When state paid leave benefits actually change

Here is the assumption almost everyone makes, including a lot of published summaries: a state announces next year's paid-leave figures in December, they take effect on 1 January, and that is the number until the following January. Tidy, and true for California, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Washington.

It is false for most of the rest. Oregon's maximum turns over in late June. Maine's and Rhode Island's move on 1 July. Minnesota's changes on the last Sunday in October. The District of Columbia has two separate figures that move on two different dates, neither of them January. And Colorado has the trap that catches people who have done their homework: its underlying wage figure moves on 1 July, but the benefits calculated from it do not change until the following 1 January — so a July announcement of a higher benefit is describing something six months away.

This matters for a practical reason. In most of the off-cycle states, your weekly benefit is fixed on the day your claim is established and does not move for the rest of your leave. Filing on one side of a turnover date or the other can change every payment you receive.

The states that do not reset in January

Current maximum weekly benefit, the date it next changes, and whether the rate is locked when you file. Figures are drawn from each state's own published rates and the statute that sets them; they update here when the underlying data does.

For comparison, these reset on 1 January: California ($1,765), Colorado ($1,381.45), Connecticut ($1,016.40), Delaware ($900), Massachusetts ($1,230.39), New Jersey ($1,119), New York ($1,228.53), Washington ($1,647).

Two dates, one number

The harder cases are the states where a figure is set on one date and applies from another. Reading only the announcement gets you the wrong number, and it will look authoritative while being six months early.

Colorado is the clearest example. The state average weekly wage that drives the benefit is set each 1 July. The maximum benefit calculated from it changes the following 1 January. A June news release announcing that the maximum “is also going up” is accurate and is not describing this year. Claims already running are redetermined rather than locked, which makes Colorado the exception to the lock-in rule in the table above.

The District of Columbia has two knobs. The bend point where the 90% replacement band ends follows the DC minimum wage each 1 July. The maximum weekly benefit is reviewed each 1 October — and that one is not automatic: an increase happens only if the Chief Financial Officer certifies the paid-leave fund is solvent. “No change” is a legitimate outcome in October, so a figure projected forward from inflation may describe an increase that never arrives.

Connecticut announces in October for a January change. Its cap is not a fixed dollar amount at all — it is 60 times the state minimum fair wage, so it moves whenever the minimum wage does, and the commissioner must announce the new wage by 15 October for a 1 January effect.

Minnesota is the one that most resists a quick answer. State law requires the commissioner to calculate the next maximum by 30 June, but does not require publishing it, and it does not apply until the last Sunday in October. For part of the year the figure legally exists and appears nowhere public. We leave it blank here rather than estimate it, for the reason described in the methodology: a plausible number derived from wage growth looks exactly as authoritative on a page as a real one.

Why the lock matters more than the increase

In Oregon, Rhode Island, Maine, Minnesota and the District of Columbia, the weekly amount is fixed when your claim is established. Minnesota's statute is explicit about it: once established, the weekly benefit amount is not affected by the last-Sunday-in-October change.

The practical consequence is narrow but real. If your leave is going to begin within a week or two of your state's turnover date, and the new figures are already published and higher, the start date on your claim decides which set applies for the whole leave. That is not a reason to delay a medically necessary leave by a single day, and no calculator should tell you otherwise. It is a reason to know the date before you file, because in the cases where you genuinely have discretion — bonding leave scheduled after a recovery period, for instance — the difference applies to every week you take.

Colorado works the other way: claims are redetermined rather than locked, so a January increase reaches a leave already in progress.

What to check before you file

1. Find your state in the table above and note its next change date. If your state resets in January, there is nothing further to do.
2. If your leave will start within about two weeks of that date, check whether the new figure has actually been published — not announced as forthcoming, but published as the operative number. Your state's page on this site links to the agency document that carries it.
3. Confirm whether your state locks the rate. If it does, the claim-establishment date is what matters, not the date you first take leave.
4. If the two are close and you have real discretion over timing, that is worth a conversation with your employer's HR team before you commit to a start date.

How this page was assembled

Each date here came from the state's own statute or rate announcement, not from another summary. Several took more work than they should have: Rhode Island publishes each year's figures in a new press release at a new address, so the previous year's link keeps working and keeps showing last year's numbers. Maine's maximum is not stated as a dollar figure in the statute at all — the law says the maximum is the state average weekly wage, so you have to find the wage.

The table is generated from the same data the calculator uses, so it cannot drift away from the figures on the state pages. If you are comparing states rather than timing a claim, the companion piece is which state pays the most — where the answer turns out not to be the one with the highest cap. Where this site has previously got one of these dates wrong, it is written up on the corrections page — including the time we applied Colorado's January figures in July, which is the mistake this article exists to describe.