New Law Offers NICU Family Leave
Episode 513 | Author: Emilie Aries
Colorado now offers a brand-new paid family and medical leave benefit
You’ve heard me say it before: Colorado is ahead of the curve, especially when it comes to advancing gender equity and caring about caregivers. Today, I’m excited to have another chance to brag about my beloved Centennial state: a new law will expand the state’s already groundbreaking family and medical leave program to provide additional benefits to parents whose newborns are admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) after birth.
Colorado’s family leave program
In 2020, Colorado became the first to pass paid family and medical leave via popular vote, establishing the FAMLI division within the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. Benefits became available for caregivers as of January 2924, and I’m a parent who has experienced both sides of the coin: having to self-fund my first maternity leave with my savings, and getting three months of state-funded coverage for my second (and I even gave an interview on ABC about this back in 2022).
The program is funded via a new payroll tax all employees across the state contribute to, with employees chipping in 0.45% of their pay per pay period and larger employers (with 9 or more employees) contributing the same. For small businesses like mine, employers don’t contribute anything and now with the state’s support, we’re able to compete to top talent with the bigger firms who’ve long been able to afford these benefits.
As of today (June 2025), another 13 states and Washington, D.C. have developed mandatory family leave programs, and 24 more jurisdictions have implemented voluntary programs, too.
New benefits for families with babies in the NICU
As of this year, State Senators Faith Winter and Jeff Bridges, with support from State Representatives Jenny Willford and Yara Zokaie, put forward Senate Bill 144, which Governor Jared Polis has signed into law. The bill expands the existing FAMLI program by creating an entirely new type of leave — known as Neonatal Care Leave — which will allow parents to take up to 12 additional weeks of paid time off while their newborns are in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.
This first-of-it’s-kind new benefit means that parents who are discharged from the hospital while their newborn remains in the NICU will be able to access 12 weeks of neonatal care leave in addition to their 12 weeks of bonding leave through FAMLI. The stress and financial strain this alleviates can’t be overstated. Because, honestly, no one should have to choose whether or not to go back to work to make ends meet while their newborn is in the NICU.
Bigger benefits, lower premiums
While the new legislation expands these benefits, it also reduces premiums for employers and workers from .9% to 0.88% of wages, making coverage even more affordable for Colorado workers and employers. According to projections from state fiscal analysts, the change will save Colorado workers and employers $35 million next fiscal year alone.
Now, I want to hear from you! How has access to paid family and medical leave (or the lack thereof) affected you? Check out the Courage Community on Facebook or join us in our group on LinkedIn to weigh in.
And if you want to do more to put pressure on your own lawmakers to follow in Colorado’s game-changing footsteps, go to our TAKE ACTION page to learn more.
Related Links From Today’s Episode:
Episode 489, How the Cost of Childcare Has Become a Workforce Issue
Episode 434, The Economic Imperative of Affordable Childcare
Episode 479, America’s Parents Are Not Okay
Senate Bill 25-144, “Change to Paid Family Med Leave Insurance Program”
A Better Balance, “Colorado Expands Paid Family and Medical Leave for NICU Parents”
Colorado General Assembly, “Change Paid Family Medical Leave Insurance Program”
Colorado Politics, “Colorado governor signs bill increasing family leave for parents of NICU babies”
Denver7, “Deductions for Colorado's paid family, medical leave program begin in 2023”
Colorado’s Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI) program
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EMILIE: Hey and welcome to the Bossed Up podcast, episode 513. I'm your host, Emilie Aries, the Founder and CEO of Bossed Up And I'm not gonna lie, I just put my kids to bed and have snuck back into my home office to give you the lowdown on some good news for a change.
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I wanted to jump on the mic here to tell you a little bit about a brand new that has been passed here in Colorado that once again has me just shouting from the rooftops how ahead of the curve the state of Colorado is when it comes to care, when it comes to making this a state that cares about people and making this the best state to be in. If you are someone who is a caretaker or plans to become a caretaker in the future, whether we're talking about caring for kids or caring for elderly people or sick loved ones, this is the state that cares about caretakers.
