Responding to the COVID-19 crisis, Congress fast-tracked much needed relief for both workers and businesses struggling to survive in a climate of quickly spreading infections, social distancing directives, state and local stay-at-home orders, and mounting business closures and layoffs.

On March 18, 2020, President Trump signed into law the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) in an attempt to limit the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and support relief efforts, mainly for employees and small- and medium-size businesses. The FFCRA includes provisions to expand the FMLA to include public emergency paid family and medical leave; emergency unemployment insurance; emergency paid sick leave; health care relief provisions; and tax credits to employers for paid sick and paid family and medical leave.

Further relief came on March 27, 2020, when the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) was signed into law. Largely targeted toward stabilizing the economy, the CARES Act contains significant relief for companies and individuals, including rebates for individual taxpayers and the creation of three new unemployment insurance programs, as well as a multitude of tax benefits for companies of all sizes and significant payroll relief. The CARES Act also clarifies the emergency paid family leave and paid sick leave provisions in the FFRCA, among other relief.

This Families First Act and CARES Act, Selected Provisions: Law, Explanation and Analysis provides a thorough analysis of important aspects of the FFCRA and the CARES Act, affecting a broad range of individuals, workers, and businesses of all sizes. It provides practitioners with a single integrated law and explanation guide on this historic legislation, which continues the Wolters Kluwer tradition of empowering labor and employment, human resources, employee benefits, and payroll professionals with the information and resources necessary to help them understand and work with new laws as they take effect.

Key Features

The Families First Act and CARES Act, Selected Provisions: Law, Explanation and Analysis is your complete guide to selected provisions of the FFCRA and the CARES Act that employers and their advisors need to know. It contains numerous features designed to help you locate and understand the changes made by these Acts, including:

• HIGHLIGHTS: Helpful quick summary highlights of the major provisions of the coronavirus response Acts, arranged in chapter and paragraph order, save time in quickly getting up to speed on each of the changes. At the end of each summary is a paragraph reference to the more detailed Explanation on that topic, giving you an easy way to find the portions of this resource that are of most interest.

• EXPLANATIONS: Explanations, the core of this resource, give you a complete, accessible understanding of the new law and are arranged by subject for ease of use. They provide guidance on all of the public health emergency leave provisions under Title I of the Family and Medical Leave Act, and the similarly new emergency paid sick leave available to assist workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, explanations cover unemployment insurance stabilization and access, health and privacy, tax credits and other payroll relief, pension plan changes, economic stabilization for distressed sectors of the U.S. economy, and air carrier workers support. Each Explanation contains special features to aid in your complete understanding of the new law, including:
  • Background or prior law discussion that puts the law changes into perspective
  • Editorial aids, including examples, comments, and compliance tips, that highlight the impact of the new law
  • Captions at the end of each explanation identifying existing law sectio