Conservatives fight paid leave plan proposed by House, U.S.still lags behind the rest of the world
“Four weeks is obviously less than what many people need and what advocates have been pushing for,” said Vicki Shabo, a senior fellow focused on paid leave policy at the New America think tank. Nevertheless, she called it a “historic and transformational start” and said employers, state-run paid leave programs, and potentially Congress could expand on it in the future.
Without a federal program, it’s left up to companies to provide their workers with leave voluntarily in the vast majority of states, which results in mostly high-paid workers getting access to paid time off. Only 23% of workers get paid family leave, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“Part of this is not just changing policy, it’s changing culture and norms,” Shabo said.
Four weeks would be a fraction of the paid leave guaranteed to new mothers in much of the developed world. Countries in the European Union provide an average of 22 weeks annually, and those in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development offer 18 weeks on average, according to a 2019 OECD report.
Much of the negative impact of limiting the U.S. program to four weeks instead of 12 will fall on workers of color, who are “often the folks most in need,” said Josephine Kalipeni, executive director at Family Values @ Work, arguing the program should be expanded in the future.
“This is laying a foundation and we have to build something on that foundation,” Kalipeni said.
The White House made the case earlier this month that enacting a paid leave program would increase women’s workforce participation as well as boost the U.S. economy in the form of a higher gross domestic product.
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