Caregiving in Vermont and your own life: federal FMLA, the Vermont Parental and Family Leave Act, and the small-state advantage of Choices for Care self-direction.

Vermont has approximately 70,000-90,000 unpaid family caregivers, contributing hundreds of millions of hours of care annually.1Most are women in their 50s-60s, often working full-time, providing 20+ hours of care a week. The financial and career toll is real and structural — and while Vermont is better than the federal floor on unpaid leave, it doesn’t have a state paid family leave program. What Vermont does have is a small-state infrastructure that often produces faster, more personal access to the public systems families need.

The Vermont Parental and Family Leave Act

Vermont’s Parental and Family Leave Act (PFLA, 21 V.S.A. §471 et seq.) provides unpaid, job-protected leave with broader eligibility than federal FMLA.2 Key features:

• Coverage threshold.Parental leave (for new children) applies to employers with 10+ employees; family leave (for caring for a family member with a serious health condition) applies to employers with 15+ employees. That’s meaningfully broader than the federal 50-employee threshold.
• Duration. Up to 12 weeks per year of unpaid, job-protected leave (similar to federal FMLA).
• Eligibility. Employees must have worked continuously for at least 1 year and an average of 30+ hours per week.
• Family member definition.Includes a parent, parent-in-law, spouse, child, civil union partner. Vermont’s definition is broadly similar to FMLA but may have differences for civil-union and domestic partnerships.

For Vermont caregivers at smaller employers (10-49 employees), the PFLA is the practical alternative to federal FMLA. The leave is unpaid — but the job protection is the more important feature for most working caregivers.

Federal FMLA in Vermont

The federal FMLA allows you to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave per year to care for a parent with a serious health condition, with job protection and continued health-insurance coverage.3 Federal FMLA applies to employers with 50+ employees. For employees at large Vermont employers, federal FMLA and Vermont PFLA generally run concurrently — you don’t get 24 weeks; you get 12 weeks total under whichever law applies, with the more-protective rules in any category-by-category analysis.

What Vermont is missing — paid family leave

Eleven states plus DC now have state-mandated paid family leave programs that pay a portion of wages while you take time off to care for a family member. Vermont is not one of them.4 The states that do offer this in 2026:

• California (Paid Family Leave, est. 2002)
• New Jersey (2009)
• Rhode Island (2014)
• New York (2018)
• Washington (2020)
• Massachusetts (2021)
• Connecticut (2022)
• Oregon (2023)
• Colorado (2024)
• Maryland (2025)
• Minnesota (2026)

Vermont’s legislature has considered state PFL legislation in recent sessions; passage status varies. Vermont residents who work remotely for employers headquartered in PFL states are sometimes eligible under the employer state’s rules.

Federal tax breaks available to Vermont caregivers

Vermont’s state income tax may offer limited credits relevant to caregivers;. The federal options:

Claiming your parent as a dependent

You may be able to claim your parent as a qualifying relative if:

• You provide more than half of their total support during the year
• Their gross income is below the IRS dependent threshold ($5,200 in 2025, indexed annually — Social Security benefits don’t count toward this limit)
• They’re a US citizen or resident

Claiming the parent unlocks the Credit for Other Dependents: a $500 nonrefundable credit. Plus, you can include your parent’s medical expenses in your own itemized medical-expense deduction.5

Medical and dental expenses deduction

If you itemize on Schedule A, you can deduct medical expenses for yourself, your spouse, and your dependents (including a parent you claim) that exceed 7.5% of your AGI.

Dependent care FSA

If your employer offers a Dependent Care Flexible Spending Account, you may be able to use pre-tax dollars to pay for adult day care or in-home care that allows you to work. Limit: $5,000 per year for most filers.

Vermont resources for caregivers

Vermont’s caregiver-support infrastructure is unusually accessible because of the state’s small size. Five Area Agencies on Aging cover the entire state, coordinated through the Vermont Association of Area Agencies on Aging (V4A) and DAIL. The most useful programs:

• Family Caregiver Support Program. Federally-funded program (Older Americans Act Title III-E) delivered through the AAAs. Offers caregiver counseling, respite care, support groups, training, and limited supplemental services. Vermont AAAs are often praised for responsiveness compared to larger-state equivalents.
• Aging and Disability Resource Center (ADRC) options counseling. Free, comprehensive options counseling to help families navigate the LTC landscape.
• Choices for Care self-direction. The self-direction option allows the recipient (or representative) to hire and pay a personal-care worker, often a family member. See the Vermont Medicaid guide.
• Senior Citizens Law Project. Vermont Legal Aid program providing free legal services to Vermonters 60+ on many issues regardless of income.

The sibling conversation

Vermont families often have closer-than-average geographic ties to one in-state sibling who handles most in-person care. A few moves that defuse conflict:

• Personal care agreement. If one sibling is providing meaningful care, formalize the arrangement in writing. Money your parent pays a family caregiver is then compensation for servicesrather than a gift — which matters enormously for Vermont’s 5-year Medicaid look-back. See the Vermont Medicaid guide.
• Quarterly check-ins. Standing 30-minute family calls with a written agenda. The structure itself reduces conflict.
• Geriatric Care Manager.A professional third party can run point on day-to-day care logistics. Vermont’s GCM market is small but accessible, particularly around Burlington.

Conversations to have with your employer

If you anticipate or are in the middle of intensive caregiving, the conversations to have with HR or your manager:

1. Does the company offer family-care leave beyond FMLA/PFLA? Large Vermont employers — the state government, UVM Health, BlueCross BlueShield of Vermont, the University of Vermont — often have meaningful paid leave benefits.
2. Can you take leave intermittently rather than in a single block? The DOL allows intermittent FMLA leave when medically necessary.
3. Can you work remotely, or shift your schedule? Vermont employers post-2020 have far more flexibility on this than they used to.
4. What does the company offer in terms of caregiver-support benefits — care navigators, EAP access, backup care services?

Working caregivers and Medicaid planning

If you’re paid by your parent for caregiving services, the arrangement has Medicaid implications. Without a written personal-care agreement, payments to a family caregiver look like gifts — which triggers Vermont’s 5-year Medicaid look-back penalty. With a properly drafted agreement establishing fair-market-value compensation, the payments are legitimate income and don’t affect Medicaid eligibility. If money is flowing from your parent to you, get the documentation right. See the Vermont Medicaid guide for the full picture.