The cost of the new program will be shared between the employer and the employee through a payroll tax. Workers will pay 63 percent and employers will pay 37 percent of the premiums, but the employer could decide to pay more. For example, a full-time worker earning $15 dollars an hour would contribute $1.51 a week toward the benefit while the employer would pay 89 cents.

Businesses with fewer than 50 employees will not be required to pay the employer share of the premium, but those businesses can still opt in. Businesses with fewer than 150 employees who pay into the program are eligible for grants — $1,000 to $3,000 each — to cover the cost of an employee on leave.

According to the Association of Washington Business, chambers of commerce representing businesses from across the state supported the paid family leave bill.

“I have been so impressed with the process of bringing (together) legislators from both sides of the House and Senate, as well as employers and employees, to come to an agreement that works for all,” Anacortes Chamber of Commerce President Stephanie Hamilton said in an AWB news release. “I appreciate the work that AWB put into this to safeguard businesses and give employees the leave they need for their families.”

With the new program, Washington joins California, New Jersey, Rhode Island and New York in making sure working families have the ability to care for their loved ones without jeopardizing their economic security. As a whole, the Washington law is more progressive than the other four states:

California: Eligible employees receive up to six weeks of paid family leave, which provides about 55 percent of their weekly wage not to exceed $1,173.

New Jersey: Eligible employees receive six weeks of paid family leave, which provides up to $524 a week.

New York: Eligible employees receive up to 12 weeks of paid family leave, which provides no more than 67 percent of the state’s average weekly wage.

Eligible employees receive up to 12 weeks of paid family leave, which provides no more than 67 percent of the state’s average weekly wage. Rhode Island: Eligible employees of the private and public employers that opt in can receive four weeks of paid family leave. The maximum benefit allowed is 4.6 percent of the worker’s wages during the highest quarter and cannot exceed $817 a week.

The effort to establish a paid family leave program in Washington goes back more than a decade.

Washington lawmakers attempted to create a paid family leave program in 2007; a bill passed out of the Legislature, but its funding was never approved and subsequent laws sidelined the program. It would have required many businesses to offer five weeks of paid time off to workers who were new parents.

The bill signed into law today “is a much better policy” than the 2007 bill, Watkins said.

The push for paid family leave was revived in 2015, when Inslee secured a federal grant to begin designing a new program. He has pointed out that the U.S. is the only industrialized nation that does not offer paid leave for workers.

“All too often, new parents and those with aging or sick loved ones face no-win decisions pitting the need for a paycheck against the need to be there for their family,” Inslee said. “Our nation should not be the outlier in helping families navigate these difficult situations.”