[Senate Hearing 115-744]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 115-744
EXAMINING THE IMPORTANCE OF PAID FAMILY
LEAVE FOR AMERICAN WORKING FAMILIES
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON SOCIAL SECURITY,
PENSIONS, AND FAMILY POLICY
of the
COMMITTEE ON FINANCE
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JULY 11, 2018
__________
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Printed for the use of the Committee on Finance
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
39-619-PDF WASHINGTON : 2020
COMMITTEE ON FINANCE
ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah, Chairman
CHUCK GRASSLEY, Iowa RON WYDEN, Oregon
MIKE CRAPO, Idaho DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan
PAT ROBERTS, Kansas MARIA CANTWELL, Washington
MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming BILL NELSON, Florida
JOHN CORNYN, Texas ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey
JOHN THUNE, South Dakota THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware
RICHARD BURR, North Carolina BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland
JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia SHERROD BROWN, Ohio
ROB PORTMAN, Ohio MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado
PATRICK J. TOOMEY, Pennsylvania ROBERT P. CASEY, Jr., Pennsylvania
DEAN HELLER, Nevada MARK R. WARNER, Virginia
TIM SCOTT, South Carolina CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri
BILL CASSIDY, Louisiana SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island
Jeffrey Wrase, Staff Director and Chief Economist
Joshua Sheinkman, Democratic Staff Director
______
Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions, and Family Policy
BILL CASSIDY, Louisiana, Chairman
ROB PORTMAN, Ohio SHERROD BROWN, Ohio
MIKE CRAPO, Idaho ROBERT P. CASEY, Jr., Pennsylvania
PATRICK J. TOOMEY, Pennsylvania
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
Cassidy, Hon. Bill, a U.S. Senator from Louisiana, chairman,
Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions, and Family Policy,
Committee on Finance........................................... 1
Brown, Hon. Sherrod, a U.S. Senator from Ohio.................... 3
CONGRESSIONAL WITNESSES
Ernst, Hon. Joni, a U.S. Senator from Iowa....................... 5
Gillibrand, Hon. Kirsten E., a U.S. Senator from New York........ 7
WITNESSES
Biggs, Andrew G., Ph.D., resident scholar, American Enterprise
Institute, Washington, DC...................................... 10
Shabo, Vicki, vice president for workplace policies and
strategies, National Partnership for Women and Families,
Washington, DC................................................. 12
O'Boyle, Carolyn, managing director, Deloitte Services LP,
Boston, MA..................................................... 15
ALPHABETICAL LISTING AND APPENDIX MATERIAL
Biggs, Andrew G., Ph.D.:
Testimony.................................................... 10
Prepared statement........................................... 35
Responses to questions from subcommittee members............. 38
Brown, Hon. Sherrod:
Opening statement............................................ 3
Prepared statement........................................... 41
Letters of support for S. 337................................ 42
Cassidy, Hon. Bill:
Opening statement............................................ 1
Prepared statement........................................... 71
Ernst, Hon. Joni:
Testimony.................................................... 5
Prepared statement........................................... 72
Gillibrand, Hon. Kirsten E.:
Testimony.................................................... 7
Prepared statement........................................... 73
O'Boyle, Carolyn:
Testimony.................................................... 15
Prepared statement........................................... 75
Responses to questions from subcommittee members............. 78
Shabo, Vicki:
Testimony.................................................... 12
Prepared statement........................................... 79
Responses to questions from subcommittee members............. 116
Communications
American Benefits Council........................................ 123
American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI)......................... 124
American Sustainable Business Council............................ 126
Association of Women's Health, Obstetric, and Neonatal Nurses.... 127
Berner International Corporation................................. 129
Consortium for Citizens With Disabilities (CCD).................. 129
ERISA Industry Committee......................................... 131
First Focus Campaign for Children................................ 132
Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration........................ 134
The Heritage Foundation.......................................... 137
Human Rights Campaign............................................ 144
Independent Women's Forum........................................ 146
International Franchise Association.............................. 149
Main Street Alliance............................................. 149
Mercatus Center.................................................. 155
National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association (NARFE) 164
New York City Department of Consumer Affairs..................... 165
1,000 Days....................................................... 169
Strengthen Social Security Coalition............................. 170
ZERO TO THREE.................................................... 171
Zevin Asset Management, LLC...................................... 177
EXAMINING THE IMPORTANCE OF PAID
FAMILY LEAVE FOR AMERICAN
WORKING FAMILIES
----------
WEDNESDAY, JULY 11, 2018
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Social Security,
Pensions, and Family Policy,
Committee on Finance,
Washington, DC.
The hearing was convened, pursuant to notice, at 3:02 p.m.,
in room SD-215, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Bill
Cassidy (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Senators Crapo, Enzi, Cornyn, Isakson, Scott,
Cantwell, Menendez, Carper, Brown, Bennet, and Casey.
Also present: Republican staff: Chris Gillott, Deputy Chief
of Staff for subcommittee chairman Cassidy. Democratic staff:
Gideon Bragin, Senior Policy Advisor for subcommittee ranking
member Brown.
Senator Cassidy. The Senate Finance Subcommittee on Social
Security, Pensions, and Family Policy will come to order.
I thank everyone and welcome everyone to today's hearing
examining the importance of paid family leave for American
working families.
I recognize distinguished colleagues with us, Senators
Ernst and Gillibrand. They are not here yet, but will be. I
also welcome Ms. Ivanka Trump, Advisor to the President and a
fervent advocate for children and working families.
I am pleased to chair this hearing, and I thank Ranking
Member Brown and other colleagues for joining me. After Senator
Brown and I make opening statements, we will proceed with two
panels of witnesses.
Two Senate colleagues will give statements on the first
panel, followed by a second panel of experts for their
testimony and questions from committee members. My statement
begins now.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BILL CASSIDY, A U.S. SENATOR FROM
LOUISIANA, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON SOCIAL SECURITY, PENSIONS,
AND FAMILY POLICY, COMMITTEE ON FINANCE
Senator Cassidy. Working families are the core of our
social fabric and economic success. American workers have
increasingly felt good about their prospects. A recent poll
shows economic optimism at a 13-year high.
Yet some families have been left behind. For nearly a
decade, wages and growth have been stagnant, health care and
education costs skyrocketing. American families expect more.
Over the last 2 years, I have worked to help families get
more money in their pocketbooks and better benefits to navigate
the ebbs and flows of life. Many families in my home State of
Louisiana are seeing last year's tax cut reflected in higher
paychecks. I also continue to work with colleagues on lowering
health-care costs for these families.
To consider another thing which may help, today we will
examine a paid leave benefit for working families.
A 2017 Pew poll shows overwhelming majorities of Americans
support paid sick leave and paid maternity leave. Paternity
leave and family leave also have strong public support. Yet
views on the structure and funding of a paid leave program
vary.
By way of background, the Family and Medical Leave Act of
1993 provides most U.S. workers with up to 12 weeks of job-
protected leave to care for a new child or to address an
illness. However, it does not cover all workers, such as some
small business and part-time employees. And, the guarantee is
for unpaid leave. Some workers cannot afford to take time off.
Most workers receive some type of paid time off for
holidays, vacation, or illness. Yet the Pew study indicates
fewer workers have access to defined paid family leave versus
other types of leave. And paid family leave is rare in lower-
income households.
Now, there are several reasons to support paid leave for
workers. I will mention three.
First, improving health outcomes. I am a doctor. I am
concerned about infant and maternal health. At 6 per 1,000 live
births, infant mortality is higher in the United States than in
25 of 28 other developed countries. A recent study reports that
if a new mother takes paid leave, re-admittance rates for her
and her infant decrease by 50 percent.
Second, helping families manage work and home
responsibilities, particularly for lower-income workers. Pew
reports, among individuals taking family or medical leave, only
38 percent in families with incomes less than $30,000 a year
receive any paid leave. For families with higher incomes, 74
percent receive paid leave.
And then thirdly, creating incentives to stay in the
workforce, supporting productivity and economic growth. Long-
term economic growth is a function of workforce participation
and labor productivity. With an aging population, it is
essential our workforce remains strong.
A 2012 Rutgers study found that women who work 20 or more
hours per week before childbirth and who take paid leave
afterwards are 93 percent more likely to be working 9 months
postpartum, compared to a woman who does not take leave.
Another AEI-Brookings study found that work hours for
mothers who took paid leave were 10 to 17 percent higher than
before paid leave was instituted.
With last year's tax cuts bill, we are seeing workers
getting some help. First, the bill included a 2-year pilot
program authored by Senators Fischer and King: a tax credit to
employers who offer low- and moderate-income employees at least
2 weeks of paid leave. Numerous companies announced new or
expanded paid leave programs after the tax bill passed,
including Starbucks, Walmart, and Lowe's.
As we shall see today, there is bipartisan interest in
expanding paid maternal, family, and medical leave. I am
pleased to convene this initial conversation to consider policy
options and trade-offs.
By the way, preserving the retirement benefits promised to
American workers is paramount. Any proposal that relies on
Social Security cannot weaken Social Security but ideally
strengthens it.
The 2018 Trustees Report projects that the Social Security
Trust Fund will go bankrupt in 2034. In order to close that
shortfall, benefits today would have to be cut by 17 percent
for all beneficiaries, including those already collecting.
We must address this looming crisis. We cannot let that
happen. Doing nothing is not an option.
Also speaking of Social Security, another priority is the
Windfall Elimination Provision, which impacts many State civil
servants. Although not directly related to today's topic, it
must be included in the discussion of preserving and
strengthening Social Security in the future.
Again, I am pleased to convene these panels of experts to
consider policies that help working families and create
incentives for Americans to stay in the workforce and help
build the greatest economy in the world.
I look forward to the discussion. And now I recognize
Senator Brown.
[The prepared statement of Senator Cassidy appears in the
appendix.]
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. SHERROD BROWN,
A U.S. SENATOR FROM OHIO
Senator Brown. Thank you to Senator Cassidy.
Welcome to Senator Gillibrand and Senator Ernst. Thank you
for joining us for this important discussion.
Thanks to Senator Cassidy for working to convene the
hearing to explore ways we can work together to expand Social
Security and the safety net to include paid family medical
leave. It is a welcome glimpse of what we could achieve
together if we focus on the needs of working families.
Right now, the lack of paid family leave is a drag on our
economy, and it holds workers back.
American families lose nearly $21 billion in wages each
year because they do not have access to paid leave. People who
work in jobs like ours in the Congress and in the White House,
who wear suits--some made in the United States, some made
elsewhere--and have good benefits, may not realize that the
vast majority of American workers have no paid family leave at
all.
For too many Americans, hard work simply does not pay off.
When I say we do not value work in this country, I do not
talk just about wages. I am talking about benefits people earn,
or should earn.
Eighty-five percent of the workforce, 100 million people,
have no paid family medical leave. If a mother has a baby, she
gets zero paid time off--not a single day. If she is not back
at work the day after she gives birth--something most of us
would agree is cruel and absurd--she does not get a paycheck.
This is not just about new mothers. All sorts of workers
face impossible choices. Do they go to work knowing the risks
to their own health and to others around them, or do they stay
home and lose a paycheck?
Hundreds of thousands, probably millions of Americans, face
that choice every day. Do they send a sick child to school,
knowing they are risking the health of their daughter and the
health of the entire classroom, or do they jeopardize their job
and give up pay by taking a day off?
As they grow older, workers often have to care for aging
parents. When sons over the age of 50 leave the workforce to
care for a parent, they lose an average of $300,000 in earnings
and retirement savings. Daughters lose even more, an average of
$324,000.
If we truly value the dignity of work in this country--if
we truly value the dignity of work, we need to recognize that
paid family leave is something all workers should have the
opportunity to earn.
Today's bipartisan hearing is an important baby step
forward. Members of both parties are coming together to
recognize that this simply is not acceptable in a rich, modern
economy and to acknowledge that we have to expand our social
insurance to include paid family medical leave.
This should not be a partisan issue. It affects every
sector of the economy. It affects workers of all ages with all
types of families.
Paid leave is good for business. A recent survey conducted
by Ernst and Young found the majority of large companies
support the creation of paid family and medical leave programs
on the State or Federal level that are funded through tax
contributions.
Such a program would be particularly good for small
businesses. It would make these programs more affordable. It
would put small businesses on a more even footing with large
corporations that can afford bigger benefit packages, allowing
them to compete for talent.
Today, Democrats have put forward a thoughtful approach
that I believe should reach consensus. It is a common-sense
bill that builds on the most successful and popular program we
have in this country, Social Security.
It would offer low-cost, portable benefits that all
American workers would earn. It would be paid for by both
workers and employers. It is an approach that has already been
adopted by five States, soon to be six, and the District of
Columbia.
My Republican colleagues also have some ideas on the table.
I have some ideas on the table. I want to thank them for their
desire to work together on this issue.
Democrats too are at the table, ready to negotiate and
reach a solution that can become law. Unfortunately, the
approach some of our colleagues are currently proposing amounts
to cutting Social Security for the workers who need it most.
Using retirement security to fund paid time off from work
when you have a child is not paid family leave at all. It is
robbing from your retirement to be able to care for loved ones
now.
Low-wage workers in physically demanding jobs are more
likely to be forced into early retirement because of the toll
these jobs take on their bodies. That already means taking a
Social Security cut, and this plan would only make that cut
bigger.
In an opinion piece for The Federalist, the president of
the Independent Women's Forum--the group that first put forward
this idea--wrote that she views this plan as a first step to
``transform the current pay-as-you-go system into one that pre-
funds future benefits and with assets that belong to
individuals.'' In other words, some of the people pushing this
plan view it as the beginning of the process of dismantling
Social Security as we know it.
I want to work together, as both Senators here know, but a
plan that is a first step towards privatizing Social Security,
the bedrock of our social safety net, is no place to start.
We know that only covering parental leave excludes the vast
majority of workers. Three-quarters of Americans who use the
Family and Medical Leave Act take time off to care for their
own health or for that of a seriously ill family member.