So let me back up and share the good news because in a world where I feel a little afraid often to even open my New York Times app every day, this is a headline that made me smile from ear to ear. So here's the bottom line. Once again, Colorado has pushed the boundaries and been on the bleeding edge of providing paid family and medical leave.
You may recall that back in 2020 I've podcasted about this before here Colorado became the first state in the nation to pass paid family and medical leave via popular vote. The voters of Colorado on our ballots voted in via ballot initiative, a paid family and medical leave program that established an entirely new state department devoted to this work within the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, FAMLI, F, A, M, L, I, became our new division devoted to providing paid family and medical leave. The ballot initiative was passed in 2020 and implementation began almost right away. But the benefits weren't available until just recently, January of 2024.
And I've been proud to put my support behind paid family and medical leave on both the state and national level. Since really moving here to Colorado in 2017, I got involved with small business advocacy organizations like the nationwide group Small Business Majority or the Colorado based group Good Business Colorado and did everything from providing testimony at the State House to writing letters to the editor, to sitting down with media outlets and really talking about why I supported this legislation and supported the family program as not only a mom myself, but as an employer who's currently right now my employee Irene is out on paid family and medical leave funded entirely by the state. So thank you Irene and thank you to the state of Colorado.
I also had the unique perspective of having had my first child, Max in 2021 before this law was on the books, or before it was implemented, I should say. It was passed in 2020, but it hadn't been available in terms of, those benefits weren't available to me when Max was born. So I basically lived off my savings for my own postpartum period. The three month leave that I took from my business was self funded. And then fast forward three years later and both Brad, the dad, and myself have benefited directly from the family program upon the arrival of our second child, Josephine. In fact, Brad is still benefiting from his paid family and medical leave through the state by taking intermittent leave. After taking about four, six weeks up front when JoJo first arrived, he now stays home with her one day a week that's paid for by the state and significantly helps reduce our child care costs.
So, needless to say, I've long been a big supporter of this program and I'm thrilled to see how Colorado on many fronts related to workers rights, Colorado leads the nation. As of now, 13 other states and D.C. have mandatory family leave programs, while another 24 states and jurisdictions have voluntary options.
Okay, so this is all old news, but important background context to understand what's just happened. As of the close of this past legislative session, lawmakers here in the Colorado State Capitol, led by Senator Faith Winter and Senator Jeff Bridges, along with support from House members, Representative Jenny Willford and Yara Zokaie, put forth a bill, Senate Bill 144, that was signed into law by Governor Jared Polis, that expands the family program, creating an entirely new type of of leave, neonatal care leave. This will now allow parents to take up to 12 additional weeks of paid time off, funded by the state, to care for newborns while they are in the neonatal intensive care unit, the NICU.
In other words, parents can afford to take paid leave now even while their kids are still in the hospital. And then after those 12 weeks are up, hopefully the babies won't even be there for 12 weeks. But however long, up to 12 weeks of paid leave that they get while their babies are in the NICU, then when they return home, they can still take an additional full bonding leave through the family program, which is up to 12 weeks of paid leave as well. This means that any parent whose child is in the NICU could receive up to a total of 24 weeks of paid family leave, 12 weeks of bonding leave, and 12 weeks for NICU leave.
Now, I have seen firsthand good friends of mine who had to navigate this very tricky situation where a friend who comes to mind in particular had a high risk pregnancy with twins, delivered via emergency C-section, both girls were in the NICU for weeks on end. And mom gets discharged from the hospital and has to leave her babies behind. That alone is a gut wrenching experience to go through. But on top of that, which millions of moms go through this, right, every year. But that experience compounded by financial stress of not knowing whether you can afford to take time off without pay because your babies are in the NICU and it's not really qualified for bonding leave yet through paid family and medical leave programs, if you're even lucky enough to have paid family and medical leave, it's like, the financial stress on top of the stress of having a newborn in the hospital after you've been discharged yourself is absolutely gut wrenching.
