What maternity benefits can you claim in California? I’m unemployed and due in June.
I live in California and was made unemployed in December of last year after 6 months of employment. Since then I have been claiming unemployment. I’m due in June and understood I could then switch to disability (SDI) for roughly 12 weeks (4 weeks before due date and 8 after for a c-section/6 for natural delivery) since I was paying SDI in my last job. After that I believe I can switch to paid family leave for up to 6 months. Anyone else in a similar position and can help clarify the benefits available? Thank you!
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You can go to an SDI office to ask them about your specific situation. When I applied, I was told that I would get a portion of my salary based on my salary from the previous 6 months prior to becoming disabled from pregnancy around 36 weeks. In your case, you would be unemployed the 6 months prior to becoming disabled by pregnancy. So I’m not sure what/if you’d qualify for. In my experience, phone calls to SDI went nowhere and I had better luck showing up at an SDI office about 30 min prior to opening and getting in line.
Also when I applied, at the time paid family leave was up to 8 weeks. Not sure if it’s changed but I don’t think it has. And I believe it’s 4 weeks prior to due date and 6 weeks (vaginal) or 8 weeks (c section) after delivery for SDI. I believe if you start SDI at 36 weeks, you get paid for the number of weeks up to delivery, so sometimes it’s not exactly 4 weeks paid prior to delivery. If you deliver at 37 weeks for example, that’s just 1 week paid I think.
Thank you so much, super helpful! I thought I had read somewhere that SDI would be based on prior 6-18 months employment but I was worried that it might be less so I will def check that. I’ll give the SDI office a visit tomorrow!! 🙏
Actually I think you’re right! I forgot, for me it was the last 3 months they used to calculate (not 6 months). I think they say it’s taken from your “highest earning quarter.” My highest quarter happened to be the quarter right before my due date but I think you’re right that it can be any quarter up to a year or maybe even 18 months prior to your due date. I think they have you share your earnings from your highest quarter in that timeframe and then they calculate somewhere around 70% of the average of those earnings and that’s how they calculate your pay. And for SDI, they didn’t ask me to pay taxes so my SDI paychecks were relatively similar to my work paychecks because my work paychecks took out roughly 30% in taxes + benefits if that makes sense.
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