Editorial policy
The rules we hold ourselves to before a benefit figure appears on this site, and what happens when one turns out to be wrong.
1. Sourcing
Every number the calculator uses — replacement rates, thresholds, weekly maximums and minimums, contribution rates, wage caps, waiting periods and week limits — must come from a primary source: the statute or regulation that sets it, or the notice or table published by the agency that administers the program. Secondary sources such as payroll-software blogs, insurer summaries or news articles may help us find a document, but they are never the source of a figure. Where a state has outsourced a voluntary program to an insurer (Vermont and New Hampshire), the insurer’s official program page for that state is the operating source and we say so.
Each figure is stored once, next to the identifier of the document it came from. The calculator, the state pages, the tables in our guides and the sources page all read that single record, so they cannot drift apart.
2. When sources disagree
They sometimes do. California’s statute rounds one band of benefits up to $1,128 while the agency’s published benefit table pays $1,127; we follow the agency table, because that is what claimants receive, and we note the difference on the California page. Rhode Island’s legislature site still hosts an outdated version of the dependency-allowance section; we use the current enacted text. When a disagreement cannot be resolved from primary documents, we show the more conservative figure and explain why.
3. Unpublished figures
Most programs reset their maximums each January, some in July, and the new values are published weeks or days beforehand. We never project them. Each set of figures carries a validity window; a leave that starts after the last verified window switches the calculator to an explicit “enter the official figure” mode. Our test suite fails 45 days before any window ends without a verified successor, which forces a re-check before the deadline rather than after it.
4. Verification cadence
- Scheduled: every program is re-checked in September (New York’s next-year decision), October–December (most January updates), and June (Rhode Island’s July maximum, Oregon’s July figures).
- Triggered: a reader report, a new law, or a failing date-horizon test.
- The “verified” date on each page is the date its figures were last compared against the source, and is the date shown to search engines in our sitemap. Rebuilding the site without changing content does not change it.
5. Corrections
Anyone can report an error from the contact page; every state page links to it with the page address filled in. Reports are stored in our corrections log. We check the report against the primary source; if we were wrong we fix the figure, update the verified date on every affected page, and add a dated line to that page’s notes when the error could have changed someone’s estimate. We do not silently edit numbers.
6. Automation and AI
This site is produced with substantial automation, including AI writing and coding assistance. Software fetched and extracted the primary documents, drafted explanatory text, wrote the calculator code and runs the checks. That is exactly why the checks exist: every program has worked-example tests whose expected values are computed by hand from the cited source, California’s engine is tested against every row of the agency’s own benefit table, and a build fails if two pages become near-duplicates or if any page lacks a source date. Automation does not make a figure true; the citation does, and you can follow it.
7. Independence
No agency, insurer or employer has reviewed, paid for or influenced any content. There are no ads and no affiliate relationships. If that ever changes, it will be disclosed on every affected page.
Policy last updated .