Any national paid leave plan should build on the Family
Medical Leave Act and reflect the well-established needs laid
out in that law: parental leave, family care leave, personal
medical leave, and military caregiving leave.
We must be able to have honest debate about these critical
issues. Though we have differing perspectives, we are working
toward the same goals. We all want to help families navigate a
changing economy, and again, make sure hard work pays off.
We believe that all work has dignity. That is an important
thing to remember.
Senator Cassidy. Thank you, Senator Brown.
[The prepared statement of Senator Brown appears in the
appendix.]
Senator Cassidy. Before we go to our first panel, let me
just recognize some House colleagues who are here: Congressmen
Peter King and Lou Barletta, Congresswoman Claudia Tenney, and
Ivanka Trump.
Ms. Trump, you have done so much to drive attention to this
issue at this point. So thank you all for being here, and thank
you for your interests in this issue.
And now to our Senate colleagues. Our first panel has two
distinguished colleagues. We will first hear from Senator Ernst
of Iowa, followed by Senator Gillibrand from New York. Both of
these Senators and friends have demonstrated leadership in
their advocacy for American workers and families.
We are pleased to welcome you here. I look forward to
hearing your perspectives.
Senator Ernst?
STATEMENT OF HON. JONI ERNST,
A U.S. SENATOR FROM IOWA
Senator Ernst. Thank you very much.
Chairman Cassidy, Ranking Member Brown, and members of the
subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to testify before you
today. I also want to thank my dear friend and colleague,
Kirsten Gillibrand of New York. Thank you for being an
important voice on this issue.
The issue of paid leave is incredibly important. Millions
of mothers, fathers, grandparents, and families across the
country struggle with the realities of childbirth and infant
care while also working hard to put food on the table and raise
strong and healthy families. It is long overdue that Congress
not just have a conversation on these matters, but get serious
about a path forward.
As a mother myself, I know that being a parent is never an
easy task. Additionally, throughout my career, I have worked
with and heard from numerous working parents, including those
on my own staff, who have struggled to navigate the challenges
of balancing work with the need to provide safe and supportive
care for their new babies.
Some are fortunate enough to have paid benefits provided by
their employers. However, many families in America do not have
this luxury.
To illustrate just how difficult it is for working moms and
dads, I want to share the story of a constituent named Jessica.
Jessica is the epitome of what it means to be an Iowan. She has
been working since she was 16 and done everything from working
at a call center to waitressing, which is her current position.
Jessica is also married, and she and her husband are the
proud parents of two young boys. They work day in and day out
to provide for their growing family. Along the way, it has not
been easy. Money, at times, has been tight, and both Jessica
and her husband had to decide between working and meeting rent
and taking time to care for their newborn.
Common sense tells us that it is important for parents to
spend time with their newborn. The bond that is formed when
parents first lay eyes on their child only becomes stronger the
longer the time they have to spend together.
A recent study by the International Journal of Child Care
and Education Policy found the amount of time that new parents
spend around their newborn has a direct influence on the
quality of
mother-to-child interactions as well as childhood and
adolescent outcomes.
Paid family leave policies have been shown to increase
breastfeeding rates and are associated with better infant
health outcomes as well as decreased rates of low birth weight
and infant mortality.
When Jessica had her son Karter, she was only able to take
2 weeks off before returning to work. This is despite the fact
that she had a C-section, which made it difficult and painful
for her to work in the first few weeks after delivery.
She would go to work in the morning, but when her lunch
break came, she would rush to the bathroom, pump milk, and then
run home to give it to her husband, all within an hour. Her
husband works nights, so when Jessica returned home at the end
of the day, she only had a few precious hours to spend with
Karter and her husband before he had go to work.
Jessica is expecting her third child and is due in
December. She is unsure how much time she and her husband will
be able to take off.
Jessica's experience is a similar story in households
around the country. As a Nation, we know that we can do better
for our families.
President Trump highlighted paid leave during his State of
the Union address, and his administration was the first to
budget for a national paid leave program. Through the
leadership of Ivanka Trump, the administration has worked
closely to develop a dialogue with Congress.
I am glad to see that the members of the House and Senate
and from both sides of the aisle are finally paying attention
to this issue, recognizing that moms and dads across the
country are trying to figure out how to ensure their babies are
well cared for and nurtured in those precious first few weeks
of life.
By paying attention to these needs, we are also recognizing
the important economic contribution of these families who give
so much to our communities. Our policies should reflect the
evolving needs of this workforce and reduce barriers that pose
challenges to parents who are balancing work and family.
As a conservative, I want to craft paid leave policy that
can not only attract consensus, but is viable for families,
employers, and the economy, recognizing that working parents by
definition are an essential part of many businesses. Few
businesses can afford more taxes or more cuts to their bottom
line. So we have to find a solution that does not make our
economy worse off or decrease the jobs available to working
parents.
I feel it is important to target a paid leave benefit to
individuals who do not have access to these benefits, such as
the two-thirds of low-income families that do not have paid
leave. These families are also more likely to work on an hourly
basis where, if they do not work, they do not get paid. They do
not have sick leave or vacation or other forms of leave that
can help bridge the gap.
For the past few months, I have been working with Senators
Marco Rubio and Mike Lee on the issue of paid leave. We have
been exploring how new parents could elect to receive a paid
leave benefit through Social Security.
In return for receiving these benefits, participants would
defer the collection of their Social Security benefits upon
retirement. We are still working through the complexities, but
I am hopeful we can craft a policy that will benefit most
families and those who need it the most.
Thank you again, Chairman Cassidy and Ranking Member Brown,
for holding this hearing today. I look forward to working with
you on the important issue of paid leave.
Helping families is an issue we can all agree on, and I
hope that we can have a productive dialogue on how Congress can
best help them.
Thank you very much.
Senator Cassidy. Thank you, Senator Ernst.
[The prepared statement of Senator Ernst appears in the
appendix.]
Senator Cassidy. Senator Gillibrand?
STATEMENT OF HON. KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND,
A U.S. SENATOR FROM NEW YORK
Senator Gillibrand. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,
Ranking Member Brown, for holding this hearing. I really
appreciate your leadership.
I want to recognize my colleague, Senator Ernst, for her
leadership and her interest in this bill and this debate that
we are having right now about how to produce a real paid leave
plan.
Here is the truth: at some point, every person here, every
person you know, is going to have a situation where you have to
take some time off from your work to meet and care for a family
member.
It might be a medical emergency, maybe your spouse is
diagnosed with cancer, or maybe you suddenly need to take care
of an aging parent or someone who has been diagnosed with
Alzheimer's, or maybe you are starting a new family or just had
a baby like your constituent Jessica.
Whatever the case is, no working American should ever have
to choose between their family members and a paycheck. But if
you do not have paid leave, that is exactly the choice that you
have to make. And this is especially true if you are working a
low-wage job.
That is unfortunately what millions of Americans have to
deal with every time there is a family emergency. Right now, 85
percent of workers do not have access to paid family and
medical leave. And lower-income workers are even less likely to
have it.
We are the only industrialized country in the world that
does not guarantee some form of paid leave. Recent reports have
shown that this costs families $20 billion a year.
And it also creates what we call the sticky floor, where
too many women get stuck in low-wage jobs with no chance of
advancement because, every time there is a family emergency and
they feel they need to ramp off, they can only ramp back on
with a lower-wage job, lower down the rung, and they never get
off the sticky floor.
So Congress desperately needs to catch up. We need a
national paid leave program now. The good news is that both
sides of the aisle recognize that this is a national problem.
Individual States are taking the lead, all over the
country, with bipartisan bills and State laws that are offering
real paid leave programs.
And I am very grateful to my Republican colleagues who are
committed to supporting a national paid leave program that is
based on, perhaps, a Social Security model. But I urge them to
support a comprehensive and fiscally responsible idea called
the FAMILY Act. And here is why.
First, the FAMILY Act is an earned benefit, meaning it
travels with you, whether you are working full-time, part-time,
big companies, small companies, wherever you live, wherever you
work.
Second, the FAMILY Act, the way we have written it, is
really affordable. It is about the cost of a cup of coffee a
week for you and for your employer. It is about $2.00 a week on
average for all employees.
That is not a great deal of money to know that if your
mother is dying, that you can be by her side, or if you have a
new infant or special needs child, that you could be there when
they are in need.
It also gives you about 66 percent of your wages guaranteed
for up to 3 months with a cap.
So it is affordable. It is comprehensive. It is an amount
of time that could make a huge difference if you have an
illness in your family or a new baby.
Third, the FAMILY Act covers all workers--which I think is
really important. For all of these debates that we have, it is
not just about women. It is not just about new babies. All of
us have family emergencies. Any one of us here in the Senate,
if our spouses were critically ill, we would want to be by
their sides. But we have that flexibility. That is not true for
most working people in this country.
So we want to make sure it covers all family members for
all reasons. The FAMILY Act covers birth or adoption, taking
care of an older family member, addressing one's own personal
medical needs.
And we know here in the Senate we have been able to address
our own personal needs because we have that flexibility. Let us
make sure every worker in America has that.
Fourth, the FAMILY Act will level the playing field for
small businesses. I have heard this over and over again, even
when I went with Senator Heitkamp to North Dakota. The people
who testified on behalf of having this kind of plan were the
small businesses who said, we could never compete with big
businesses. We could never be paying two payrolls at the same
time. We could never offer this.
So any incentive that is just a tax credit or a tax cut
does not help that small business owner, because they are never
going to have enough money to do it.
Also small States, if you are a small State like North
Dakota, your State is never going to have the money to have a
paid leave plan the way that California has one, the way that
New York has one. So this type of idea--because it is
comprehensive--covers all States: small States, big States,
small businesses, big businesses.
A small business today cannot compete with a Facebook or a
Google or the Ernst and Youngs or the big law firms and all of
the places that can offer paid leave, so that is why the small
business groups have endorsed this bill.
It has also been endorsed by a lot of larger businesses
that already provide leave, because they know how good it is
for their business. They know that paid leave is actually good
for profit. It is good for employee retention. It is good for
productivity. It is good for morale.
Finally, the FAMILY Act does not create a false choice
between having to take money early from your Social Security
account. It keeps your Social Security account secure so your
retirement benefits are there for you. That is why I think this
is the kind of paid leave plan that we could all get behind,
because it makes sense. It does not cost a lot of money, and it
covers everybody. It is portable. It works with the gig
economy. It works with part-time workers. It literally works
with everybody, because it is an earned benefit just like
Social Security.
So I hope this is something that people can endorse. It has
already been endorsed by a coalition of Fortune 500 companies
and small businesses, because it is good for business. And what
is good for business is good for this country. It is good for
our economy, and we know it is good for families.
So I urge all of you to support the FAMILY Act.
Thank you.
Senator Cassidy. Thank you both.
[The prepared statement of Senator Gillibrand appears in
the appendix.]
Senator Cassidy. Can we have our second panel?
I will now introduce our three witnesses.
I will start with Andrew Biggs. He is the resident scholar
at the American Enterprise Institute. He studies Social
Security and public pension reform, retirement income policy,
and public-sector pay and benefits.
Before joining AEI, Dr. Biggs was the Principal Deputy
Commissioner at the Social Security Administration. He has also
been an Associate Director of the White House National Economic
Council, a member of George W. Bush's Commission to Strengthen
Social Security, and a member of President Obama's Financial
Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico.
Dr. Biggs holds a bachelor's degree from Queens University
Belfast in Northern Ireland, master's degrees from Cambridge
University and the University of London, and a Ph.D. from the
London School of Economics.
Vicki Shabo is the vice president at the National
Partnership for Women and Families, focused on paid family and
medical leave, paid sick days, fair pay, and other workplace
policies. Previously, Ms. Shabo practiced law at a large
international law firm and worked as a pollster and political
strategist. She also worked on the Hill as a staffer on the
House Judiciary Committee.
Ms. Shabo graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor of arts
in politics and American studies from Pomona College, and she
has a master's degree in political science from the University
of Michigan. She earned her law degree with high honors from
the University of North Carolina, where she served as editor-
in-chief of the North Carolina Law Review.
After law school, she clerked for Hon. Michael Murphy of
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the tenth circuit in Salt Lake
City.
Last, Carolyn O'Boyle is a managing director in Deloitte's
talent organization, serving as a chief operating officer and a
leader of the talent strategy and innovation team. As COO, Ms.
O'Boyle is responsible for managing financial and strategic
operations for Deloitte's talent function, which encompasses
business advisory, acquisition and mobility, development
inclusion, alumni, total rewards, and shared services
functions.
She has been researching and writing on the topic of
generational differences in the workforce, including the role
that HR organizations can play in managing differences. She
holds a BA from Bowdoin College and an MBA from the MIT Sloan
School of Management.
We are now pleased to recognize Dr. Biggs, followed by Ms.
Shabo, then Ms. O'Boyle, for 5 minutes each to give their
opening statements.
Dr. Biggs?
STATEMENT OF ANDREW G. BIGGS, Ph.D., RESIDENT SCHOLAR, AMERICAN
ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE, WASHINGTON, DC
Dr. Biggs. Chairman Cassidy, Ranking Member Brown, and
members of the committee, thank you very much today for the
opportunity to discuss the importance of paid parental leave
and how it might be provided on an affordable basis via the
Social Security program.
Paid parental leave can provide important health and
educational benefits to children while enabling mothers to
remain attached to their prior jobs, which could increase
earnings substantially once the mothers return to the
workforce.
Research in the U.S. and other countries has found that
allowing new mothers paid leave allows them to remain attached
to their prior job, rather than feeling forced to quit in order
to spend time with their newborn. In doing so, mothers retain
the seniority and job-specific skills that allow them to earn
higher wages once they return to work.
Analysis of California's paid leave program finds it
increases female labor force participation and boosts post-
child worker hours by 10 to 17 percent. Most of the so-called
``gender wage gap'' is in truth the fault of falling female
wages post-childbirth.
If California's results held up on a nationwide basis, the
``gender wage gap,'' which already has been shrinking, would
narrow considerably.