Now, thanks to this groundbreaking law in Colorado, parents here are not going to have to make that decision with the same constraints. No family should have to make the difficult decision to return to work while their children are in the NICU, right. While their newborn is in the neonatal intensive care unit. You're going back to work to make ends meet because you can't take unpaid time off. Like that should not be a choice people have to make. And yet, until this law was passed, that was the reality.
Now, the incredible thing about this legislation is there's even more to it. It's not just that the benefits have been expanded to create this entirely new class of leave, but at the same time, they lowered premiums. The new law lowers premiums for employers and workers from 0.9% from every paycheck withheld to 0.88% of wages, making coverage even more affordable for Colorado workers and employers. So up until now, that 0.9% was split 50/50. So for every paycheck, employees are contributing to the state insurance program 0.45% of their take home pay. Which for somebody making $65,000 a year, we're talking about like $292 a year. So a couple dollars out of every paycheck from the employee side.
For larger companies, right, for companies with more than nine employees, the employer was also paying 0.45% of each employee's take home pay. And then how much you receive in terms of benefits from the state depends on how much your salary is, with a maximum cap this year, that's been around like $1,200 bucks a week. And the new Colorado Department of Labor and Employment's, I think it's the workers compensation division, just came out with a new calculation around, I think it has to do with like the cost of living adjustments, or inflation, or what have you, the new number is going to be somewhere around $1,500 bucks a week maximum, right? And so based on how much you make, I think they, they reimburse you up to like 85% of your paycheck per week with a cap of that, that amount. But that is all coming from an insurance program that's funded by every worker and every large employer.
Now, for me and small business owners, since this law was enacted, we haven't had to pay anything for our employees to get those benefits. So someone like Irene has been contributing that 0.45% of her take home pay to the insurance program as an employee and me as a small business owner has not had to contribute anything. So if your business has fewer than I think it's nine or fewer employees in your business, your small business owner is not on the hook for any of that amount. So to me, it's like an incredible opportunity for small business owners like myself to be able to compete with top talent without having the big benefits packages that larger companies have to offer. And now that 0.9% is going down to 0.88% for the entirety of next year, which, according to projections from the state fiscal analysts, this change alone will save Colorado workers and employers something like $35 million dollars next fiscal year.
So once again, I just want to tip my hat to our legislators here in Colorado for being on the forefront of this issue, for making Colorado the state that cares about caretakers and the state that makes being a parent feel possible. Don't get me wrong, there is so much more to do. As you've probably heard me rant about here already, my next policy priority is our child care crisis and something I've been harping about for years. And I'm proud to be a member of EPIC, The Executives Partnering to Invest in Children nonprofit advocacy group here in Colorado that works nationwide on childcare affordability. But if we can solve for that here in Colorado, I mean, someone should give us an award for being the state that cares the most about becoming a parent and like, makes it possible to be a parent in this country, which frankly feels impossible. The latest math in our household is right now we're paying $4,500 a month for childcare for two, and that's with Brad staying home a day a week and my parents watching JoJo a day a week. So, just let that sink in and let's acknowledge that we have more work to do.
So if you want to throw your support behind these kinds of organizations that advocate for paid family and medical leave, or if you want to tell your local lawmakers to follow the model being set here in the Centennial State, head over to bossedup.org/takeaction to learn more about the systemic solutions that drive real and true, lasting gender equality, including paid family and medical leave.
As always, for links to everything I just talked about, including links to a cute media interview I did when Max was like a year and a half old all about paid family and medical leave here in Colorado,
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head to bossedup.org/episode513 that's bossedup.org/episode513. There you'll find resources you'll find easy to share, blog post summarizing today's episode and a fully written out transcript if that's your thing. And until next time, let's keep bossin’ in pursuit of our purpose and together let's lift as we climb.
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