148 | Massachusetts Wage & Hour Peculiarities, 2025 ed. © 2025 Seyfarth Shaw LLP Medical leave is available for a covered individual’s own serious health condition.877 An employee is eligible for MPFML benefits if over the 12 months preceding their application for benefits, the employee (1) had financial earnings from Massachusetts employment in the preceding four quarters that equal or exceed the threshold amount set annually by the DFML and (2) received total wages from Massachusetts employers that equal or exceed 30 times the individual’s weekly benefit amount.878 The current maximum employee benefit is $1,170.64 per week, but that amount is adjusted annually not later than October 1st each year.879 2. Employee and Employer Contributions To finance MPFML benefits, employers and employees must contribute to the Family and Employment Security Trust Fund. In the alternative, employers may elect to provide equivalent or greater benefits through a private plan which must be approved by the Department of Family and Medical Leave.880 The 2025 contribution rate for employers with 25 or more employees in Massachusetts is 0.88% of the first $176,100881 of an employee’s annual earnings consisting of 0.70% for medical leave and 0.18% for family leave. 882 Employers may deduct 100% of the family leave contribution, and up to 40% of the medical leave contribution from employees’ wages.883 Employers with fewer than 25 employees in Massachusetts do not have to pay the employer share of the medical or family leave contribution, but are required to collect, and remit to the Trust Fund the employee portions of both contributions, which, for 2025, is 0.28% of eligible wages for the medical contribution and 0.18% of eligible wages for the family contribution.884 Employers must file an employment and wage detail report and provide payment for their contribution requirements before the quarterly filing deadline, which is set by the Massachusetts Department of Revenue. 885 877 M.G.L. ch. 175M, § 2. Medical leave is available to any employee with a serious health condition that “makes the covered individual unable to perform the functions of the covered individual’s position.” M.G.L. ch. 175M, §§ 1 & 2 (a) (2) (explaining the term “serious health condition” is “construed consistent with the equivalent provision of the federal Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, codified at 29 U.S.C. 2612(a)(1)(D).”). 878 458 CMR 2.02. 879 M.G.L. ch. 175M, §§ 3, 7(e) . 880 M.G.L. ch. 175M, §§ 6 and 11. A private plan must confer all of the same rights, protections and benefits as the MPFML and must be approved by the Department of Family and Medical Leave. Id. at § 11. Employers who provide paid leave benefits to their workforce through a private plan may apply for an exemption for collecting, remitting, and paying contributions to the public trust fund. See https://www.mass.gov/info-details/benefit-requirements-for-private-paid-leave-plan-exemptions (last visited Mar. 6, 2025). 881 This number is updated annually. Contributions are not required for covered individuals’ wages above the contribution and base limit established annually by the federal Social Security Administration for purposes of the Federal Old-age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program limits pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 430. See M.G.L. ch. 175M, §6(f); 458 CMR 2.05(1)(c). 882 Contribution rates are adjusted annually. M.G.L. ch. 175M, § 7(e); 458 CMR 2.05(1)(b). 883 M.G.L. ch. 175M, § 6; 458 CMR 2.08(2). 884 Id. 885 458 CMR 2.04(2).
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