Many large employers already offer paid parental leave as a
way to attract and retain quality employees. However, smaller
employers and startups often lack the financial capacity to
offer paid leave, which places them at a disadvantage relative
to larger firms. Self-employed and gig economy workers also
lack paid leave.
So there is room for public policy to help make paid
parental leave more widely available. However, there are
practical impediments to enacting paid parental leave.
Some proposals would finance paid leave through a new
payroll tax. The political reality is that many Americans would
not favor such a tax, in particular those who could not or
would not take parental leave, and therefore, would be forced
to subsidize those who do.
Likewise, opinion polls find that many Americans believe
that employers should provide paid leave. The research also
finds that when employers are required to provide employee
benefits, they often react by reducing wages or hiring fewer
employees who would be eligible for those benefits. This could
hurt employment opportunities for women of childbearing age.
Others have proposed savings accounts where young workers
could set aside money to fund the paid leave. While I do not
oppose such accounts, young workers have low incomes, often
carry student loans, and may have little time to save before a
first child arrives.
In an article for The Wall Street Journal and a subsequent
work, Kristin Shapiro and I proposed an idea designed to work
around some of these practical issues. New parents would be
eligible to take a temporary Social Security benefit to cover
parental leave, but in exchange must agree to an increase in
their Social Security retirement age or some other offsetting
reduction to their future retirement benefits.
For instance, if the Social Security benefit were paid for
12 weeks, the beneficiary would accept a normal retirement age
approximately 25 weeks higher than under current law. The
higher normal retirement age does not prevent a person from
claiming benefits as early as age 62, but does result in a
benefit that is about 3 percent lower than it otherwise would
be.
It is easy to conclude that any reduction in future
retirement benefits is unacceptable. However, if paid parental
leave produces anything like the post-childbirth earnings
increases found in California, those higher earnings would
boost Social Security benefits by more than enough to make up
for the increase in the normal retirement age.
For a low-income woman, the 10- to 17-percent higher post-
childbirth earnings found in California would lead to a 5- to
9-
percent net Social Security benefit even after the retirement
age increase used to pay back the parental leave benefit.
By using Social Security's progressive benefit formula,
parental leave benefits would be targeted toward low earners
who are less likely to be provided with paid leave at work. The
Urban Institute estimated that Social Security-based parental
leave benefits would replace around 59 percent of prior
earnings to the median new mother claiming benefits, while a
lower-income woman could expect a replacement rate of about 69
percent.
Finally, it is understandable to worry about adding a
parental leave component to an already underfunded Social
Security program. But the cost of this paid leave proposal
should be put in perspective. On an annual basis, Social
Security's benefit cost would increase by a maximum of about 1
percent in the mid-2040s.
Later, as individuals who claimed paid leave retired, total
annual Social Security benefit costs would be about 2 percent
lower than under current law.
To close, paid parental leave has benefits for parents, for
children, and for our economy. Many Americans are already
eligible for paid leave through their employers, but via
creative policymaking, Congress can help extend the benefits of
paid leave to all new parents.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Biggs appears in the
appendix.]
Senator Cassidy. Ms. Shabo?
STATEMENT OF VICKI SHABO, VICE PRESIDENT FOR WORKPLACE POLICIES
AND STRATEGIES, NATIONAL PARTNERSHIP FOR WOMEN AND FAMILIES,
WASHINGTON, DC
Ms. Shabo. Thank you so much, Chairman Cassidy and Ranking
Member Brown and members of the committee.
This is a great sign of progress that this hearing is
happening today. And it is a real sign of true movement that
there is so much agreement about the fact that our lack of paid
leave in this country is a real problem and that we need a
thriving economy, and that paid leave is a big part of creating
that thriving economy.
There are a lot of numbers being thrown around here and a
lot of confusion about how we might do this. It is not that
confusing. It is actually quite simple.
America's need for paid leave is clear. And it does not
distinguish by political party, family type, or care need. No
one should be forced to miss their baby's first smile, be
prevented from helping a parent, or God forbid a child, to get
cancer treatments, or being kept away from caring for a spouse
as she recovers from a serious injury sustained in military
service.
We at the National Partnership for Women and Families
fervently hope that today is the beginning of a congressional
debate that quickly brings urgently needed change for more than
100 million working people who do not have paid family leave
through their jobs.
In my short time today, I am going to do my best to touch
on three things: the importance of addressing family and
medical leave, not just parental leave; the FAMILY Act's
reasonable features, which are supported by State paid leave
evidence; and grave concerns about the Social Security penalty
approach that Dr. Biggs described, although I am very grateful
for the incredible research that he has pulled together that
shows the benefits of paid leave policies, and we agree on
those.
First, to reflect on America's needs, any plan must be
comprehensive. And that is for one simple reason: three-
quarters of people who use the Family and Medical Leave Act do
so to care for a seriously ill loved one, their own serious
health issue, or for military care purposes. A parental-leave-
only plan would leave millions of people behind.
Health emergencies should never trigger financial
emergencies. Yet for too many people, any unavoidable unpaid
family and medical leave means dipping into savings that are
earmarked for another purpose, taking on debt, putting off
paying bills, or using public assistance.
An investment in paid family and medical leave is an
investment in promoting work, financial responsibility, and
independence.
Today, 43.5 million people care for ill or injured or
disabled loved ones. And most of those folks also are holding
jobs, and they are working full-time.
Our aging population means the demand for family care will
grow dramatically. And in communities across the country that
are being ripped apart by opioids and substance abuse, paid
leave means family members can provide care and support
recovery.
People also need--and most of them do not have--paid leave
to address their own serious health issues. And this just
exacerbates the race- and income-based health disparities that
plague our Nation today. These are new or expecting mothers who
have life-threatening complications, working people who sustain
a serious injury in a car accident or some other way, or older
people who are forced to remain in the workforce longer than
ever.
The future of work also figures into this conversation. The
occupations with the most projected job growth are
disproportionately low-wage, low-quality jobs that are often
held by women. And the contingent and gig workers face
especially precarious circumstances.
So this takes me to my second point. As you consider policy
options, I urge you to see that the FAMILY Act is a modest and
reasonable approach.
Many conservative voters in focus groups that we conducted
this past fall actually thought it seemed like a Republican
idea. And they preferred it to the parents-only plan that was
proposed in the President's budget, personal tax-free savings
accounts, or the employer tax credit that was part of the tax
bill.
Six States and DC have passed paid leave plans, and nearly
all of them go beyond the FAMILY Act in one or more ways. And
we have learned a lot from seeing how they work.
The FAMILY Act would provide family, personal medical, and
parental leave for up to 12 weeks. And that is consistent with
what the States are doing. But the duration is actually modest
in comparison to many of those States.
It would replace two-thirds of a worker's wages, which is a
minimum level for affordability and gender equity. New State
laws, which have passed with substantial bipartisan support--
including in Senator Cantwell's Washington state--will do more
than that.
People who need to take time away from their jobs would be
protected from retaliation, which is especially critical for
low-wage workers. The fund would be self-sustaining and cover
all benefits and administrative costs.
The State plans actually run surpluses. And to anticipate
an area of concern and one that Dr. Biggs addressed, I have
actually never heard anything in the 9 years that I have been
working on this to suggest that the paid leave payroll
deductions in any of those States are a real problem for low-
wage workers.
National and State polling also shows voters are willing to
pay, and businesses are too.
Program integrity measures would help to ensure appropriate
use has been the case in States. And employers that seek
competitive advantages could top up FAMILY Act benefits.
So that takes me to my third point. And I will try to go
quickly.
There are four distinct and qualifying problems with
imposing a Social Security penalty for taking paid leave.
First, the costs to working people are not at all trivial. The
plan that was described earlier would result in huge losses, a
6-percent benefit cut, or about $12,000 for a typical mother of
two. And women, people of color, and low-wage workers would be
harmed the most.
Second, any plan that only covers parents, again, excludes
75 percent of leave takers and would create especially cruel
ironies for people who use paid parental leave early in their
lives and then need a family or medical leave later on. They
would face reduced retirement either way.
Third, its wage replacement and maximum benefit amount are
too low to help most working and middle-class people and could
exacerbate, rather than help, gender inequities.
And fourth, it does not contemplate any new resources for
SSA, which is an agency that sorely needs them. It is not
budget-
neutral, and it would slightly accelerate trust fund
challenges, according to the Urban Institute, The Heritage
Foundation, and the American Action Forum.
The FAMILY Act is a real paid leave plan----
Senator Cassidy. Ms. Shabo, can you wrap up?
Ms. Shabo. Yes.
It would support families, businesses, our economy--it
reflects shared values of work, family, and care without
enforcing impossible new choices. And in this moment of intense
divisions, it has the potential to unite people.
So thank you. I apologize for going over and look forward
to answering your questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Shabo appears in the
appendix.]
Senator Cassidy. Ms. O'Boyle?
STATEMENT OF CAROLYN O'BOYLE, MANAGING DIRECTOR, DELOITTE
SERVICES LP, BOSTON, MA
Ms. O'Boyle. Chairman Cassidy, Ranking Member Brown, other
members of the subcommittee, good afternoon.
Thank you for inviting me to testify at this hearing on the
importance of paid family leave for American families. I
appreciate the subcommittee's attention to such an important
issue, as well as the opportunity to share with you Deloitte's
experiences in our
industry-leading paid family leave program.
My name is Carolyn O'Boyle. I am a managing director in
Deloitte's talent organization and have the privilege of
working to enhance employee engagement through innovative
experiences, processes, and policies such as paid family leave.
And family leave is not just an abstract concept for me, since
I took advantage of our program when I had my own son Jack.
For Deloitte as a professional services firm, our people
are our primary and greatest asset, and as such, their well-
being is critical to our success.
In 2015, we conducted a marketplace survey on parental
leave and found that 88 percent of the respondents would value
a broader paid leave policy to include family care beyond
parental leave. This, in addition to our focus on innovating
our well-being offerings, prompted our CEO Cathy Englebert and
her leadership team to address shifting caregiving dynamics and
emerging flexibility needs.
With a workforce spanning five generations and the changing
nature of caregiving in the U.S., we recognize that both men
and women of all generations face challenges in supporting the
well-being of their families. We recognized that if our people
were able to balance their caregiving needs with their
professional lives, we would improve productivity, reduce
turnover, and support the culture we aspire to have, one where
our people feel supported in managing their personal lives and
building a meaningful career.
In September 2016, we introduced our expanded and holistic
paid family leave program distinguished by several
characteristics.
First, the program recognizes that caregiving goes beyond
that of welcoming a new child. The program provides up to 16
weeks of paid leave to eligible U.S. employees to support a
broader range of life events, from the arrival of new child to
caring for an ill spouse or domestic partner, parent, child, or
sibling.
Second, the expanded program recognizes that both parents
play an important role in caregiving and eliminates any
disparity between primary and non-primary designations.
Finally, our paid family leave program also provides our
people with the flexibility to schedule the leave to meet the
needs of their family.
Before implementing this, we carefully assessed the costs
and benefits of the new program, evaluating potential
incremental salary costs against benefits to attrition,
productivity, and engagement. Our experience over the past 21
months has shown our actual costs to be lower than we
originally anticipated, and we have already realized an
improvement in attrition. And we have heard an overwhelming
gratefulness from our employees, who simply appreciated the
peace of mind in knowing that they could take the time needed
during life's challenging situations.
Since its inception, Deloitte's paid family leave program
has impacted the lives of thousands of professionals and their
families. And I would like to share with you a few of their
stories.
Consider Marcia, who requested paid family leave when her
son needed more intensive treatment for symptoms arising from
Asperger's syndrome and her elderly mother broke her pelvis at
the same time. As Marcia noted, ``I was grateful to Deloitte
for giving me the opportunity to support Noah through this
program. Honestly, I do not know what I would have done if I
did not have the access to the paid family leave program. It
would have been incredibly stressful. If I had tried to keep
working through all that was going on, my clients would not
have had the best of me. That is for sure.''
Or another employee--one of the many men who has been able
to participate in the program--who sent our CEO a thank you
note to tell her that, because he was able to stay home for 16
weeks with their child, his wife was able to return to her
medical practice. As he described it, ``The new paid family
leave program is going to give me the opportunity to spend a
great amount of quality time at home with our new baby. We are
all so happy that we have been afforded this opportunity, and
it is going to make a meaningful impact in our family life.''
We also have a story from David, whose wife Theresa was
diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. ``We had no one nearby,''
he says. ``Having the leave gave me more time to investigate
and arrange support options available through the community and
hospitals, and it gave me the freedom to be there for my wife,
take her to appointments, and when she was in the hospital, to
stay by her side the entire time.''
Further analysis of participation data from the past 21
months has shown several interesting outcomes, such as women
taking slightly longer leaves than previously. Men are
participating in parental leave at higher rates and taking
longer leaves. Caregiver leave participation has remained
relatively consistent.
And finally, creating a culture that empowers our people to
take advantage of this program has been as important as the
program itself. Every day our professionals are helping our
clients solve their greatest challenges in making a positive
impact in their communities.
Our leaders understand that if we want our people to grow
and develop in their careers and provide our clients with
exceptional service, we need to support them in all facets of
their lives.
To put it simply, we do not want our people to leave the
workforce due to caregiving needs at home. It is our
responsibility and commitment as an organization to ensure that
our people do not have to make that choice between family and
career.
Thank you again, Chairman Cassidy and Ranking Member Brown,
for providing me with this opportunity to share information
with the subcommittee about Deloitte's paid family leave
program.
I look forward to answering any questions you or the other
members may have at this time.
Senator Cassidy. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. O'Boyle appears in the
appendix.]
Senator Cassidy. I am told we have great turnout. Thank
you.
I am told by our committee staff that we should first begin
with subcommittee members and then we will go to our normal
order in terms of time of arrival.
I am going to defer my questions and ask Senator Brown to
go first.
Senator Brown. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you all. It was an interesting discussion.
