In 2024, Colorado’s Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI) took effect, extending the right to paid leave to Coloradans who are caring for themselves or loved ones. A Better Balance’s Colorado Office played a lead role in drafting, passing, and implementing this landmark program. In the first year of the FAMLI program’s implementation, it has paid out $687 million to more than 135,000 hard-working Coloradans, demonstrating both the ubiquity of the need for paid leave, and the overwhelmingly positive impact these programs have for families, communities, and businesses.
Notably, Colorado is the first (and thus far only) state to enact a paid family leave program via ballot initiative. Approved in November 2020, it won among voters of all parties and carried rural, suburban, and urban districts across the State. The overwhelming support for the law amongst the Coloradans who directly approved the policy is consistent with the broad and bipartisan popularity of these essential policies amongst voters nationwide.
Following its successful implementation by the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, it is clear that Colorado’s FAMLI program has proven itself to be solvent and stable on top of serving as a lifeline to workers who may have previously been forced to sacrifice their income or jobs when a serious injury or illness arose, or when they welcomed a new child or needed to take care of a loved one. In addition to supporting and uplifting workers – especially parents and caregivers – Colorado businesses have also reaped the rewards of FAMLI, which has allowed them to provide a necessary benefit to their employees through an affordable social insurance program and, in turn, strengthened the workforce. FAMLI has also leveled the playing field for small businesses who previously couldn’t afford to provide paid family and medical leave out of pocket (like some larger businesses could) and struggled to recruit and retain talented workers as a result.
Now, in light of the program’s tremendous success, a bill proposing to expand the program to provide additional paid leave for families with newborns in the neonatal intensive care unit or NICU has passed the state Senate. The proposal would extend benefits for up to an additional 12 weeks while a worker is caring for a child in the NICU, providing urgently needed relief for new parents navigating this stressful time and ensuring the program better meets the needs of more families in the state.
As one of 14 states (including D.C.) to make paid family and medical leave a right for workers, Colorado’s FAMLI program models the benefits and success of state-administered paid leave programs. FAMLI also serves as an example to federal lawmakers–regardless of party– on the bipartisan support for this issue and how a national paid leave program could similarly support and uplift families across the country.
We were so proud to fight for the passage of the FAMLI program, and as we reflect on a year of paid leave for Coloradans, it remains clear that we must extend these benefits to workers nationwide.
