Can my employer supplement my EDD maternity leave pay to reach 100% of salary?

Yes, your employer absolutely CAN supplement your EDD payments during maternity leave! This is called wage replacement or salary continuation, and it's completely legal. The State Disability Insurance (SDI) and Paid Family Leave (PFL) programs pay approximately 60-70% of your wages up to the maximum weekly benefit amount ($1,620 in 2025). Your employer can pay the difference to get you to 100% without affecting your EDD benefits. Many larger companies offer this as part of their benefits package. The SDI/PFL payments come from the state, while the supplemental portion comes directly from your employer. They're separate programs and don't affect each other. Make sure to get the policy in writing before your leave starts. Also check if your company requires you to use any accrued PTO first before they provide supplemental pay.

Thank you!!! This is so helpful. I was worried that if my employer paid me anything during leave, it would reduce my EDD benefits. When I asked HR, they seemed unsure and said they'd need to

my company does this!!! they pay the extra 30% so we get full salary during materntiy leave. didnt affect my EDD payments at all! just make sure ur HR knows what theyre doing with the paperwork. mine messed up and accidently reported my employer supplement as regular wages to EDD and it was a NIGHTMARE to fix. took like 3 weeks of phone calls.

Omg thank you for this warning! That's exactly the kind of thing I'm worried about. I'll make sure to ask specifically how they'll be coding the supplemental pay. My HR dept is pretty small and they admitted they've never done this before.

This is called

Thank you for breaking this down so clearly! That's super helpful. I didn't even think about making sure the policy would apply to both the pregnancy disability and baby bonding portions. I'll definitely ask about that. We don't have a separate short-term disability policy, just the CA state benefits.

Wish I knew this 2 years ago! My company never mentioned they could do this and I was struggling on 60% of my income. Definitely get everything in writing and confirm how long they'll supplement. Some only do it for part of your leave.

same! i only found out cuz a coworker told me. hr never volunteered the info!!! had to specifically ASK for it

I tried calling EDD to confirm this policy before my maternity leave last year and was on hold FOREVER. I finally used Claimyr.com to get through to an agent quickly (they have a video showing how it works: https://youtu.be/DOLxZQb92wM?si=6N1iCQ3a8Cdb2Ay5). The EDD rep confirmed that employer supplemental pay doesn't affect your disability or PFL benefits at all. Just make sure your employer knows how to properly document this. Mine initially tried to submit it as regular wages to EDD which would have reduced my benefits. It needs to be marked specifically as supplemental pay during leave.

This is exactly what I was hoping to do - call EDD to confirm! I'll check out that service since I've tried calling a few times already with no luck. Did the EDD agent give you any specific terminology I should tell my HR department to use when documenting the supplemental pay?

The EDD agent said it should be coded as

Wait this doesn't sound right to me?? When I was on mat leave in 2023, my HR told me any money from my employer would count against my EDD payments. If you get 70% from EDD and 30% from work, you'd still only get 70% total not 100%. Are we talking about the same thing??

Your HR department was mistaken. California specifically allows employers to supplement SDI and PFL benefits without affecting benefit amounts. It's a very common practice called wage replacement or salary continuation. The key is that your employer must code it correctly as supplemental pay during leave, not as regular wages. If they reported it as regular wages, that would reduce your benefits, which might be why your HR department was confused.

Are you serious?! I took a huge financial hit during my maternity leave because of this misinformation! Is there any way to get reimbursed retroactively? This makes me so angry.

I just went through this process last month! The part everyone is missing is that if your employer offers any type of SHORT-TERM DISABILITY insurance (different from CA SDI), that CAN affect your state benefits. But direct supplemental pay from your employer to

This is an excellent point about the payback arrangements. These are called

I had no idea about the possibility of having to pay back the state benefits! That definitely changes things. I'll specifically ask if they're planning an integrated plan or true supplemental pay. Thank you both for this critical info.

I work in HR and manage leave policies. Yes, employers can supplement SDI and PFL payments without affecting state benefits. This is completely legal and fairly common practice. We call it

This is insanely helpful - like a checklist of exactly what to ask HR! I hadn't considered the possibility of them only offering supplemental pay for part of my leave. Since I'm taking the full 4 weeks before birth, 8 weeks recovery after (c-section planned), and 8 weeks baby bonding, that would be really important to know. Thank you!

Just want to add another perspective as someone who went through this recently! My employer was initially hesitant about offering supplemental pay because they were worried about compliance issues. What helped was when I brought them documentation from the CA Employment Development Department website that explicitly states employers can provide wage replacement during disability leave without affecting benefits. I'd recommend printing out the relevant sections from the EDD website to show your HR team - it really helped legitimize my request. Also, consider asking if they'd be willing to do a trial run with just the pregnancy disability portion first (those 4 weeks before birth) to see how the process works before committing to supplementing the full 20 weeks of leave. One more tip: if your company uses a payroll service like ADP or Paychex, those companies usually have templates and processes already set up for this kind of supplemental pay arrangement. Might be worth having your HR contact them directly for guidance!