Access to paid family and medical leave remains uneven in New Hampshire, despite the introduction of the New Hampshire Paid Family and Medical Leave program in 2023, according to a recent paper by sociology professor Kristin Smith titled “The New Hampshire Voluntary Paid Family and Medical Leave Program: Did the program increase coverage?” Smith’s paper finds that less than 3% of New Hampshire’s workforce has joined the program. As policymakers continue to debate the future of paid leave in the Granite State, The Dartmouth sat down with Smith to discuss her findings, the barriers limiting participation in the program and what paid leave reform could look like moving forward.
How does paid family and medical leave work in the United States?
KS: In the U.S., we don’t have a national program — only 14 states have a paid family [and] medical leave program. These programs are run by the state, and workers or employers can pay into the program. It essentially works like a fund. When workers have a qualifying event, they can apply to get benefits. The benefits usually act as a wage replacement, typically not at 100%, but somewhere between 70% and 90%. The most recent states coming out with these comprehensive programs have a scale, so if you’re a lower wage earner, you would be reimbursed a higher percentage, up to 90% of your wages.
We do have a national unpaid Family and Medical Leave Act, which guarantees job protection for workers to take up to 12 weeks of leave for their own illness, for parental leave or to care for a sick child or family member. But it’s unpaid. If you’re choosing between taking leave and getting a paycheck, that’s a hard choice. If you work for an employer with less than 50 employees, you’re not eligible for the job protection aspect. At the federal level, we don’t really have a good comprehensive program.
What makes New Hampshire’s approach different?
KS: New Hampshire came up with another idea: a voluntary program. They call it the New Hampshire Paid Family and Medical Leave program. The state contracted with MetLife to offer these benefits, and only MetLife can offer this product in New Hampshire. There are three parts to the program. State employees are automatically enrolled, employers can sign up at any time and individual workers can join if their employer doesn’t offer paid leave. The maximum the plan can cost is $5 per week.
What outcomes did you observe after the policy was enacted?
KS: In two-and-a-half years of the program, I was able to analyze administrative data and polling data I collected. Less than 3% of the workforce has joined this program. That doesn’t mean that only 3% of workers in New Hampshire have access to paid leave — because some employers are offering these benefits for retention and recruitment — but we do have a lack of paid family [and] medical leave access in the state, and this program really didn’t move the needle very much.
Why do you think enrollment has remained so low despite the program being available statewide?
KS: Despite a significant media outreach campaign, only 18% of Granite State workers had heard of the program through my polling questions. That’s definitely one of the reasons why people aren’t signing up. The other reasons have to do with how the program was constructed.
The wage replacement is 60% and many people see that as not high enough. In my brief, I make comparisons across subgroups of the population, and on the question of whether 60% wage replacement is enough, there was strong agreement that it was not enough. Women and men of different age groups, education levels, income levels and firm sizes all agreed that it was not enough. That’s a possible deterrent for program enrollment.
That level of agreement wasn’t the case for some of the other things I asked about. The program stipulates that it has to be at least six weeks of leave. Six weeks is really the floor compared to other comprehensive programs, which are typically more like 12 weeks of leave. On whether six weeks of leave was enough, responses were split, with 46% saying it was too low and 46% saying it was about right. Females said it was too low, and men said it was about right.
Another program component is job protection. This program follows the FMLA, so if you work for a small business, you wouldn’t have job protection coverage if you took this leave. I do think that’s a deterrent if people knew about it.
The brief emphasizes that the program has largely preserved existing inequities by gender, income, education level and firm size. Can you explain how those inequities show up in the data and why voluntary programs tend to reinforce them rather than reduce them?
KS: In New Hampshire, there was inequity in who had access to paid family and medical leave even before this program. Firm size is a great example. People working at larger firms are much more likely to have access to these types of leave than people at smaller firms. Males are more likely to have it than females, and higher educated people are more likely to have access than those with lower education and earnings. If you have a state program, you might want it to address some of these inequities. But that depends on whether you’re trying to shore up the safety net or simply offer an insurance program where people who can pay and know about it will join. The way this program is set up and structured isn’t addressing those inequities.
Looking ahead, you outline several possible policy improvements, from increasing wage replacement to adopting a comprehensive statewide program. What should New Hampshire lawmakers prioritize and why?
KS: In my view, lawmakers should focus first on job protection. Right now, job protection applies to firms with 50 or more workers. I would bring that threshold down to 25, which would significantly broaden job protection for many workers and could help bring more people into the program.
If we’re talking specifically about tweaking the existing program, job protection would be one priority, along with setting a higher minimum wage replacement level. If someone earns $10 an hour and receives only 60% of their wages while on leave, that’s $6 an hour instead of $10. That difference matters, especially for low-wage workers who need every dollar. Without a higher wage replacement level, those workers simply can’t afford to take leave.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