Ms. O'Boyle, I want to talk for a moment about how you came
to this decision. As you heard testimony on the Ernst-Rubio
proposal--and Dr. Biggs had similar views and proposals--they
were limited to parental leave. You obviously did something
more than that: parental leave, medical leave, and caregiver
benefits.
Could you talk about that decision to do much more than
parental leave?
Ms. O'Boyle. Sure. So we realized that all of our people
were vulnerable to some element of caregiving need brought
about by a number of factors, including the presence of so many
generations in the workforce, the changing nature of caregiving
in the U.S., and shifting societal norms.
That was supported by the market data that I referenced in
my testimony, that 88 percent of respondents would place a
value on a broader paid leave policy that would include family
care.
While we think that the baby boomer generation is most
impacted by caregiving needs, data from multiple sources
actually points to how this impacts all generations.
So a recent study by AARP indicates that millennials spend
about 21 hours a week on caregiving duties. So we realized that
if we wanted to truly support our people in the way that they
needed, we needed to broaden the scope of our offering to
include broader leave.
Senator Brown. Okay. Thank you for that.
Ms. Shabo, would you kind of break down, if you can, the
usage among parental family caregiving and medical leave, both
under FMLA and the six States, I believe, and the District of
Columbia that now do it? If you could, give us some analysis
and some data.
Ms. Shabo. Absolutely. So one of the misconceptions is that
FMLA is just about new babies, and it is not. Seventy-five
percent of people use it--as I said in my testimony--for family
caregiving or personal medical leave.
And most are using it for personal medical leave. About 55
percent of uses are for somebody who has their own serious
health condition. And that is something that lasts for more
than 3 days or requires ongoing treatment from a physician.
At the State level, it is closer to 75 to 85 percent who
are using it for temporary disability insurance, and that is in
California, New Jersey, and Rhode Island, which are the States
that have had paid family leave and temporary disability
insurance the longest.
Among the family leave portions, the vast majority are
parental leave. But in States with older populations, like
Rhode Island for example, the family caregiving claims are
actually higher than in some of the other States.
So this is why a comprehensive policy is so important. And
to underscore a point that Ms. O'Boyle made about millennials,
often policymakers and even employers might think about
millennials as just needing paid parental leave, but a full
quarter of family caregivers are millennials, that is folks who
are 18 to 34. Many of them are in the sandwich generation or
elevating up into the sandwich generation
Senator Brown. Thank you.
Dr. Biggs, I thank you for being in front of this
subcommittee/committee a number of times.
I want to make a few comments before I ask you a couple
questions. First of all, I put on the record that, for many of
us on this committee, there is nothing bipartisan about
privatizing Social Security. So start with that.
The opinion piece in The Federalist that I mentioned
earlier stated that the president of this women's forum views
this plan as a first step to transform the current pay-as-you-
go system into what, I would assume, you as one of the
architects of President Bush's--I do not believe you said
privatizing Social Security--there was push-back on it because
the country saw it that way.
I know you talked about personal accounts, and I think by
any fair analysis the Rubio-Ernst plan is a first step--
buttressed by the argument of the president of the Independent
Women's Forum and any analysis, it is the same kind of
privatization.
My question, though, is this: the Ernst-Rubio proposal
claims that someone would only have to delay their retirement
by half as much as the amount of leave that they take. This
calculation was debunked by the Urban Institute report, which
found that someone who takes 12 weeks of leave would have to
delay their retirement by 20 to 25 weeks and face a permanent
benefit cut of 3 percent.
So your construction here is narrow. It is only parental
leave, not larger as Ms. O'Boyle and Ms. Shabo suggest. Why do
you think we have to force a tradeoff or penalty for new
parents who take paid leave as they near and enter retirement?
Why do you set this up as a tradeoff? When you need it today,
then you will have less in the future when your needs are
probably greater.
Dr. Biggs. Sure. Thank you very much.
I will try to answer your questions, your comments in
order.
For myself, I was not the author of the article in The
Federalist that you are citing. And I tend not to----
Senator Brown. I did not say you were. I was using that
as----
Dr. Biggs. What I am saying is, it would be mistaken to
ascribe those views to me. In working on the proposal, I never
thought of it at all in terms of how it played out with the
personal accounts debate.
To be frank, whatever side people may be on with the idea
of personal accounts for Social Security, I think it is pretty
clear at this point that is not going to happen. The personal
accounts were proposed as a way of saving the Social Security
surplus, back when we had a Social Security surplus.
Time has solved that problem. So we no longer have a Social
Security surplus to save. So I think to fear that this is the
first step in privatization is a mistaken fear.
Thinking about why we work with the idea of the tradeoff
between parental leave and retirement benefits, it is to get
around some of the issues that I looked at in my testimony, in
the sense that many people will not want to pay an extra
payroll tax to finance parental leave. That reduces their take-
home pay.
I believe--is the payroll tax 0.4 percent for the FAMILY
Act?
[No audible response.]
Dr. Biggs. Okay.
I think taxable payroll is somewhere around $7 trillion, so
that is about a $35-billion reduction in people's take-home
pay.
Senator Cassidy. Dr. Biggs, can you hurry up with your
answer?
Senator Brown. I apologize. One statement.
If you expand it to not just parental leave, you are going
to find a lot more public support for it. That is just a
reminder. That is almost by definition, you are going to have
more people eligible, more people interested, and more public
support for it.
Dr. Biggs. My thinking on this was to try to do something
perhaps more modest and more doable.
Senator Cassidy. Can you leave it there, Dr. Biggs? You are
a minute and a half over.
Dr. Biggs. I apologize for that.
The approach is to try something more modest and more
practical. I think that it gets around some of the issues I
discussed in my testimony.
Senator Cassidy. Senator Casey?
Senator Casey. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
I want to thank the witnesses for your testimony today and
for the highlighting of this critically important issue.
Ms. O'Boyle, I will start with you. This question relates
to children with disabilities. I know that in your firm you
made some changes that led to a better policy as it relates to
supporting parents of children with disabilities. Can you walk
through that for us?
Ms. O'Boyle. Walk through the policy?
Senator Casey. Right.
Ms. O'Boyle. So it is the 16 weeks that I was mentioning
earlier. That is fully paid for all of our eligible U.S.
employees for whatever need that they have, whether it is for
parental leave or whether it is more broad for caregiver leave.
That 16 weeks is on a rolling 52-week basis so that our
employees can continue to take advantage of the leave over the
course of their career as their needs change.
Senator Casey. We can readily understand how that helps the
workforce. Can you speak to--I know you may have addressed this
more broadly before--the impact on your company overall?
Ms. O'Boyle. Sure.
So in our experience, we have seen improvements in employee
attrition for employees taking a leave. While there are many
factors, obviously, that influence turnover, post-leave
turnover for women taking leave has improved by 32 percent,
with a 45-percent improvement for men.
This obviously translates into real dollars, as we
generally consider the cost of turnover to be about 150 percent
of a professional's salary. So that is rehiring, retraining, et
cetera. Less quantifiable, we know that decreasing the stress
our people experience from caregiving needs improves
productivity, engagement, and performance, all positive
benefits for the workforce.
And again, in our experience, we found that the benefits
are not limited to just those taking leave. We surveyed our
people following the launch of our new program. From that
survey and additional unsolicited feedback from our people, we
know that there is tremendous option value for all of our
professionals.
So even if they do not expect to use the program, they feel
secure in their ability to manage their future well-being
needs, which translates into a longer trajectory in the
workforce.
Senator Casey. Thanks very much.
Ms. Shabo, I want to get to a broader question that goes
even beyond family and medical leave. But I wanted to first
start with the question of the reality we confront today, which
is--and I want to make sure I am not overstating this, but
today we are facing a circumstance where that worker is at the
mercy of the employer, whatever the employer will allow in
terms of taking time off for a loved one or for the care of a
child.
Walk through for us some of the economic benefits of a much
broader family leave policy. I know your testimony spoke to
that, but just if you could itemize a few benefits.
Ms. Shabo. Absolutely. You so correctly point out that
today millions of workers, 100 million workers, are living in a
land where they are subject to a boss lottery. Folks who work
for Deloitte may have won that lottery.
But the folks who work for Ms. O'Boyle, they are not living
in silos. They live in families. So their spouse might not have
access to leave. Their parent might need to be cared for, and
so Ms. O'Boyle's employee is going to go care for that parent,
rather than the sister who lives across the country and does
not have any access to leave.
So we are absolutely, as a country, experiencing huge costs
associated with the status quo. And the benefits in contrast
would be great.
So today, families are losing close to $21 billion in wages
from a lack of paid leave. But we see that when paid leave
programs are in place in States like California, women are more
likely to go back to work. They are more likely to earn higher
wages. Folks are less likely to turn to public assistance
programs. They are more likely to be independent.
We are seeing also on the flip side, when people have
elder-care challenges, they are losing close to $300,000 on
average in income and retirement savings.
So a plan like the FAMILY Act, which would require very
small payroll deductions over the course of a person's life,
adding up to probably a few thousand dollars over a 40-year
work cycle, that is such a small amount relative to the cost
that families, the economy, and businesses are experiencing
now.
The 150-percent cost related to turnover, that is standard.
I think the estimates are anywhere between 16 and more than 200
percent, depending on the type of business and employee.
So, we are facing huge costs now, and there are huge
benefits to be gained by investing a modest amount in paid
leave.
Senator Casey. Thank you. I appreciate your testimony.
I know I have only a few more seconds.
I will put in a plug for child care, because if you think
about it in terms of the average middle-class family, that is
among the highest costs they have. We are told, for example, in
our State of Pennsylvania, that for a two-parent family,
center-based care for an infant can be 13 percent of their
income, which is far too high. If that same circumstance
prevails for a single mom, center-based care for infant care
can be 49 percent of the income on average.
So obviously, as we do family medical leave, we also want
to focus on child care. But I know that is for another day.
Thanks very much. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Cassidy. Senator Crapo?
Senator Crapo. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
And, Dr. Biggs, quickly, because I have a second question
here, I know that AEI has written extensively about issues
related to single mothers, women's labor force participation,
and economic opportunity. Could you just give us some comment
on the economic benefits of paid leave, such as labor force
attachment and employee retention?
Dr. Biggs. Sure. I would be happy to.
There are really two issues. One is that, if a new mother
feels more confident in being able to go back to her job, that
she has paid leave, then she is less likely to quit the job.
That retains seniority. Certain skills are specific to that
job, so when she eventually does go back to work, her wages are
higher.
But there is a second issue as well that has not been
touched on, which is that, if employers are more confident that
a woman of child-bearing age will return to work after having a
child, they will be more interested in investing in the skills
of that female employee, of promoting them.
Right now, if they fear that a woman is going to leave her
job after having a child, they see her as a risky investment.
So they might put more attention on male employees. When you
put the two things together, it appears that post-childbirth
paid leave substantially increases labor force attachment, work
hours, and earnings. That is something that helps them both at
that point, but obviously in building towards retirement as
well.
Senator Crapo. All right. Thank you very much.
And I am sure I am not going to be able to get answers from
all three of you on this question, but I am going to toss it
out here and start with you, Dr. Biggs.
It seems to me that we are seeing a little bit of a
different point of view here on the panel between how to fund
this program. One would be to put a new payroll tax in place
and the other would be to access Social Security. Those are the
two ideas that are in play; correct?
And Ms. Shabo talks about how it is a very small impact for
a very big benefit. Has anybody actually done the analysis--
because I know there are some concerns being raised by those
who are focusing on the Social Security Trust Fund that the
payroll tax should not start getting diverted for other
purposes when we have the trust fund in such an unstable
position.
And so my question is, has somebody done the actual
economic analysis to see what raising the payroll tax would do
to the Social Security benefit and the strength of the fund,
versus the access that is being proposed from your plan?
Dr. Biggs, could you start? We have about 3 minutes, so if
you could each keep your responses to less than a minute, I
would appreciate it.
Dr. Biggs. I think the FAMILY Act and the Social Security-
based proposal I have spoken about both would lead to increased
earnings post-childbirth by helping women remain attached to
their jobs. That would help them not only earn more, but also
have a higher Social Security benefit in the future.
At the same time, though, a payroll tax increase, as in the
FAMILY Act, would cause a slight reduction in earnings, as any
tax increase would.
I have not tried to balance the two of them out. But that
is one aspect, that it would dissuade work, but also people
feel it might use up part of a payroll tax increase that could
be used for----
Senator Crapo. Okay. I am going to move on quickly to Ms.
Shabo, and then I am going to move you on in a minute. So
please try to be fast.
Ms. Shabo. Sure. So, both of these proposals have been
studied. The FAMILY Act model has been studied extensively at
the State level through models that have been run on various
State programs, through the analysis of the States that have
created these programs, which have not seen any decline in
wages at all or decline in jobs.
And the FAMILY Act itself has been modeled extensively. The
payroll deduction that is proposed in the FAMILY Act is in the
range of what those models show: somewhere between .35 and .45
percent. And this is consistent with what State modeling shows
and what State experience has been.
So this is a very--as I said--small cost for a big benefit.
And we see that it has worked at the State level. I agree it
will add to the Social Security coffers over time, because
people will stay and work not just when they are having a new
child, but even when they have their own family caregiving need
or personal medical leave.
Senator Crapo. All right.
And, Ms. O'Boyle, you have about 60 seconds. I am sorry.
Ms. O'Boyle. Well, I am afraid I cannot speak to the
analysis of the public policies that are under consideration. I
can tell you from our own experiences at Deloitte that the
actual costs that we have incurred from our new program have
been significantly less than we had anticipated.
Because of the business model that we have as a
professional services firm, we have largely been able to absorb
any of the disruption associated with the leave-taking, and the
costs that we have incurred have primarily been from people
converting unpaid leave to paid leave or converting vacation
time to paid leave as well.
Senator Crapo. All right.
Thank you very much.
Senator Cassidy. Senator Enzi?
Senator Enzi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This has been a very helpful day. I appreciate all of the
testimony. It has led to a lot more questions for me. I do
understand the benefit of supporting working families. I have
been an advocate for allowing private companies to have flex-
time so that there could be some flexibility to be able to see
family members or to do what we are talking about here.
