Time To Raise Hell About Family Leave
The US is one of two countries in the world without paid maternity leave, and right now, we have a once-in-a-generation chance to fix it
The next few weeks will make or break the drive for paid family leave in the US, and if you care about this issue and you're not already raising hell about this, the time has come to raise hell. We might not get another chance.
Without getting too in the weeds here, Congress is currently considering a proposal that includes guaranteed paid family leave, as well as other relief for care workers, universal Pre-K, and other care-associated costs. Activists and a few dogged members of congress have been fighting for this for years, sometimes decades, but this is the closest it's come to becoming a reality.
Dawn Hucklebridge, director of the nonpartisan advocacy group Paid Leave for All, told me recently that she's optimistic that this congress can get the job done. That's because despite Washington's divisions and bickering and the cable news punditry shouting, paid family leave is fundamentally a nonpartisan issue.
"This isn’t divisive," she said. "There may be some Republicans [in Congress] that are opposed, but that’s not true for voters. The polling has always been over 80%. We have found supermajorities in every party--96% of Democrats, 81% of Independents, 74% of Republicans support it."
So what's with the divide between what American voters want and what the elected officials they elected to represent them do? Why, if you turned on a cable news discussion of paid family leave, would the split screen have viewers believe that this is a divisive issue?
It's because the people doing the legislating and pontificating are perhaps more shielded than any other group from the consequences of lawmakers' continued inaction and, in some cases, harbor an active disdain for the people paid leave would help. Those currently slapfighting over whether family leave and childcare assistance counts as "real infrastructure" are much richer, older, and more male than the people who actually need things like family leave and childcare assistance in order to participate in the workforce.
Is 74-year-old West Virginia senator and millionaire party-thrower Joe Manchin personally impacted by the fact that childcare costs the more than $8300 per year per child, which is more than 13% of the average annual household income? Does Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn ever personally worry about a three-year-long waiting list to get an infant into day care? Has Fox News host Tucker Carlson ever needed to concern himself with how much a vaginal delivery costs in an American hospital? (Of course he hasn't; he's the heir to a frozen fish fortune and married the daughter of headmaster of the Rhode Island boarding school he once attended. Tucker Carlson only needs to know about the estate tax and how much yachts cost.)
It is genuinely nonsensical to me that a group of lawmakers with a median net worth of $1 million and TV talking heads with seven-figure incomes is will influence and eventually decide the fate of policies that will primarily benefit people who are young, female, and middle-and-lower-income. It's almost as ridiculous as a group of socialist environmentalists being put in charge of managing America's private golf courses, or a former high school theater kid with an anti-jock chip on their shoulder being hired to coach the Alabama Crimson Tide. But that's the system we have, and, while it's changing to be more representative of the US as a whole, there's still a long way to go. This Congress boasts its greatest share of women in US history-- at a whopping 25%.
It is no secret that for as much as American politicians yammer on about "family values," they don't do much to show that they value families. Federal law, pathetically, guarantees workers up to 12 weeks of leave without pay-- but because many two-income families can't go three months with only one income, workers who don't have guaranteed paid leave through their employers--and only 19% of Americans do-- often take less time off. That makes this country one of two in the world that has no federally guaranteed paid maternity leave, and one of 15 in the world that has no federally guaranteed paid paternity leave. (Eight states currently have implemented their own paid family leave policies, but that leaves 42 states without.)
The family leave proposal would give new parents and people who must take time off work to care for a sick family member 12 weeks' leave with a percentage of their pay, up to an income cap. Low income workers would be entitled to a larger percentage of their income during leave than high income workers, but most workers would be entitled to something. This change would begin to be implemented in 2023.
Over the next weeks, you will likely hear proposal naysayers complain that this is "too expensive," since money to pay for it will have to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is taxes.
