Human Resource Blog

Mississippi Maternity Leave

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Does

Mississippi have a separate maternity leave law?

If your employee is a new mother, a mother-to-be, or a prospective or new father in Mississippi, they are not covered by a state law. However, they are still entitled to maternity leave under what is called the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, otherwise known as the FMLA.

The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 guarantees leaves for childbirth and other types of family and medical circumstances. Under the FMLA, they’re entitled to as much as 12 weeks of unpaid leave yearly, as long as they meet certain requirements. They include working a certain number of hours during the last 52-week period and the amount of pay they may have earned. As long as they work for an employer with 50 or more workers and they meet those other requirements, they qualify. The employer with 50 or more workers within 75 miles is obligated under law to provide it.

Of the 50 states, 39, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, have no “significant” maternity leave or short term disability laws of their own, relying instead on the FMLA. 

The remaining 11 states have passed what are considered “significant” laws. They are Connecticut, California, Maine, Hawaii, New Jersey, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Oregon, Wisconsin, Washington, and Vermont. 

Four of those, as well as New York, have required short-term disability programs. Pregnant women and new mothers in those states receive payments of from one half to 67% of their average weekly pay. Under normal childbirth conditions, that disability benefit covers only the time the woman is certified medically to be physically incapable of working. By most standards, that is a 10-week period, from 4 weeks before to 6 weeks after the birth of the child. With pregnancy complications or in the case of a Caesarean section, that may be longer.

Eleven of the 39 states technically without their own programs have extended the FMLA program through state laws. The laws either extend the benefits to government workers, whether municipal or state, or they require coverage by businesses with fewer than 50 employees.