But I can see that I was going too small. I am not opposed
to paid parental leave, but I am concerned about imposing more
Federal regulations and mandates on businesses. I was
interested to find out that six States are already doing this.
I guess I could ask one question: what do we do with those six
States? Does this supplant what they were doing so that they
can use that money for something else?
But I will not ask that right now. I will ask that in a
written question. And I will follow up on the North Dakota
hearing for small business for whatever suggestions there were
there.
And I have always gone with the small business definition--
and will in this case--of 50 employees or less, because that is
the Obamacare model and the family leave model, even though it
is not paid.
Have any of you operated one of these small businesses?
It is a simple ``yes'' or ``no.''
Dr. Biggs. Sole proprietor.
Senator Enzi. I have, and there are some complications that
come in, particularly if you are in a very small town, you have
very few employees, and there is no temporary workforce.
There still has to be somebody who does the work. So I am
still trying to figure that out, and I would be interested in
the North Dakota approach to that.
But my question to all three of you is, how would these
proposals work for a very small business in a small town where
they do not have a temporary labor workforce? Again, short
answers, because there is not much time.
Dr. Biggs. To the degree that a paid leave proposal helps
women who have children remain attached to the prior employer,
it actually could help them in the sense that the employer
would lose the employee for a short period while they are
taking parental leave, but they would not lose them
permanently.
So it would be finding a temporary replacement, not a
permanent replacement. So I think you could argue that the
burden that is on small businesses might actually be improved.
Ms. Shabo. Yes, the good news for you, sir, is that there
is a lot of data from small business groups that have surveyed
their own members about what would work for them with respect
to a paid leave plan. And the social insurance model with
shared payroll deductions is something that 70 percent of small
businesses in the country that were surveyed support. It is the
model that a group called Main Street Alliance that brought
together a working group of small businesses decided was best
for them, because the issue that you are talking about, the
replacement worker issue that is going to come up--if you have
a woman who has given birth, you are almost certainly going to
not have that person working for you for some period of time.
How you manage your work during that time is probably
something that maybe you dealt with or that you would be
dealing with if you were in that small business now, as more
women are in the workforce. But what these businesses have
found is that the shared cost model actually frees up their
assets to be able to either find that replacement worker, or
pay overtime to their existing workers without them shouldering
both the cost of providing leave and the cost of that
replacement worker.
So this is actually a solution that small businesses really
have started to gravitate towards.
I think your question is a great one. The North Dakota
example, as I understand it from Senator Heitkamp, is----
Senator Enzi. I will get that information. I am running out
of time.
Ms. O'Boyle. I would just add--obviously our experience is
based on a large professional services firm. And certainly
there is no one-size-fits-all model.
One of the things, though, that we have found is that, even
in some of our businesses that operate in a more structured
corporate-like environment, this has created opportunities for
people to grow and expand their responsibilities. So it has
become a very nice development mechanism for them. They are
able to stretch into new opportunities and to continue their
growth and development while covering for people who are on
leave.
Senator Enzi. I can see all of those advantages. I have
just worked it from the standpoint of being one of the
employers. And what I found was that at the time that their
leave ran out, they no longer worked for me. And now I do not
have--I have been putting in the extra hours and things in
order to cover for the person so they have the time that they
need. And then there is no backup for me or for the others who
work for me.
So I will have some additional questions in writing to
follow up on this, because I am sure there is a solution there
somewhere. I just do not think that the two opportunities that
we have here are the solution.
Thank you.
Senator Cassidy. Thank you, Senator Enzi.
Senator Cantwell?
Senator Cantwell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you for holding this important hearing, and
thanks to all the witnesses for your description of what the
benefits of paid leave are. Certainly the State of Washington,
having implemented a policy, we have been very interested in
this. And also, we are one of the first in the Nation to have
family leave.
And as someone who then worked in the high-tech sector, I
can tell you--a very male-dominated world--they all took family
leave. And so I saw the great, great benefits from it.
And so, thank you for articulating that today too, that it
is on both sides, that they both want to take family leave.
Also, I have been very involved here in implementing paid
family leave at the U.S. Coast Guard. This was very, very
important for a Coast Guard that looked at its workforce and
decided that it was 40 percent women, and if they wanted to
have retention, they had better come up with a good paid family
leave policy.
So we applaud the Coast Guard for working with us and
others to implement that policy.
So, as we look at this discussion, one thing I did not
hear--I am sorry I had to step out a few times. One thing I did
not hear was the correlation between medical leave and worker
retention and productivity, particularly as it relates to
medical leave.
One of the things that I hear often about is that we have
workers who literally go to work sick. Now how is that good in
an environment where people are showing up just because they
cannot take the time off?
And I do not know, Ms. Shabo, if you have any testimony, or
any of the other witnesses, about this? But I did not hear a
lot of discussion about that particular point, and why this is
so beneficial in an environment where public health is so
important to all of us.
Ms. Shabo. That is such a great question. Thank you for
asking it.
One of the most interesting studies that has come out
recently was from the American Cancer Society. And they
surveyed both cancer patients and survivors and their
caregivers about access to leave. They found that 40 percent to
50 percent did not have any paid family leave beyond a single
paid sick day--or paid medical leave beyond sick days--and that
the ability to take paid leave during cancer treatment and
recovery was actually very highly correlated with workers being
able to get back to work more quickly, feeling better, being
able to adhere to treatment plans. So it is related.
There is a study also on nurses with cardiac conditions who
were able to return to work more quickly when they had paid
medical leave.
We also need to think about, in the Social Security
context, whether there are people who have no other choice but
to apply for SSDI when they have a serious health condition.
And so, having paid medical leave available for up to 12
weeks--there is no study on this yet--but intuition tells us
that there is probably something there as well.
If we offer paid medical leave as a benefit like the FAMILY
Act would, we may end up overall boosting workforce
participation for family caregiving as well as for personal
medical leave.
Senator Cantwell. I do not know if you know, either of you
or any of the witnesses--we are facing a retirement crisis as
well in America. I am very concerned about the lack of savings
for retirement that is going to impact all of us. Do you think
this too is a related issue, because if you do not have paid
sick leave, then you are taking money out of your 401(k) or out
of your retirement and using it there? And that is a problem.
Ms. Shabo. Yes. There were studies that came out just a
couple of weeks ago about how the workforce is getting older
and older. And one of the largest growing shares of the
workforce is aging workers.
Those folks have chronic health conditions, but they have
no other choice but to be working, in many circumstances. So
the lack of retirement savings, the need to stay at work, the
low wages that they are probably being paid, all of these sort
of wrap up together to indicate that we really need to do
something about access to medical leave for serious health
issues so that those folks too can come back into the workforce
and do what they need to do to protect themselves in their
older years.
Senator Cantwell. Well, I think somebody who works with me
said ``prevention is medicine.'' Now for us in the northwest,
we are all for this. We get $2,000 to $3,000 less per Medicare
beneficiary, and we deliver better care and better outcomes.
So when you talk about this instance of somebody in cardiac
care having the time to heal, then to go back to work, you are
cutting down on everybody's costs. You are cutting down on the
whole system's cost by just giving somebody that extra time.
And I tell you, with people living longer, we are going to
realize that this is a critical part and aspect of care and
that it helps all of us on our cost savings.
Ms. Shabo. And it has a caregiving component too that we
cannot forget. So the population is aging, but there are
generations that follow the baby boom that are not replacing
the numbers of people retiring.
So we are going from one in seven younger people to care
for an older person to a projection of one in three. That means
that care burdens are going to be higher on those people who
are probably also holding jobs while caring for an older loved
one. And the presence of a caregiver is related to following
treatment regimes, reduced hospital readmission.
So, absolutely, this is all wrapped up, and it is part of
why----
Senator Cantwell. Well, I am proud that our State was one
of the first to do family leave. I am proud that they are one
of the first to do paid family leave.
Thank you all very much.
Senator Cassidy. Senator Isakson?
Senator Isakson. Thank you, Dr. Cassidy. I appreciate it
very much.
Thank you all for coming. I am very interested in this for
a lot of reasons, but I want to make one declaration at the
beginning. My dear friend, Sherrod Brown from Ohio, frequently
reminds us all that there are people out there who are getting
ready to privatize things.
We are not interested in privatizing Social Security or the
Veterans, either one. And you follow me on both committees. So
your admonition is well-taken.
Ms. O'Boyle, in the case of Marcia and the gentleman who
got 16 weeks to stay home with his and his wife's new baby, and
David who had a wife with stage 4 lung cancer, those four who
used those benefits----
Ms. O'Boyle. I'm sorry?
Senator Isakson. Those were the four you used as examples
of benefits--and what was the benefit they got? And did they
get 16 weeks paid at their pay level?
Ms. O'Boyle. They did, yes.
Senator Isakson. All right. And that was the benefit?
Ms. O'Boyle. Correct. It was 16 weeks fully paid.
Senator Isakson. And either a medical emergency or a family
emergency, or something like that, was the qualifying factor?
Ms. O'Boyle. Correct. There is a serious health condition
for either them or one of their dependents.
Senator Isakson. Ms. Shabo, are you contemplating in this a
program that becomes a national program that applies to all
businesses and all employees?
Ms. Shabo. So the FAMILY Act, the program that I think is
the best one based on the research and evidence, would create a
social insurance fund. So it is not 100-percent paid by
employers as the Deloitte model is and like some leading
employers are doing.
It is a shared contribution from employees and employers to
fund a social insurance program that would result in a 66-
percent wage replacement rate for most workers.
Senator Isakson. Is it a mandatory participation program?
Ms. Shabo. Yes. And that is why the costs can be so low.
They are spread over the workforce and they are spread over
employers, and that works for small businesses and it will work
for employees as well. And that is how it works in the States.
Senator Isakson. Really quickly, let me add onto Senator
Enzi, who is my dear friend. He was a shoe salesman--still is,
by the way. I was a dirt dauber. I was a real estate broker,
and that is where we made our careers. We both had small
businesses.
I had 1,000 salespeople working for me, but they were
independent contractors, not employees. Mike, I imagine, had
employees. Is that right?
[No audible response.]
Senator Isakson. But he had two or three employees.
What you might mandate for somebody who has 1,000
independent contractors and a very small employee base or a
very small business becomes a cost they cannot afford or a
reach too far to get. Whereas somebody like Deloitte--it is a
high-end service business and can much more absorb the costs.
Again, that is what I worry about: if we mandate a benefit
that sounds great for everybody, it is not going to apply or be
easy to put in place for everybody, but for a few. And that is
what worries me a lot about it: if it is a nationally mandated
program and a mandatory participation program.
Ms. Shabo. Well, I think what you will see from studying
the State evidence--and we would be glad to sit down with you
and provide more of it--is that this actually is beneficial to
companies because it is a small payroll deduction, so .02
percent that you would pay in from your payroll, and in
exchange your employees would have access to a paid leave
benefit.
So it is not coming out of your pocket when they need to
take leave. It is coming out of the fund. And for independent
contractors--I am glad you brought that up, because we know
that about 10 percent of the economy is either contingent work
or gig workers, and that is going to escalate. Those folks
would pay in as they do to Social Security so that they would
have the protection as well.
Senator Isakson. Well, they pay their quarterly estimates.
The employer does not withhold. They pay in the quarterly
estimate.
Ms. Shabo. Correct.
Senator Isakson. Well, those are very important things to
consider. Another important thing to consider is this--I ran a
company for 30 years. And I did paid family leave, but I paid
some people's leave a lot longer than other people's leave
based on the value of the employee or how badly I needed them
to stay connected to someone in the company, because you could
do that--an independent contractor versus employee/employer
relationship.
You are right: having that benefit available saved me some
of the best career people I ever had. So what you want to do is
not only good for the workers of America, but it is good for
business, people like Deloitte. But we have to find a way to do
it where it does not bankrupt us at the low end but helps at
the high end.
Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Cassidy. Senator Menendez?
Senator Menendez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me thank the panel for their testimony today. I am very
proud that New Jersey has had a paid family leave program in
place since 2009, in addition to a longstanding temporary
disability program. Both programs offer individuals partial
income for up to 6 weeks.
Our paid family leave program can be used to either bond
with a newborn or care for a loved one. And our disability
insurance program can be used in relationship to a pregnancy or
personal illness and injury.
So that means that across New Jersey, thousands of new moms
and dads can care for a newborn baby, a parent can care for a
critically ill child, a spouse can care for a spouse, or a
child for an elderly mother or father. And there are thousands
of people who are seriously sick or injured who can take care
of themselves, rather than going to work sick.
That includes people like Gisele from Maywood, who was able
to use New Jersey's paid family leave program to supplement
what her company offered and spend a full 12 weeks recovering
from childbirth and bonding with a newborn.
And then there is Layla from Jersey City, who used New
Jersey's disability insurance to pay her bills while recovering
from surgery.
So, I can go on and on with examples, but what matters is
that New Jersey families--and this is why the subject matter at
hand here is something which I care so much about--can care for
a loved one or recover from illness without worrying about
paying the bills, because that is truly an awful choice to have
to make. Do I go to work to put food on the table? Or do I care
for a loved one when he or she needs me the most? Do I make
sure that my rent is paid, or do I recover from surgery? So I
am proud that no New Jerseyan has to make this awful choice.
I personally am a co-sponsor of Senator Gillibrand's FAMILY
Act, which I think would strengthen and support States like New
Jersey that have existing paid leave and temporary disability
programs.
So, Ms. Shabo, I wonder if you could elaborate for me and
New Jersey families on how the passage of the FAMILY Act would
actually improve upon New Jersey's existing system and other
States that may have such legislation in place?
Ms. Shabo. Sure. And yes, congratulations to New Jersey. It
will be celebrating a decade soon and is looking to expand its
law in the legislature right now. Which is a sign of the
program's success and ways that it can be improved.
What the FAMILY Act would do most immediately for the
constituents in your State would mean that an older person who
needs care, who has a child who lives out of State, that child
would be able to come and care for their parent even though the
child does not live in New Jersey and is not covered by New
Jersey's paid leave law.
