As part of the California’s state disability insurance program, the Paid Family Leave (PFL) program provides partial wage replacement benefits to assist eligible workers who need time off work to care for a seriously ill or injured family member, or to bond with a new child. The benefits entitlement lasts up to 6 weeks within any 12-month period for eligible workers.

To meet the needs of eligible California workers, the PFL program is maintained by the Employment Development Department (EDD) which handles all applications and claims. The process of applying for benefits involves several steps, including completing and mailing a claim form, and returning it to the EDD for processing. It is important to note that all applications need to be received by the EDD within 49 days of the first day of your family leave, or you may lose benefits.

Interestingly, in order to ease the application process and make it accessible to more people, the state of California has put in place several ways through which eligible workers can contact the EDD for PFL related inquiries. These include calling the EDD’s toll-free number, sending a mail, or using the ‘Ask EDD’ service available on the EDD’s official website.

Finally, for those who need to talk to a live person regarding their PFL claims, EDD has made provisions for that too. You can reach the EDD by phone from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, excluding state holidays. However, you must have patience as there might be long wait times due to high call volumes.

To offer the most effective customer service support, EDD has implemented various communication channels to cater for the high volume of applications and queries. For more information, visits can be directed to eddcaller.com for insight on how to get ahold of EDD customer service.