In Brief:
- Minnesota’s paid leave program launches in January, providing partial wage replacement and job security for workers to care for loved ones or their own medical needs.
- The program will eventually have a staff of around 350 people.
- Flexibility and public engagement have been priorities for the group building the program.
Come January, Minnesotans are going to have more time to spend with their families — and they’ll also have a little more money taken out of their paychecks.
In 2023, during a blockbuster legislative session with the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party in control of the state government, Minnesota adopted a new law providing paid leave for workers. It’s one of the most comprehensive paid leave laws in the country, and has required the state government to build out a sprawling administrative apparatus.
“It’s a whole new state agency,” says Greg Norfleet, director of the paid leave program.
The new law applies to most full- and part-time workers in Minnesota who earn at least $3,700 in a year. Workers can take up to 12 weeks of family leave in a year to care for a new child or other family member, and another 12 weeks medical leave to care for themselves, with a max of 20 weeks in a single benefit year. They’ll receive up to 90 percent of their weekly wages, with the maximum benefit capped at the state’s average weekly wage, $1,372. The program is funded partly by a payroll tax split between employers and workers. It’s a new public benefit entering a patchwork of existing employer-led leave policies.
The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development has been on a hiring spree as it prepares to launch the program in the new year. So far, it employs around 240 full-time equivalent positions, plus additional vendors and dedicated positions within Minnesota IT Services. It’s currently hiring about 25 people a week, and expecting a full roster of just over 350 staff by the time the program begins.
More than a dozen other states have adopted new mandatory paid leave programs in the last decade. Before moving to Minnesota, Norfleet worked in Massachusetts state government, helping to launch the paid leave program there during the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was the beginning of a second wave of state-sponsored paid leave programs, with more generous benefits and more expansive eligibility criteria. Norfleet says there’s been a lot to learn from states that have implemented programs over the last few years.
“In Massachusetts, we wanted to launch a paid leave program," he says. "In Minnesota, we want to launch the best paid leave program."
In addition to all the hiring, the state has conducted in-depth public outreach to try to ease employers (and employees) through the transition. Norfleet was hired in the fall of 2023, just a few months after the bill creating the paid leave program passed the state Legislature. The department opened a call center that October and began fielding questions from both employers and workers, which has been helpful in “getting some of the anxiety out” in the business community and helping workers understand the benefits, Norfleet says. The department has also hosted more than 250 public engagement sessions with employers. After Norfleet joined, the program quickly hired a senior administrative office and a public engagement director.
“We built this really strong managerial apparatus out of the gate,” he says.
Officials have also leaned on relationships and expertise in other parts of the state government, in particular the unemployment insurance program, to develop some aspects of the new benefit program. (Paid leave will make use of the same debit cards that are used to distribute unemployment benefits, for example.) The department’s goal is to have eligibility determinations made within two weeks of claims being filed — a bit faster than other states with similar programs.
Norfleet knows that it’s important for his staff to be nimble and flexible, particularly given the somewhat tenuous status of public benefit programs, especially new ones. Democrats passed the paid leave program in 2023 with no Republican votes. The Legislature has made small changes to the law in both legislative sessions since. Earlier this year, state Rep. Dave Baker, a Republican, sponsored a bill to postpone implementation of the program for a year. Baker, who runs a small hotel franchise, was opposed to the mandatory state-run paid leave program from the beginning. But he says his specific concerns now are that too many businesses don’t know about the program and aren’t ready to start making their first payments next spring. He also believes there’s going to be a “bubble” of enrollees at the beginning of next year that will be disruptive to businesses.
“It’s a huge mandate,” Baker says. “There’s no choices for exemptions with collective bargaining agreements, with small nonprofits or churches. Very, very, very little has been carved out for anybody. It’s one-size-fits-all.”
Baker says Republicans will probably be eager to limit the scope of the program the next time they take control of the state government, though they’re not likely to undo it all at once. The political nature of the program, rooted in a law that could be changed or scrapped at any time, isn’t lost on Norfleet.
“The thing that we’ve focused on is building a team that’s really comfortable with change,” he says.
That’s also why it’s important that the program works right out of the gate, to show people that the state is capable of providing a durable benefit.
“Paid leave is fundamentally about being there for one another in life’s biggest moments,” Norfleet says. “Working on a program like this is an honor and privilege and it’s also a big responsibility to get it right. We take that responsibility really seriously.”
Related Stories