So creating a national program sets a baseline that means
that every single person who is working would be able to take
time to care for a loved one if they are living in the same
State as their parent or somewhere else. The FAMILY Act would
add on to New Jersey's program by providing additional weeks
and by raising the cap on wage replacement. We know that that
is so important for getting men involved.
One of the great successes of California's program is
because it has a higher wage cap. It has increased men's leave-
taking by more than 200 percent. We have seen some increase in
New Jersey, but some of the constraints of New Jersey's law
have not had quite as good an impact.
So this would absolutely improve New Jerseyan's
experiences, whether they are a care recipient or a caregiver.
Senator Menendez. Now let me ask you. Are we the only
industrialized country in the world that does not guarantee
some form of paid leave?
Ms. Shabo. We absolutely are. It is us, and Papua New
Guinea, and a few other small island nations that do not have
paid maternity leave. And we do not--with other high-wealth
countries, we stand out as not providing paid medical leave as
well.
Senator Menendez. Now, I have seen some reports that
suggest that that costs families in our country about $20
billion a year. Is that the estimate that you have seen?
Ms. Shabo. That is correct; $20.6 billion, I believe it is.
Senator Menendez. Okay.
Ms. Shabo. And it is costing our economy, in terms of
women's labor force participation, an estimated $500 billion a
year.
Senator Menendez. It also creates a situation, is it not
fair to say, that too many women get stuck in low-wage jobs?
Ms. Shabo. Absolutely. So women are more likely to leave
their workplace or to have to cut their hours. And that is just
the cycle of that sticky floor that Senator Gillibrand was
talking about.
Senator Menendez. Is it not also an opportunity to create a
more level playing field for small businesses so that they can
actually compete with the talent that Googles and Facebooks are
able to afford?
Ms. Shabo. Absolutely. And that is one of the reasons that
small businesses support paid family leave such as the FAMILY
Act would propose. And New Jersey businesses themselves have
seen no negative impact; they often say that New Jersey's
program has had a positive impact on them, especially small
businesses.
Senator Menendez. Yes, and finally, so if companies like
Deloitte and other significant companies know that paid family
leave is good for profits, good for employee retention, good
for productivity, good for morale, it should be good for
anybody else?
Ms. Shabo. Absolutely.
Senator Menendez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Cassidy. I will now ask my questions.
Ms. O'Boyle, I have a sense that you all are in--you are so
big. You are in 50 States, right?
Ms. O'Boyle. Yes.
Senator Cassidy. So even though six States and the District
of Columbia now have paid family leave, you cannot say, well
New York already has a requirement, but we have to do it in
Louisiana. You see where I am going with that?
Ms. O'Boyle. Yes.
Senator Cassidy. But let us assume that all 50 States had
paid family leave. Is it reasonable to assume that some States,
some businesses would then change their benefit in order to
integrate--if you will--with the Federal program, decreasing
their expenditure relative to that which will be received from
the Federal program?
Ms. O'Boyle. Well, I can share with you the way we work
with States today.
Senator Cassidy. Now, we have to imagine that it is 50
States. Because now you may work with a State, but you still
have to have a policy which works if somebody moves halfway
between--you see where I am going with that?
Ms. O'Boyle. Yes.
Senator Cassidy. So, if California has a law and the person
lives in Nevada, and they are going to go from Nevada to
California to care for a sick relative, do you have two
different policies whether somebody lives in Nevada or
California?
Ms. O'Boyle. Well, Deloitte has a single policy that
applies to all as a national employer. And we coordinate very
closely with the States to execute their plans. And what
Deloitte does is, we encourage our people to enroll in both
programs, the State as well as the Deloitte program. And then
Deloitte supplements over and above what a State may offer.
Senator Cassidy. Do you pay the full amount that you
normally would? Or do you just top off the--okay, you would
receive under our program $100. Through the State you are
getting $75. We will give you the difference of $25.
Ms. O'Boyle. Correct. Deloitte ensures that they get the
full 100 percent.
Senator Cassidy. So you decrease your expenditure relative
to what the State program is giving, but you make sure the
individual is held whole?
Ms. O'Boyle. Correct.
Senator Cassidy. So if you will, the Federal program would
supplant that which business is already doing, which would
increase the cost to the Federal taxpayer? I am assuming that
what you do would just be probably what other companies--
because it is quite rational to do it that way, frankly.
Now, Dr. Biggs, you are very interested in Social Security.
And we know that we have a program that if you are above a
certain income level--I think 75 percent of Americans already
have paid leave of some sort. We may not call it paid family
leave, but they get paid leave.
And below a certain level--I think $30,000 is roughly the
break point that typically people do not get it. I will say,
frankly, my concern is, if these folks who already are getting
it now have business subtracting that which they pay and
putting the financial burden on the taxpayer, the taxpayer is a
little bit worse off.
But let me ask--I am concerned about Social Security. And
Social Security, if it eventually requires an increase in the
payroll tax to make up for this looming deficit, I assume that
there is a limit to the capacity to raise the payroll tax in
order to help pay for our current obligations. There is a limit
to how much we can raise that payroll tax without adversely
affecting employment. Fair statement?
Dr. Biggs. With any tax, the more you raise it, it has a
disproportionate effect on economic activities--the dead weight
loss of the tax.
So that would be one issue about using a payroll tax to
fund parental leave when you are already using that same tax to
fund Social Security or Medicare.
Senator Cassidy. So, in particular we know that for those
employees above $30,000, I think 75 percent of them already
have paid leave. And I will come to you, Ms. Shabo, because you
are shaking your head. I am open to this.
But if we know that Deloitte is going to subtract their
contribution so that the money that would be paid by Deloitte
is now being paid by the taxpayer--but we are taxing folks in
order to pay this benefit.
I am very concerned about our ability to pay our current
obligations and wonder again if we just are not supplanting
with Federal tax dollars for some folks--not for all, because
some do not have the benefit. And we are very sensitive to the
fact that some do not have the benefit.
But if all we are doing is supplanting that which is being
paid by Google already, I am not sure that that is the best
deal for the taxpayer.
Now, Ms. Shabo, you are shaking your head ``no.'' Why are
you shaking your head ``no''?
Ms. Shabo. Two reasons. So I am first shaking my head
because that statistic about paid leave, that the higher-income
folks--that is vacation. It could be PTO. It is not the
dedicated paid family and medical----
Senator Cassidy. Now is there a problem with somebody who
has 6 weeks of vacation taking some of their vacation to care
for a sick one? For a loved one?
Ms. Shabo. There is. That is no vacation.
Senator Cassidy. It may not be a vacation, but it is kind
of the reality. My mother lived with me and died with
Alzheimer's. I know this issue, let me just say.
But I am very sympathetic to what these small business
owners said, which is, I have a small business, and I have thin
margins, and I have three employees. If they take their paid
vacation, and then they take their paid this and their paid
that, and I am paying it, and then they leave, I cannot run a
business.
So I am not being negative. I am just trying to figure out
that tension.
Ms. Shabo. So a vacation is also highly correlated with
retention and morale, and all of those other things. I think
you want your employee to have access to a shared benefit that
is funded in a responsible, sustainable way like the FAMILY Act
would be, be able to do their caregiving, take a vacation if
they need to to rejuvenate afterwards, and come back to work.
Senator Cassidy. I think, for the small businesswoman or
the small businessman--because I was speaking to a small
businesswoman just prior to the hearing. And she was speaking
about the burden. So I think for the small folks, the five
people in the shop, there is a different dynamic than Deloitte,
which has--I cannot imagine how many people Deloitte has.
Ms. Shabo. Absolutely.
Senator Cassidy. More than Rhode Island, I suspect.
[Laughter.]
Well, I am also out of time. I will also have questions for
the record.
Incredibly illuminating--but I think my final assessment is
that it is those lower-income people who do not have the
benefit now, that we have limited capacity to raise payroll
taxes if we are to make current obligations. So therefore,
anything we are going to possibly do with that--if we ever have
to raise the payroll tax, it should be dedicated to current
obligations. There is limited capacity to raise it.
And I am also struck that, for those bigger businesses
offering it, we know empirically that they are subtracting that
which they pay. They are not adding it to that which the
government benefit would be. And I think we have to take that
into account as we fashion this.
Senator Brown, do you have another question?
Senator Brown. No more questions.
One request and one comment. If I could ask to enter into
the record letters of support for S. 337 from a number----
Senator Cassidy. Without objection.
[The letters appear in the appendix beginning on p. 42.]
Senator Brown. I think it is a question, Mr. Chairman--and
thanks for raising it at the end the way you did.
Again, I thank the three panelists.
What values do we have as a society when we passed within
the last year a tax cut where 80 percent of that tax cut will
go to the wealthiest 1 percent, but we cannot afford to do
this? We cannot afford to expand the Social Security system and
pay for it in a responsible way?
I really do think it is, what priorities do we set? Of
course, there are limits, but it is what priorities we set. I
feel good about what you have done, Ms. O'Boyle. I know that
not everybody who works with you, obviously, works at your firm
is moderate, is upper middle income or higher.
But a lot of higher percentage earners at a firm like
yours, and a lot of businesses--and you have provided for them
very well. But a whole lot of people, when we talk about the
dignity of work, a whole lot of Americans--what is it, 40
percent of Americans do not have $400 if their car breaks down?
And what do we do for that group of people?
This Congress falls all over itself to give breaks to the
large banks, falls all over itself to take away health care. A
bunch of people who dress like me in suits who get good health
care want to take it away. Yet we cannot take care of the
people whom Ms. Shabo is arguing for.
Those are my remarks.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for doing this hearing.
Senator Cassidy. Thank you.
And I will just add to your remarks.
I will say that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act did result in
multiple companies raising the amount of their generosity, if
you will, for paid leave.
And ultimately, the program has to be sustainable. It is
false compassion if we put forward a plan which cannot be
sustained. And unfortunately, that is many of our programs now.
If you just look how the actuaries are telling us that
Medicare will be bankrupt in 8 years, and the Social Security
Trust Fund by 2034, and indeed, if we are going to bail it out,
we would have to cut benefits by 17 percent now.
So I think we have to not only--we have to have a
compassion which we understand can persist and not just be a
feel-good for the moment.
Thank you all for your consideration, your thought, and for
your coming to testify.
I adjourn.
[Whereupon, at 4:31 p.m., the hearing was concluded.]
A P P E N D I X
Additional Material Submitted for the Record
----------
Prepared Statement of Andrew G. Biggs, Ph.D.,
Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute
Chairman Cassidy, Ranking Member Brown, and members of the
committee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss the importance of
paid parental leave and how it might be provided in an affordable way
via the Social Security program. Today I wish to make four main points:
Paid parental leave can provide important health and
educational benefits to children while enabling mothers to
remain attached to their prior jobs, which can increase
earnings substantially once the mother returns to work.
However, proposals to provide paid parental leave financed
by employers, workers or the government each have potential
disadvantages.
An alternate approach would allow new parents to claim a
temporary Social Security benefit. To offset the cost of these
benefits, parental leave beneficiaries would agree to a
reduction in the value of their future Social Security
retirement benefits, such as via an increase in their normal
retirement age.
While every proposal has pros and cons, the Social Security
parental leave proposal survives a number of objections raised
against it. This idea deserves consideration by Congress as a
way to help new parents devote additional time to their newborn
children at a crucial stage of their children's lives.
the benefits of paid parental leave
The United States is one of relatively few countries that fail to
provide paid leave for new parents, which is unusual given that U.S.
policymakers of both parties have traditionally shown concern both for
family and for workforce issues.
Public opinion surveys indicate that Americans favor paid parental
leave.\1\ More importantly, research indicates that Americans may be
right to do so. Evidence suggests that when parents are offered paid
leave, their children's health and upbringing benefit and mothers
return to work with higher earnings.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Horowitz, Juliana, Kim Parker, Nikki Graf, and Gretchen
Livingston. ``Americans Widely Support Paid Family and Medical Leave,
but Differ Over Specific Policies.'' Pew Research Center. March 23,
2017.
For instance, when Norway expanded its paid leave program in 1977,
high school graduation rates increased by 2 percent and children's
earnings at age 30 rose by 5 percent. For children of less-educated
mothers, those gains were nearly twice as large.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Carneiro, Pedro, Katrine V. Loken, and Kjell G. Salvanes. ``A
flying start? Maternity leave benefits and long-run outcomes of
children.'' Journal of Political Economy 123, no. 2 (2015): 365-412.
Likewise, by keeping new mothers connected with their previous
jobs, women are able to retain seniority and job-specific skills. One
study analyzing paid leave in New Jersey found that women who took
leave were more likely to be working and less likely to depend upon
public assistance 1 year following childbirth.\3\ California's paid
leave program appears to have increased new mothers' work hours by 10
to 17 percent in the 3 years following childbirth.\4\ Other research
using a different dataset found similar earnings increases for post-
childbirth women in California.\5\ Recent research has confirmed that
disruption of female employment at the time of childbirth is a major
driver of the ``gender pay gap.'' \6\ Improvements to female earnings
in line with those found in California would close much of that gap.
These benefits help explain why a bipartisan coalition of analysts
gathered by the American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings
Institution have called paid parental leave ``an issue whose time has
come.'' \7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Houser, Linda, and Thomas Paul Vartanian. ``Pay matters: The
positive economic impacts of paid family leave for families, businesses
and the public.'' Rutgers Center for Women and Work, 2012.
\4\ Rossin-Slater, Maya, Christopher J. Ruhm, and Jane Waldfogel.
``The effects of California's paid family leave program on mothers'
leave-taking and subsequent labor market outcomes.'' Journal of Policy
Analysis and Management 32, no. 2 (2013): 224-245.
\5\ Baum, Charles L., and Christopher J. Ruhm. ``The effects of
paid family leave in California on labor market outcomes.'' Journal of
Policy Analysis and Management 35, no. 2 (2016): 333-356.
