherwise, people show up to work sick. And that s the last thing you want, especially in this time.
The new program, however, offers no pandemic relief.
Benefits under the program will not be available until Jan. 1, 2022, but payroll deductions to fund it begin Friday, Jan. 1, 2021. The deduction will be 0.5% of the first $142,800 of wages, the same amount subject to Social Security taxes.
Published December 23. 2020 4:44PM | Updated December 24. 2020 9:05AM By
Lee Elci
A financial reckoning lurks silently in the shadows ready to envelop the overburdened, overwhelmed Connecticut taxpayer. Commencing Jan. 1, unless you are a state employee, your weekly paychecks will get smaller; 0.5% smaller to be exact. Phase One of The Paid Family and Medical Leave Act officially institutes its slow grind of separating you from your hard-earned income at the onset of the new year.
State employees are exempt from this new tax since they currently have a publicly funded plan already in place.
Following the 2018 election, the Connecticut legislature enacted the Paid Family and Medical Leave Act, which creates a system that will entitle each eligible Connecticut employee to paid family leave. The deduction applies to each employee s wages up to the Social Security contribution base ($142,800 in 2021). The program is targeted to begin in 2022 and will provide workers in Connect