Family leave still out of reach for almost half of U.S. workers 30 years after landmark law
Three decades after the U.S. adopted a policy that let people keep their jobs while taking time off for an illness or new baby, almost half of U.S. workers aren’t eligible, and advocates in individual states are still struggling to make sure that those who do take leave can also get paid.
In the next two years, paid leave programs will start paying out claims in Oregon, Colorado, Maryland and Delaware, home to some 9 million workers. Such policies already exist in nine other states plus Washington, D.C., and are part of a growing movement of states trying to fill the gap as nationwide action stalls.
“There is broad bipartisan support across all constituencies for paid family and medical leave,” said Jocelyn Frye, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families. “The only place where we encounter opposition is in Congress, and part of that opposition has to do with whether we are willing to invest in care.”
On Feb. 5, 1993, President Bill Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act into law. It had taken nine years to get it passed, with the bill blocked every year since it was originally offered in 1984.
Today, the law is little changed from its original form: It allows some Americans to take up to 12 weeks of leave if they have a baby, get sick or need to care for an ill relative. It doesn’t guarantee pay, or apply to those who work for small businesses (fewer than 50 employees within 75 miles) or themselves. About 44 percent of U.S. employees — including those who work part time or have been in their role less than a year — are ineligible.
Jon Gromek, 37, still thinks about the time off he took when his youngest son was born three years ago.
The Ohio dad of two had just started a new nonprofit job after being laid off. He hadn’t hit the 12 months of service required before employers have to offer FMLA, or the six-month threshold at his new company for paid time off. But even if he had qualified for the unpaid leave, his family couldn’t afford it.
“I was able to negotiate one special day to be present for the birth of my son, on a Friday,” Gromek said. “The following Monday I went back to work.”
The U.S. is an outlier globally for its lack of paid time off for new parents or illness. It’s one of just seven countries that doesn’t guarantee any paid maternity leave. Only about one in four private sector workers has access to paid family leave. The absence of national work-family policies for parental, temporary disability and caregiving leave cost Americans $22.6 billion in lost wages annually in the decade through 2018, according to data from the Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank.
One study by Moody’s Investors Service, a global credit ratings and research organization, found that additional policies could boost U.S. economic output by almost $1 trillion in the next decade by making it easier for women to participate in the labor force.
Some conservatives say a federal paid leave program would cost taxpayers too much, place a burden on small businesses and open the door to fraudulent claims. There are also diverging opinions on how it should be funded: Democrats usually propose tax-funded plans, while recent Republican proposals call for tax credits or borrowing from Social Security funds.
Opposition to paid leave in President Joe Biden’s social spending plan from Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, ultimately killed it.