\6\ Chung, YoonKyung, Barbara Downs, Danielle H. Sandler, and
Robert Sienkiewicz. ``The Parental Gender Earnings Gap in the United
States.'' U.S. Census Bureau. No. 17-68. 2017.
\7\ AEI-Brookings Working Group on Paid Family Leave. ``Paid Family
and Medical Leave: An Issue Whose Time Has Come.'' American Enterprise
Institute. June 6, 2017.
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a proposal to fund paid leave through social security
Paid leave must be funded somehow, but several existing approaches
have downsides. Many Americans are reluctant to fund paid leave with a
new payroll tax of 0.4 percent of their wages, as proposed in the
FAMILY Act. Likewise, evidence indicates that if employers are mandated
to provide paid leave, they will likely offset the costs by reducing
wages or avoiding hiring women of child-bearing age.\8\ Finally, it is
difficult for young workers to save to provide leave for themselves,
given their low earnings, student loans and the often-short time
between entering the workforce and having children.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ Gruber, Jonathan. ``The incidence of mandated maternity
benefits.'' The American Economic Review (1994): 622-641.
Kristin Shapiro, Washington, DC lawyer, and I considered an
alternate approach in a joint Wall Street Journal op-ed and in a fuller
treatment written by Shapiro and published by the Independent Women's
Forum, a Washington think tank that focuses on women's issues.\9\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ Shapiro, Kristin A., and Andrew G. Biggs. ``A Simple Plan for
Parental Leave.'' The Wall Street Journal. January 24, 2018. Kristin A.
Shapiro. ``A Budget-Neutral Approach to Parental Leave.'' Independent
Women's Forum. January 9, 2018.
Shapiro and I argued for a parental leave benefit provided via the
Social Security program. New parents could claim a temporary Social
Security benefit, but in return must accept a slightly higher
retirement age or other reduction to their future retirement benefits.
The size of this retirement benefit offset would be set so that any
parental leave payments received early in life would be repaid, with
interest, over the course of an individual's retirement. The specifics
depend upon a number of variables, such as how to ensure that benefits
received by individuals who either die or claim Disability Insurance
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
benefits prior to retirement are repaid.
Based on a simulation by the Urban Institute, Social Security-based
parental leave benefits would replace about 59 percent of prior
earnings for the median new mother claiming benefits, while a lower-
income woman could expect a replacement rate of about 69 percent.\10\
In return for 12 weeks of paid leave benefits, beneficiaries would have
to accept an increase in the Normal Retirement Age of about 25 weeks.
This retirement age increase does not affect the age at which a person
may claim Social Security retirement benefits. Rather, it simply
implies a lower benefit, of about 3.2 percent, at whatever age the
individual retires.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ Favreault, Melissa M., and Richard W. Johnson. ``Paying for
Parental Leave With Future Social Security Benefits.'' The Urban
Institute, April 2018.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
concerns with social security paid leave proposal
The proposal for Social Security-based paid leave has generated
significant interest. At the same time, a number of understandable
concerns have been raised. Here I address several of those concerns.
Effects on women's retirement benefits
Some have raised the concern that any increase in the retirement
age or other reduction to retirement benefits would endanger the
retirement income security of women who claim parental leave benefits.
This concern is understandable: women have lower earnings and savings
than men.
However, two points are worth raising. First, retirement savings
and retirement incomes for women have increased significantly in recent
decades as female labor force participation has risen. A 2016 Census
Bureau study found that from 1984 to 2007, the percentage of newly
retired women receiving private retirement plan benefits doubled. The
median household income for women aged 65 to 69 rose by 58 percent
above inflation from 1989 through 2007.\11\ That's a far greater
increase than for working-age individuals of either gender. So I would
not rush to the conclusion that most women (or men, for that matter)
live at significant risk of an inadequate retirement income.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\11\ Bee, C. Adam, and Joshua Mitchell. ``The Hidden Resources of
Women Working Longer: Evidence From Linked Survey-Administrative
Data.'' No. w22970. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2016.
Second, paid parental leave can lead to higher labor force
participation and earnings once a mother chooses to return to the
workforce. Higher earnings would lead to higher Social Security
benefits, offsetting part or all of the benefit reduction associated
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
with an increased retirement age.
For a low-income woman, the 10 to 17 percent higher post-childbirth
earnings found in California would lead to 5 to 9 percent higher net
Social Security retirement benefits, even after the retirement age
increase used to pay back the parental leave benefit. A middle-income
woman could be expected to roughly break even after the effects of
higher post-childbirth incomes and the retirement benefit offset are
netted out.
Moreover, to the degree that paid parental leave increases post-
childbirth labor force participation and earnings, personal savings
such as those via 401(k) plans could also be expected to increase.
Thus, paid parental leave could improve retirement income security for
vulnerable women who claim it.
Effects on Social Security financing
Social Security already has a significant funding shortfall, so
policymakers would rightly be concerned that a paid parental leave plan
would make matters worse.
The Social Security paid leave proposal is designed so that, over
an individual's full lifetime, the offset to future retirement benefits
will fully pay back, with interest, the value of parental leave
benefits received after the birth of a child. Thus, on a person-for-
person basis the proposal is revenue-neutral over the long term.
One of the ways the Social Security actuaries calculated the
program's unfunded liabilities is on a ``closed group'' basis. This
method measures taxes and benefits for all individuals currently
participating in Social Security, either as taxpayers or beneficiaries,
and extends that measurement over those participants' full lifetimes.
The closed group measure would not show an increase in Social
Security's unfunded obligation, assuming the plan's parameters are set
appropriately.
To the degree that paid parental leave caused women to increase
their earnings later in life, Social Security's closed group unfunded
liability would decline very slightly. This is because higher earnings
lead to a higher dollar value of future retirement benefits, which
would cause the present value of the retirement benefit offset to
exceed the present value of the parental leave benefit received earlier
in life.
Since Social Security is a pay-as-you-go program, some may be
interested in how a paid parental leave benefit would affect the
program's costs on an annual basis. Based on figures produced by the
Urban Institute, by the 5th year following implementation annual
benefit costs net of retirement benefit offsets would increase by about
0.7 percent. This net cost would peak in 2045 at a 1.15 percent
increase, falling to zero by 2063. By 2080 annual Social Security
benefit costs would be about 2.1 percent lower because the value of
retirement benefit offsets would exceed the value of parental leave
benefits paid out in that year.
Social Security's funding shortfalls are significant and Congress
should address them as soon as possible. However, the costs of a paid
leave program paid through Social Security are trivial relative to the
trillion dollar-plus annual outlays of the Federal Government's largest
single spending program.
Why should the government be involved at all?
Paid parental leave is an employer benefit, and employers across
the country willingly provide a range of benefits as a means to attract
and retain employees. Many workers already have parental leave benefits
provided by their employer. Why is a government program needed at all?
For many larger employers, a government program is not needed.
However, for small employers, the self-employed and gig-economy
workers, the Social Security-based paid leave program could be very
helpful. A small employer or start-up may be challenged providing even
the basic employer benefits such as health care, a 401(k) or employer-
paid payroll and unemployment insurance taxes. While such employers may
wish to offer paid leave as a way to attract and retain employees of
child-bearing age they may not be able to afford to do so. This could
make it impossible for these businesses to attract employees of child-
bearing age, and may make it impossible for such employees to choose to
work at a small business or start-up rather than a large employer.
To be clear, the Social Security-base proposal does not pay for
benefits outright. Employees who choose a temporary paid leave benefit
must accept a higher retirement age or other offset to their future
retirement benefits. But the Social Security proposal allows
individuals to take parental leave even if they are not employed by a
business that can afford to offer such a benefit.
Why provide parental leave benefits through Social Security?
The need to take a short period out of the workforce following the
birth of a child can be thought of as a temporary disability, a period
in which it is difficult--or at least undesirable--for a new parent to
work. A number of OECD countries, as well as several U.S. States,
provide parental leave benefits on this basis. Social Security already
has a disability benefit formula that provides a progressive
replacement of previous earnings, such that low earners receive a
higher ``replacement rate'' than higher earners. Piggybacking a
parental leave benefit on the Social Security disability insurance
formula simplifies the development of this benefit policy.
Likewise, SSA has the administrative structure to handle a paid
leave benefit at lower cost than establishing a new agency.
Applications could be made through SSA's website and SSA's field and
phone staff are already familiar with the Social Security benefit
formula, implying that fewer additional staff and less training would
be needed.
______
Questions Submitted for the Record to Andrew G. Biggs, Ph.D.
Questions Submitted by Hon. Michael B. Enzi
Question. As a former small business owner, I am concerned that any
well-
intentioned policies could have unintended consequences. For example,
if a small company finds a temporary worker for the position for an
employee on medical leave, would that temporary worker, after the
employee returns to work, then be able to claim unemployment insurance?
If so, would such a claim increase the company's unemployment taxes due
to an increase in claims?
Answer. I am not an expert on the Unemployment Insurance system,
and policies differ from State to State. But I believe that, in
general, a temporary employee could claim unemployment benefits at the
end of his or her period of employment. While this may result in costs
to small business owners, the availability of Social Security-based
parental leave may allow small businesses to better compete for
employees against larger firms that currently are able to fund parental
leave from their own resources. More broadly, these questions involve
balancing any net costs to business owners against the gains to
families and society of parents being able to spend time with their
newborn children.
Question. Under the proposed legislation and concepts being
considered for paid family leave, would the temporary workers also be
eligible for such leave if they have a medical or family issue occur
during their temporary employment? If yes, are there any safeguards to
prevent abuse or fraudulent claims, such a making a claim in the last
week of one's employment?
Answer. As outlined, the Social Security-based parental leave
benefits would be available only to new parents, not for other reasons.
Eligibility for Social Security-based parental leave benefits is based
upon the individual's work history and earnings over the several prior
years, not simply their employment at the time they claim benefits.
Question. Under the proposed legislation and concepts being
considered for paid family leave, for States that already have paid
family leave, what would happen to the funds collected should a Federal
plan be put into place?
Answer. The Social Security-based proposal can exist alongside
State plans or private employers' offering of paid parental leave. If
individuals find that their State or employer's leave is superior to
the Social Security proposal, they would likely opt not to apply for
the Social Security-based benefits. Alternately, if their State or
employer offers only modest benefits, they might to choose to combine
the two benefits for a longer period of parental leave.
______
Questions Submitted by Hon. Michael F. Bennet
Question. The plan you developed with the Independent Women's Forum
provides for paid leave for new parents, but does not include any other
sort of family or medical leave.
Under the Family and Medical Leave Act, we provide eligible workers
with unpaid leave to care for a seriously ill spouse, child or parent;
or to address his or her own health condition; or to deal with the
deployment of a member of the armed services.
Mr. Biggs, how would your plan address these other circumstances
when paid leave would be critical for workers?
How would your plan address workers who had multiple children or,
if you covered them, health events?
Answer. The Social Security parental leave proposal is focused on
leave for new parents and at present does not include provisions for
other forms of paid leave, such as to care for a family member. There
is no reason the proposal could not allow these types of leave,
financed with an agreed-upon delay in the full retirement age for
receiving Social Security retirement benefits. The limiting issue with
non-
parental leave, as with leave for multiple children, would be the
amount of total paid leave claimed over a working lifetime. Congress
may not wish for individuals to take so much leave as to lead to an
excessive increase in the full retirement age for Social Security
benefits. Thus, some cap on the number of leave segments available
might be envisioned should Congress wish to extend leave for reasons
other than child birth.
Question. Carrie Lukas, the managing director of the Independent
Women's Forum, wrote in an op-ed this past February that your proposal
would encourage ``people to think about Social Security's assets as if
those benefits are their property for use now or at retirement'' and
would encourage us to ``transform the current pay-as-you-go system into
one that pre-funds future benefits and with assets that belong to
individuals.''
In the past, you've advocated for structural reforms to Social
Security that would replace the current program with a savings account
and a flat universal benefit. You've written that ``personal accounts
are a valid choice, and one I've supported in the past and continue to
support.''
Mr. Biggs, do you continue to support replacing the current Social
Security system with one that includes personal accounts?
Answer. The proposal I have made for Social Security in a 2014
National Affairs article would begin with a retirement savings account
funded on top of Social Security, not a ``carve-out'' account as
envisioned during the George W. Bush administration. At the same time,
over roughly 4 decades the traditional Social Security benefit would be
phased down to a flat dollar benefit paid to all retirees. This flat
benefit would increase traditional Social Security benefits for roughly
the poorest third of retirees and eliminate poverty in old age, even
before the personal account is considered. However, this proposal would
reduce traditional benefits relative to current law scheduled levels on
a progressive basis for roughly the richest two-thirds of retirees.
Total benefits, including the supplementary personal account balances
assuming investment in riskless assets, would be similar to those
promised (but, due to insufficient funding, not payable) by the current
law Social Security benefit formula.
Question. Do you agree with Ms. Lukas and the Independent Women's
Forum that your paid family leave proposal will lead to more acceptance
of individual accounts in Social Security?
Answer. No; I do not see the connection and never thought of it
during the period in which Ms. Shapiro and I worked on the proposal.
They are simply different policies in my mind.
Question. If your paid leave plan started the transition toward
replacing our current Social Security system with a system that relies
on privatized, personal accounts, would you suggest we support or
oppose the plan?
Answer. I would suggest that you support any sort of Social
Security reform plan that makes that important program viable for
future generations. Congress had been aware of the need for Social
Security reform for nearly 3 decades but, due to an unwillingness to
present voters with painful solutions to different choices, has yet to
do anything to act. More specifically, however, I would suggest that
you support a Social Security reform proposal similar to my own
regardless of whether Congress chose to implement a Social Security-
based paid leave program, and I would suggest that you support a Social
Security-based paid leave program even if you opted for other routes to
reform Social Security. It is perhaps worth noting that my own Social
Security reform proposal does not include an increase in the Full
Retirement Age, so any voluntary increase associated with the parental
leave plan would not be stacked upon an additional increase associated
with broader Social Security reform.
