FMLA expands to cover workers at tiny firms, new hires
H.R. 1035 — Job Protection Act · Filed by Lauren Underwood (D-IL) · 61 cosponsors · Introduced Feb 5, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill lowers the threshold for FMLA coverage from 50+ employees to 1+ employee, and reduces the tenure requirement from 12 months to 90 days for private-sector workers and federal/presidential/congressional employees. It expands who can take unpaid leave for serious health conditions, childbirth, or family care, and expands which employers must grant it.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is a straightforward expansion of statutory leave rights to a broader class of workers and employers. It removes eligibility thresholds, not adds them—a classic protective expansion.
What the text implies
- Small employers (1–49 employees) face new compliance obligations and potential operational disruption from leave requests, which may increase labor costs and administrative burden disproportionately in sectors with high turnover.
- The 90-day tenure threshold may incentivize employers to delay hiring decisions or use temporary/contract labor to avoid FMLA obligations, potentially harming job security for new workers.
- Federal, presidential, and congressional employees gain the same 90-day threshold, creating parity with private-sector workers but potentially straining agency operations during leave absences.
- The bill does not address paid vs. unpaid leave; workers gain the RIGHT to leave but not necessarily the right to income during leave, limiting practical utility for lower-wage workers.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Workers gain access to unpaid leave protections previously unavailable to them—those in firms under 50 employees and those employed fewer than 12 months. The expansion is broad and imposes no new costs on workers; the burden falls on employers to accommodate leave requests.
Named in the bill
Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, Title 5, United States Code, Title 3, United States Code, Congressional Accountability Act of 1995, Federal employees, Presidential employees, Congressional employees, Small employers (1–49 employees)
Where it stands
61 cosponsors: 61 Democrats.
- Feb 5, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Feb 5, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and House Committee on House Administration · Congress.gov: “Referred to the Committee on Education and Workforce, and in addition to the Committees on House…”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 1 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Dec 2025 to Dec 2025. Those filings disclosed $10,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 114 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Lauren Underwood, the sponsor, reported $424,700 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- National Council of Jewish Women — $10,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jan 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (1,716 characters) on Sep 27, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Dec 2025. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jan 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
“FMLA expands to cover workers at tiny firms, new hires” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr1035 Report an error
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