But it would be much more expensive for the US to continue on the way it has. A lack of paid family leave costs US workers $22.5 billion in lost wages. Last year, hundreds of thousands of women left the workforce, broken by a system that collapses without their unpaid and unsupported labor. And, even to people who don't have children, the cost of caring for aging parents, spouses, and other family members is a looming inevitability. America currently has no federal system in place to support people who care for older or sick family members, and-- ask anybody who has had to do it-- that care does not pay for itself. Did you know that Medicare doesn't currently include dental or vision coverage?
(Interestingly, many of the naysayers who will claim that bolstering the care economy is "too expensive," you might notice, don't have a problem with the expense of military intervention or tax cuts for the wealthy. If you want to play a fun game, every time you notice one of these budget hawks wringing their hands about expense, google "Their name" and "Afghanistan" or "Iraq" or "tax cut." You'll probably find that "expense" only seems to matter to these folks when it benefits women, children, and families back. Weird!)
The best thing you, an average person who cares, can do to try to help federal paid leave over the finish line over the next few weeks is turn up the pressure on your federal elected officials.
It doesn't matter what party you are or what party they are; this issue should be a no-brainer. You can find your member of Congress here and learn who your senators are here. If you already know who you should be getting in touch with, call the Capitol switchboard and ask to be transferred to their office. That number is (202) 224-3121. If your member of congress has a district office nearby, you can stop by in person and let the staffers know that you are a constituent and this issue is important to you and a supermajority of people in both major parties (if your member of congress or senators already support paid family leave, you can thank them!)
If you don't have time for any of that, The National Partnership for Women and Families is all over it. You can use a form on their website to email your reps and sign up for alerts on developments all in one place.
The second thing you can do: talk to your friends who aren't as tuned in as you are. Parents and caretakers are busy, people who have to work two customer service jobs to support themselves don't really have a ton of leisure time to sit around doomscrolling on Twitter. Let them know what's at stake and what they can do. Paid Leave for All is a good resource that doesn't hammer anybody over the head with partisanship.
In the meantime, here are some not-so-fun cocktail party facts about how far behind the US is when it comes to other industrialized countries. Feel free to sprinkle these into the next conversation you have on the issue:
In Kenya, a mother is entitled to three months' paid maternity leave at her full salary when she gives birth. This leave doesn't cut into the other sick leave she may be entitled to as an employee.
In Serbia, mothers can take 20 weeks' paid leave at full salary after the birth of a child. They can take up to a year of paid leave after that, with the percentage of salary they're paid going down over the course of that year. Fathers get a week of fully paid paternity leave.
New Zealand gives new parents up to 26 weeks' paid parental leave, with the option to take 26 additional unpaid weeks.
Mothers in India can get up to 26 weeks of paid leave for their first two children.
All working mothers in Israel are guaranteed 15 weeks of paid leave, and are allowed to take up to 26 weeks off. Taking off at least 7 weeks after the birth of a child is mandatory, and it's illegal for employers to fire women while they're pregnant or within 60 days after their child's birth.
Chilean mothers get 30 weeks' paid leave for the birth of a child-- six of those weeks before the birth and 24 after.
In Sweden, parents are entitled to take 480 days--that's almost 16 months-- of parental leave when a child is born or adopted. The leave can be taken all at once or split up and taken in pieces over the child's first 8 years of life. Two-parent families can split the 480 days of leave however they wish, provided each parent takes at least 90 days. Single parent households get 480 days. Also in Sweden: children have a guaranteed spot in nursery school from age one up to age six, when primary school begins, and the cost of that childcare is capped at 3% of parents' income for the first child, 2% for the second child, and 1% for the third child (fourth child is free). If a family in Stockholm made the equivalent of $100,000 USD annually (which is a little less than an average 2-income household would make in that country, but I'm using round numbers for napkin math purposes), the annual cost of sending three children under 6 to day care would be capped at $6000 per year, or $500 per month.
So, if the US Congress passes the $3.5 Trillion budget reconciliation package in front of it, the president signs it, and a federal paid leave program is finally enacted, in two years, America will be a fraction of the way to catching up with where Sweden was in the mid 1970's.
Hey, it's a start.
Illustration by Gracia Lam