A law signed by Governor Murphy last year greatly expanding New Jersey’s Paid Family Leave benefits has gone into effect as of today’s date, July 1, 2020. New Jersey’s Paid Family Leave provides leave insurance for eligible workers who need to take time off to bond with a new child or to care for a seriously ill family member.

Under the new law, eligible workers can now collect up to 85% of their weekly pay, up to a maximum weekly amount of $881 per week. This is a significant increase over the previous weekly cap of benefits which was $650 per week. The new law also doubles the number of benefit weeks, from 6 weeks to 12 weeks. Lastly, the new law expands the definition of who qualifies as a family member. Previously, the law including only children, parents, spouses, domestic partners, and civil union partners. Now the law also includes adult children, parents-in-law, siblings, grandparents, grandchildren, any blood relative, and anyone else you consider to be like family.