Compliance Stuff

  2025 is set to be another year of expanded paid leave requirements for employers. While the results are still preliminary, employers should start preparing in the states that have voted in new leave laws. Missouri Voters passed  Proposition A , which raises the minimum wage from $8.60/hour to $13.75/hour and mandates paid sick leave starting May 1, 2025. The paid sick leave provisions require employers to provide one hour of sick leave for every 30 hours worked up to five days (employers with fewer than 15 employees) and seven days (employers with 15 or more employees). Proposition A lets employees carry over up to 80 hours of accrued but unused sick time from year to year. It also includes caps on sick leave an employee can take in a given year (40 hours for small employers, 80 for large employers), a prohibition against imposing a waiting time before an employee can use accrued hours, and exempting employers with a paid leave plan that meets or exceeds the minimum require...

 The Massachusetts legislature has expanded the reasons employees can use Massachusetts Earned Sick Time through provisions in a larger bill entitled, “An Act Promoting Access to Midwifery Care and Out-of-Hospital Birth Options.”  Employees may now use Massachusetts Earned Sick Time to “address the employee’s own physical and mental health needs, and those of their spouse, if the employee or the employee’s spouse experiences pregnancy loss or a failed assisted reproduction, adoption or surrogacy.” These new conditions are in addition to the current reasons employees can use Massachusetts Earned Sick Time: To care for the employee’s child, spouse, parent, or parent of a spouse, who is suffering from a physical or mental illness, injury, or medical condition that requires home care, professional medical diagnosis or care, or preventative medical care; To care for the employee’s own physical or mental illness, injury or medical condition that requires home care, professional med...