Maternity leave and pay in the United States
Reviewed by Mellow Editorial Team, HR & payroll content team
Maternity leave in the United States is not guaranteed at the federal level beyond unpaid, job-protected time off under FMLA. How much leave a new mother actually receives — and whether any of it is paid — depends on her state, her employer's policy, and how long she has worked there.
What federal law actually guarantees
The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) is the only federal law that applies to maternity leave. It gives eligible employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave per year for the birth and care of a newborn.
To be eligible, an employee must:
- Work for a covered employer (private employers with 50 or more employees, plus most public agencies and schools)
- Have worked for that employer for at least 12 months
- Have logged at least 1,250 hours in the 12 months before the leave starts
- Work at a location where the employer has 50 or more employees within 75 miles
If an employee does not meet all four conditions, FMLA does not apply to her. Employers below the 50-employee threshold have no federal obligation to hold her job.
"Job-protected" means the employer must restore the employee to the same or an equivalent position when she returns. It does not mean the employer must pay her during that time.
Paid leave: the state-by-state picture
The United States has no federal paid maternity leave law. Whether an employee gets paid depends on where she lives.
Several states have enacted their own paid family leave (PFL) or paid family and medical leave (PFML) programs. California, New Jersey, New York, Washington, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Oregon, Colorado, and a growing number of others run state-funded programs that provide partial wage replacement — typically funded through employee payroll deductions, sometimes with an employer contribution. Benefit amounts and duration vary by state, but most replace somewhere between 60% and 90% of wages up to a weekly cap.
In states without a PFL program — which still includes most of the country — the only paid time off a new mother receives is whatever her employer chooses to offer: accrued vacation, sick leave, short-term disability insurance, or a dedicated parental leave policy.
There is no federal law requiring employers to offer any paid annual leave or sick leave at all, so in states without their own programs, an employee's options can be very limited.
Short-term disability as a bridge
Many employees use short-term disability (STD) insurance to cover at least part of their maternity leave. Because childbirth is treated as a qualifying medical event, STD policies typically pay a percentage of salary for the period a doctor certifies the employee as unable to work — often six to eight weeks for a vaginal birth and eight to ten weeks following a cesarean.
A few states (California, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Hawaii) have mandatory state disability insurance programs that automatically cover this. Elsewhere, coverage depends on whether the employer offers a group STD plan or the employee has purchased her own policy. If an employee is not enrolled before becoming pregnant, she generally cannot enroll mid-pregnancy and expect benefits at birth.
What employers are legally required to do beyond FMLA
The Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) requires employers with 15 or more employees to treat pregnancy, childbirth, and related conditions the same as any other temporary disability or medical condition. If a company lets employees use short-term disability leave for other conditions, it must allow the same for pregnancy-related recovery.
The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), which took effect in June 2023, adds a separate obligation: covered employers (15 or more employees) must provide reasonable accommodations for known limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, unless doing so would cause undue hardship. This covers the period before birth as well as recovery afterward.
Neither law creates a right to paid leave — they deal with equal treatment and accommodation, not wage replacement.
What to check as an employer
If you are setting or reviewing a maternity leave policy, the practical checklist looks like this:
1. Confirm your FMLA coverage. If you have 50 or more employees, FMLA applies and its requirements are not optional.
2. Check your state law. Your state may have a paid leave program, a separate job-protection law that covers smaller employers, or both.
3. Review your disability insurance. Make sure employees know whether STD coverage exists and how to file a claim.
4. Apply policies consistently. Under the PDA, pregnancy-related leave must be treated at least as favorably as other medical leave.
5. Document your policy clearly. Employees should know what is paid, what is unpaid, and how to request leave before they need it.
Running payroll correctly during a leave period — including handling deductions, benefits continuation, and any state PFL contributions — is one of the more administratively complex tasks employers face. If you operate across multiple states, how Mellow runs payroll across six countries on one platform gives a sense of how a centralized system reduces that complexity.
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