Nearly 16,400 Conn. workers take paid leave
New program paid $81M in first 6 months; illness and injury most common reasons
Nearly 16,400 workers in Connecticut took paid leave in the first six months of a new state program, an $81 million outlay — with thousands of other applicants getting denied after producing insufficient proof for their claims of being stricken with complications from the COVID-19 virus for an extended period.
Connecticut began allowing workers to apply for paid leave starting in December 2021, after the Connecticut General Assembly passed the authorizing law the prior June. Payments under the program began last January, with the Connecticut Paid Leave Authority awarding $562 on average weekly to workers, at stretches of nearly seven weeks on average.
The new Connecticut Paid Leave Authority paid out just over $81 million in benefits during first six months of the program, with the total having grown since to $97.6 million as of last week. As of last Friday, just more than
50,000 claims had been under the program, with a small percentage of applicants filing more than one claim after making adjustments from an initial version.
Illness and injury have been the top reasons for approved leaves, followed by pregnancies, births and bonding; and caring for family members. With victims of family violence allowed to take paid leave, the Connecticut Paid Leave Authority received 77 applications through last week for benefits under that allowance.
“One look at the numbers and you can see that paid family and medical leave has been in high demand with Connecticut workers and their families,” said Gov. Ned Lamont stated in a press release Thursday. “The law goes a long way toward making our state one of the most family-friendly in the country.”
The Connecticut Paid Leave Authority process applications both online at ctpaidleave.org or by phone weekdays from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. at 877-499-8606, with Aflac processing claims for the state.
Speaking last week during a meeting of the finance and audit committee of the Connecti
cut Paid Leave Authority, CEO Andrea Barton Reeves said early claims data is matching up with that of Massachusetts, Washington and multiple other states that have paid leave programs in place.
She added that the Connecticut Paid Leave Authority has found little evidence of fraud to date by workers applying for time off, but that it suspects some applications of having been generated by criminals aiming to siphon off funds.
“It is really happening across all paid leave programs, with very
organized, professionalized rings who just move from one state to another,” Reeves said last week. “It's not happening where people thought it would be, where people would try to fit themselves in a category of claimant they don't belong to in order to try to take advantage of the benefit.”
A worker cannot receive both worker's compensation and paid leave benefits simultaneously, according to Jessica Vargas, a spokesperson for the Connecticut Paid Leave Authority.
“If the employer indicates that there is a pending (but not approved) worker's comp claim, the worker can receive paid leave benefits
if their paid leave claim is approved,” Vargas stated in an email response to a CTInsider query. “However, the worker will be notified that if their worker's compensation claim is approved for the same period of time that the are receiving paid leave benefits, they will be required to repay the paid leave benefits.”
Canaan had the highest claims rate in the state as of May, with 41 workers in the town of nearly 1,100 people filing claims for a rate of one for every 380 residents. Of cities with populations in excess of 50,000 people, Bristol, Meriden and East Hartford had the highest claimant rates.
Statewide, just over half of all applicants were between the ages of 26 and 41, more than twice as many as the next older bracket through age 57. Through the third week of June, the Connecticut Paid Leave Authority had received 130 applications from people age 77 or older holding jobs.
About 13,000 applications were denied of more than 44,000 received through May, the authority reported Thursday, many of them after workers were unable to corroborate claims with accompanying medical certifications that they suffered debilitating effects of the COVID-19 virus.
The trust fund's balance was
$391 million entering June, according to Daryle Dudzinski, deputy commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Labor, speaking last week during the finance and audit committee review. The fund has been getting a lift from rising interest rates that have padded the amounts it is socking away into a trust fund to cover future benefit payments.
“We'll see where that goes,” Dudzinski said. “For now, we'll certainly take it.”