How Biden’s Build Back Better can help get women back to work

Women in the U.S. have been among those hardest hit economically by the Covid-19 pandemic, knocked out of the workforce by the double whammy of a child care crisis and the pandemic recession.

President Joe Biden’s roughly $2 trillion tax and spending bill, which could face a vote in the

U.S. House of Representatives this week, looks to address some of the major challenges that have pushed the female labor force participation rate to lows not seen in decades.

The bill, known as the Build Back Better Act, has already undergone changes and will be revised further as it makes its way through Congress. West Virginia Democrat Senator Joe Manchin, a key vote on the bill, and other moderate Democrats have blasted its cost and already signaled potential cuts, including paid family leave.

But should some of the tentpoles of the bill go through, it would represent a huge shift for the economic reality of women.

Here are the some proposals that would have the biggest impact:

Federal Paid Parental Leave

The latest version of Biden’s bill would provide four weeks of paid leave to all new parents, which is down from the 12 weeks originally proposed, but still historic for the U.S. — one of just a handful of countries that offers no paid maternity leave at all.

Right now, only 23% of the country’s workers have access to paid family leave through their employers or city and state programs. Instead, millions of parents, most often women, take unpaid time off or cobble together vacation time; many drop out of the workforce altogether, losing out on valuable years of earning potential.

Any length of paid leave will help keep more of them employed. Rutgers University researchers found that those who take paid leave, regardless of how long, are more likely to be working a year after the birth of a child than those who don’t. Meanwhile, women who took just one year off from work had annual earnings 39% lower than

Tthose who didn’t.

One report from the U.S. Department of Labor found if the U.S. offered policies similar to places like Canada and Germany, which both support new parents for many months, it could add more than 5 million women to workforce. That would translate into more than $500 billion in additional economy activity each year.

“This an economic policy that would secure and solidify the economic status of women as well as help the country’s economy by creating a more inclusive labor force,” said Vicki Shabo, a senior fellow at think tank New America.

Those in low-paying jobs without benefits like health insurance could benefit most. A 2011 analysis of a paid leave program in California, which at the time offered six weeks of time off at up to 55% of employees’ weekly earnings, showed that those workers reported higher satisfaction with the length of their leave and were more likely to return to the same employer after participating.

Under the current proposal, workers making $290 weekly would receive 90% of their paycheck. Those bringing in $1,192 weekly would get 90% of the first $290 they make, and a percentage, on a sliding scale, of the rest of their salary up to $62,000.

The proposal covers parttime and gig workers, as well as employees at small businesses and those who are self employed.

Still, if passed, the U.S. would fall far behind what other countries offer. Four weeks after giving birth, people still report bleeding, incontinence and trouble walking. Research suggests that six months of parental leave is the “sweet spot” — long enough for babies to get health benefits from breastfeeding and parents being available to take them to doctors appointments, but not so long that it keeps women from advancing at work.

Subsidized Child Care

Lack of access to affordable, quality child care has been a major cause of women leaving their jobs in droves during the pandemic.

A few months into the Covid-19 crisis, household surveys by the U.S. Census Bureau showed that young women were almost three times as likely as men to not be working due to child care demands. And even as schools have opened up, women still haven’t returned to work.

The problem for women is two-fold: Child care is expensive and workers, mostly women, make low wages. In 2017, infant child care could cost as much as $24,000 annually in some places in the U.S. — more than in-state tuition at a public university. The workers, many of whom have some form of higher education, make less than many fast food workers.

Biden’s proposal caps child care costs at no more than 7% of a family’s income for most households. Those earning very little would pay nothing. It would also provide for free preschool for all three and four year-olds. If passed, states would have to make sure care staff are earning wages on par with elementary school teachers with similar credentials. The details would largely be left to individual states to figure out.

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