Delaware Paid Leave to open for claims in 2026

December 1, 2025 28

DOVER – Employees around Delaware have been paying into a statewide family and medical leave program for a year and, come Jan. 1, they will finally gain access to Delaware paid leave in the event of a crisis, military deployment, the arrival of a new child or other situation.

The program upgrades the well-known Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) for employees in Delaware, one of 13 states with such a program that now allows employees to receive some of their wages during a period of leave.

FMLA was federally established more than 30 years ago by the Clinton Administration in February 1993. At the time, it provided up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave in a 12-month period for situations such as the birth, placement of a child or serious health conditions involving the employee or a family member.

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However, it only required the unpaid leave for those who worked for employers who had 50 employees or more within a 75-mile radius of the employment location. Employees qualified if they had worked for the employer for at least 12 months and 1,250 hours in the year prior to coverage.

Chris Counihan, director of the Delaware Paid Leave Program, told the Delaware State Chamber of Commerce in a podcast that employees utilizing FMLA were expected to survive off of their own personal savings when the national act went into effect.

“But the amount of emergency savings that most people have in their accounts has dwindled over the years. It was poor before COVID and, during COVID, it dropped to very low numbers like two-thirds of American families [said] that they don’t have enough emergency savings to be able to take time off of work for an emergency,” he explained.

As of now, the median amount in savings accounts per family is $8,000, Counihan told the Delaware Business Times, with each person saving only 3.8% of their income after monthly spending and taxes.

“Two-thirds of Americans report they are living paycheck to paycheck, meaning they could not pay their bills if they became unemployed,” he told DBT. “Delaware Paid Leave fills an urgent need for members of our workforce. It helps our communities thrive and makes our economy strong. Delaware workers and their families deserve support — a recourse — for staying financially healthy when dealing with a health condition, handling a military deployment, or bonding with a child.”

But that wasn’t the only problem plaguing employees at smaller businesses in Delaware. The federal regulations made it so that they simply didn’t fall under the FMLA requirements, leaving employees vulnerable in moments of change or stress without the same protections as others.

Delaware legislators sought to change that through the Healthy Delaware Families Act which was signed into law in May 2022. This effectively extended not just FMLA protections to employees in Delaware-based small businesses with at least 10 workers, about 15% of Delaware’s business base, along with payment for some of that leave, as well.

Counihan told DBT that more than 6,000 businesses in Delaware will be eligible, ultimately benefiting more than 400,000 employees statewide.

Although the act was formally established in 2022, employees and employers alike started sharing the costs and paying into the Delaware Paid Leave program throughout 2025. Employees can start to file claims as early as January 2026.

Under the new law, most First State businesses with at least 10 workers are now required to offer the program to include paid parental leave while employers with 25 or more workers have to offer that plus the full suite of benefits to include leave for medical conditions, caregiving and military deployment.

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The program will also replace up to 80% of a worker’s wages, capped at $900 per week and limited to six weeks of paid leave every 24 months for most circumstances, except for parental leave which allows up to 12 weeks per year. Employees may take no more than 12 total weeks of paid leave during a 12-month period.

He said that the program blends financial support with employee benefits, helping Delaware compete with other states that currently offer paid leave programs.