In California, the first state to guarantee paid family leave for all workers since 2004, payroll deductions fund a state-run insurance pool that allows employees to take off up to six weeks at partial income. Working parents in New Jersey and Rhode Island receive comparable benefits. New York state, meanwhile, recently passed similar laws that ensure compensation doesn’t disappear when employees pause work to care for a new child or sick relative.
The public programs provide pay for workers whose employers don’t offer the benefit — and the federal government wants to see these local efforts spread.
The U.S. Labor Department on Tuesday announced it will grant $1.1 million to six states and municipalities that want to start their own paid family-leave programs. The recipients — Denver, Franklin, Ohio; Madison, Wis.; and the states of Hawaii, Indiana and Pennsylvania — will use the money to research how much it would cost to open the public aid to its residents, Labor Secretary Thomas Perez said.
“Our nation has increasingly recognized we are far behind the world on this critical issue,” he said. “We live in a modern family world, and we need to stop living by ‘Leave It To Beaver’ rules.”
The United States guarantees just 12 weeks of job-protected time off to new parents — none of which is paid. The issue is also fiercely divisive: The Democratic Party believes all workers should be paid for those 12 weeks leave, while the Republican Party platform makes no mention of a paid leave policy. Republican leaders have argued such rules would damage business and discourage employers from hiring young women.
Some oppose local mandates, too. Rhode Island state Rep. Brian Newberry told CBS News last year the publicly funded paid-leave program effectively imposes a tax on many people who would never benefit from it. The insurance, he said, should be private.
As American women surged into the workforce — female breadwinners now support about 40 percent of households — companies started adding paid leave as a way to attract and retain talent. Fifty-eight percent of large American firms offer some paid maternity leave, a 2014 Labor Department study found. But only 12 percent of all private sector workers receive paid family-leave to care for a newborn or ailing relative, government data shows.
Thus far, only three states — California, New Jersey and Rhode Island — guarantee paid family leave for all workers. Each covers at least four weeks, paying at least 55 percent of employees’ full income, financed through employee-funded temporary disability insurance programs. New York passed a measure to add the benefit earlier this year.
San Francisco took a different approach in April, becoming the first city in the country to require businesses to fund their employees’ leave. As for federal workers, President Obama signed an executive order last year allowing federal workers to take off up to six weeks of paid leave.
Gayle Goldin, a Rhode Island state senator who sponsored the state’s paid family leave bill and advocates for the launch of such policies elsewhere, said the funds will help start conversations about the best ways to shape paid family leave in a particular community. Rhode Island, like California and New Jersey, built its program into the state’s temporary disability insurance, an employee-funded pool of money available to workers since 1942.
“We’ve seen far better health outcomes,” she said, “and a decrease in stress.”