______
Question Submitted by Hon. Dean Heller
Question. For many Nevadans, making ends meet and balancing the
demands of work and family life is a daily struggle. Whether it's the
single mother from Las Vegas who doesn't receive child support and
works full time or it's the father of two in Elko who's struggling to
pay his bills, parents today face difficult challenges when it comes to
professional success and taking care of loved ones. I'm interested in
examining approaches to expand access to paid family and medical leave
that would be targeted to low-income workers. For example, there is a
proposal known as the Earned Income Leave Benefit that would provide 12
weeks of paid family and medical leave to workers in low-income
households. Modeled after the Earned Income Tax Credit, the benefits
available would be based on household income, and only workers in
households with incomes below a certain threshold would be eligible.
Are you familiar with this proposal? If so, please elaborate.
Do you think this proposal would be a direct and cost-effective way
to expand access to paid family and medical leave for workers who need
it most?
Answer. The Earned Income Leave Benefit is a targeted leave
proposal, focusing benefits on lower-income families. At the same time,
it would come with a higher price tag to the Federal Government than
the Social Security-based parental leave plan, where individuals would
effectively finance their own leave benefits by delaying retirement for
a period. Both proposals have merit and I have no intention to
disparage that plan. Different plans offer different levels of benefits
to different households using different means of financing.
Question Submitted by Hon. Tim Scott
Question. There is a growing consensus on Capitol Hill that
recognizes the need to promote a Federal paid leave policy that
empowers employees who are also new parents, caregivers, and even
chronically ill. There is also an increasingly large number of
employers who have instituted their own paid leave policies, indicating
that job creators are recognizing the need and desire for such a
benefit. Just like individuals confront a host of life events that are
unique to themselves and their families, not all employers or
industries are the same. A mandatory Federal paid leave policy applied
to all industries may be detrimental to definite-term, project-specific
industries due to their different work conditions and performance
demands. Construction jobsites, for example, employ multiple
contractors who work consecutively on time-sensitive projects where
both employers and employees have agreed to contracts that cover pay
and benefits, including family leave.
As we continue to consider various national paid leave program
proposals, what considerations should be made to accommodate and
complement the unique needs of various and distinct industries?
Specifically, could you provide a more detailed description of the
provisions for effective, productive coverage for workers and employers
in definite-term, multi-employer performance settings?
Answer. I am not a labor lawyer and so my comments should be taken
in that light. I do not know whether a definite-term employment
contract can under current law prohibit (by agreement with the
employee) the use of any kind of leave, but lacking changes made by
Congress I believe the use of Social Security-based leave would fall
under State laws regulating those types of employment contracts. I am
sensitive to the need for employers to be able to retain employees at
the times those employees are most needed, but believe employer needs
should be balanced against the gains to families and the broader
economy by making paid parental leave available to new parents.
______
Prepared Statement of Hon. Sherrod Brown,
a U.S. Senator From Ohio
WASHINGTON, DC--U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH)--ranking member of
the Senate Finance Committee's Subcommittee on Social Security,
Pensions, and Family Policy--released the following opening statement
at today's hearing.
Thank you to Senator Cassidy for working with us to convene this
hearing to explore ways we can work together to expand Social Security
and the safety net to include paid family medical leave. It is a
welcome glimpse of what we could achieve together if we focus on the
needs of working families.
Right now, the lack of paid family leave is a drag on our economy
that holds workers back.
American families lose nearly $21 billion in wages each year
because they don't have access to paid leave. People who work in jobs
like ours, who wear suits and have good benefits, may not realize that
the vast majority of American workers have no paid family leave at all.
For too many Americans, hard work doesn't pay off.
When I say we don't value work in this country, I'm not just
talking about wages--I'm talking about the benefits people earn. Or
should earn.
Eighty-five percent of the workforce--more than 100 million
people--have no paid family medical leave.
If a mother has a baby, she gets zero paid time off--not a single
day. If she isn't back at work the day after she gives birth--something
most of us would agree is cruel and absurd--she doesn't get a paycheck.
And this isn't just about new mothers.
All sorts of workers face impossible choices.
Do they go into work knowing the risks to their own health and to
others around them, or do they stay home and lose a paycheck?
Do they send a sick child to school, knowing they're risking the
health of their daughter and her entire classroom, or do they
jeopardize their job by taking a day off?
As they grow older, workers also often have to care for aging
parents. When sons over the age of 50 leave the workforce to care for a
parent, they lose an average of $304,000 in earnings and retirement
savings. Daughters lose even more, an average of $324,000.
If we truly value the dignity of work, we need to recognize that
paid family leave is something all workers should have the opportunity
to earn.
Today's bipartisan hearing is an important baby step forward on
this issue. Members of both parties are coming together to recognize
that this isn't acceptable in a modern economy, and acknowledging that
we have to expand our social insurance to include paid family medical
leave.
This isn't a partisan issue--it affects every sector of the
economy, and workers of all ages with all types of families.
And paid leave is good for business. A recent survey conducted by
the professional services firm EY found that the majority of large
companies support the creation of paid family and medical leave
programs on the State or Federal level that are funded through tax
contributions.
Such a program would be particularly good for small businesses. It
would make these programs more affordable, and put small businesses on
a more even footing with large corporations that can afford bigger
benefit packages, allowing them to better compete for talent.
Today, Democrats have put forward a thoughtful approach that I
believe could reach consensus. This is a common-sense bill that builds
on the most successful and popular program we have in this country--
Social Security.
It would offer low-cost, portable benefits that all American
workers would earn, and it would be paid for by both workers and
employers. It's an approach that's already been adopted by five
States--soon to be six--and the District of Columbia.
My Republican colleagues also have some ideas on the table, and I
want to thank them for their desire to work together on this issue.
Democrats too are at the table, ready to negotiate and reach a solution
that can become law.
Unfortunately, the approach some of our colleagues are currently
proposing amounts to cutting Social Security for the workers who need
it most.
Using your retirement security to fund paid time off from work when
you have a child is not paid family leave at all--it's robbing from
your retirement to be able to care for loved ones now.
Low-wage workers in physically demanding jobs are more likely to be
forced into early retirement because of the toll their jobs take on
their bodies. That already means taking a Social Security cut--and this
plan would only make that cut bigger.
In an opinion piece for The Federalist, the president of the
Independent Women's Forum--the group that first put forward this idea--
wrote that she views this plan as a first step to, quote, ``transform
the current pay-as-you-go system into one that pre-funds future
benefits and with assets that belong to individuals.''
In other words, some of the people pushing this plan view it as
beginning the process of dismantling Social Security as we know it.
I want to work together, but a plan that's a first step toward
privatizing Social Security--the bedrock of our social safety net--is
no place to start.
We also know that only covering parental leave excludes the vast
majority of workers. Three-quarters of Americans who use the Family and
Medical Leave Act take time off to care for their own health or that of
a seriously ill family member.
Any national paid leave plan should build on the Family Medical
Leave Act, and reflect the well-established needs laid out in that
law--parental leave, family care leave, personal medical leave, and
military caregiving leave.
We must be able to have honest debate about these critical issues.
Though we have differing perspectives, we're working toward the same
goals and we can only achieve them by working together.
We all want to help families navigate a changing economy, and make
sure hard work pays off. We believe that all work has dignity. So I'm
encouraged that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle are taking
this seriously.
Now that we have established that we need a national paid family
medical leave plan, I hope we can get to work forging a bipartisan
solution together.
______
Consortium for Citizens With Disabilities Social Security Task Force
820 First Street, NE, Suite 740
Washington, DC 20002-4243
Tel: 202-567-3516
Fax: 202-408-9520
Website: www.C-C-D.org
Statement on Proposals to Use Social Security
to Pay for Parental Leave
The Independent Women's Forum (IWF) has proposed \1\ creating a new
parental leave benefit, paid for by asking workers to take a cut in
their future Social Security benefits. Under the IWF proposal, workers
could receive up to 12 weeks of partially-paid parental leave, offset
by a reduction or delay in their Social Security retirement benefits.
Participation would be voluntary.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ http://pdf.iwf.org/budget-
neutral_approach_parental_leave_PF18.pdf.
The undersigned members of the Consortium for Citizens with
Disabilities (CCD) Social Security Task Force oppose such proposals.
The U.S. can create a paid leave plan affordably and responsibly--
without reducing workers' Social Security benefits or forcing them to
delay retirement. We urge Congress to reject the IWF proposal and any
similar proposals. We offer the following considerations related to the
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
impact of such proposals on Social Security:
Access to paid leave should not be carved out of funds dedicated
to Social Security. Our Social Security system is a foundation of
economic security for workers and their families in the event of a
worker's retirement, disability, or death. Social Security represents a
promise to U.S. workers that has been built up and honored for over 80
years that should not be limited or cut. Expanding access to paid
parental leave is an important goal for all workers, including people
with disabilities and their families. However, proposals to fund paid
leave out of workers' future Social Security benefits would break the
promise of Social Security, and should be rejected.
Workers should not be asked to pay for parental leave today by
rolling the dice on their future needs for Social Security. Research
\2\ consistently finds that it is difficult to estimate financial needs
in retirement, and workers often underestimate. Asking workers in their
prime reproductive years to make decisions based in part on their
prediction of future Social Security retirement benefit needs is
unnecessary and unwise. Workers with disabilities and their families
would be more likely to face this risky roll of the dice because on
average, they are more likely to work in low-wage, part-time, non-
managerial jobs \3\ that lack employer-based paid leave benefits.
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\2\ https://www.soa.org/resources/announcements/press-releases/
2018/consumer-concern-financial-risk/.
\3\ https://thearc.org/wp-content/uploads/forchapters/
Georgetown_PFML-report_Dec17.pdf.
Retirement security should be strengthened, not eroded or put at
risk. According to the Urban Institute,\4\ under the IWF proposal ``. .
. parents who take 12 weeks of paid leave through the program would
have to delay their Social Security retirement benefits by 20 to 25
weeks depending on the repayment details.'' Social Security represents
a major source of income \5\ for most retirees: it provides over half
of total income for most aged beneficiaries, and 90 percent or more of
income for nearly 1 in 4 aged beneficiary couples and over 2 in 5 aged
nonmarried beneficiaries. Even with Social Security, many seniors live
in or near poverty \6\--and seniors with disabilities are particularly
likely \7\ to experience poverty. The CCD Social Security Task Force
has long supported strengthening--not weakening--Social Security as a
cornerstone of a financially sound retirement.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ https://www.urban.org/research/publication/paying-parental-
leave-future-social-security-benefits.
\5\ https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/chartbooks/fast_facts/2017/
fast_facts17.html#page5.
\6\ Ibid.
\7\ https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/
2014/acs/acs-29.pdf.
Any delays or permanent reductions in Social Security benefits
could significantly harm the economic security of people with
disabilities and their families. IWF's and similar proposals could be
funded \8\ by raising the age at which a worker could collect full
retirement benefits (in effect, a permanent reduction in benefits), or
by withholding all of a worker's initial Social Security retirement
benefits for an amount equal to the paid parental leave taken (a delay
in benefits). The more times a worker takes parental leave, the greater
the future benefit reduction. The proposed treatment of Social Security
disability or survivors' benefits is not clear; any cuts in these
benefits would be particularly harmful to people with disabilities and
their families. Workers with disabilities on average earn significantly
less \9\ than workers without disabilities and often have fewer
opportunities to save.\10\ As a result, Social Security is particularly
important to the economic security of people with disabilities, and any
reductions or delays in benefits would disproportionately harm people
with disabilities and their families.
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\8\ https://www.urban.org/research/publication/paying-parental-
leave-future-social-security-benefits/view/full_report.
\9\ https://thearc.org/wp-content/uploads/forchapters/
Georgetown_PFML-report_Dec17.pdf.
\10\ www.realeconomicimpact.org/assets/site_18/files/
other_documents/finra%20report/ndi-finrareport-accessible.pdf
Congress should adequately fund the Social Security
Administration (SSA) to operate and strengthen its existing core
programs--not repurpose existing limited resources to implement a new
program. From 2010 to 2018, SSA's operating budget shrank by nearly 9
percent \11\ while workloads rose. As a result, customer service has
been eroded across the agency. Today, nearly 1 million people are
waiting an average of over 590 days for a hearing before an SSA
Administrative Law Judge. These historic waits lead to extreme
hardship: while awaiting a hearing, many struggle to pay rent or meet
basic needs. Some lose their homes or go into bankruptcy, and in 2017
approximately 10,000 people died \12\ while waiting for a hearing.
Congress must fully fund SSA's operating budget to ensure timely,
accurate disability determinations and humane, high-quality customer
service across the agency. The IWF proposal would move in the opposite
direction, ``. . . raising Social Security's annual costs, net of
benefit offsets, about 1 percent over the long run,'' according to the
Urban Institute.\13\
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\11\ https://www.cbpp.org/blog/cash-strapped-social-security-needs-
more-funds-to-improve-customer-service.
\12\ https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/local/2017/11/20/10000-
people-died-waiting-for-a-disability-decision-in-the-past-year-will-he-
be-next/?utm_term=.5704795c423a.
\13\ https://www.urban.org/research/publication/paying-parental-
leave-future-social-security-benefits/view/full_report.
For these reasons, the undersigned members of the CCD Social Security
Task Force urge Congress to reject the IWF proposal and any similar
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proposals to fund paid leave out of Social Security.
CCD members:
ACCSES
Allies for Independence
American Association on Health and Disability
American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities
(AAIDD)
American Psychological Association
Autistic Self Advocacy Network
Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law
Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation
Community Legal Services of Philadelphia
Easterseals
Family Voices
Justice in Aging
National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys
National Association of Councils on Developmental Disabilities
National Association of Disability Representatives
National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare
National Disability Rights Network
National Organization of Social Security Claimants' Representatives
Paralyzed Veterans of America
Special Needs Alliance
The Arc of the United States
United Spinal Association
Joined by:
Lakeshore Foundation
______
National Alliance for Caregiving
4720 Montgomery Lane, Suite 205
Bethesda, MD 20814
(301) 718-8444
www.caregiving.org
July 9, 2018
Re: Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions, and Family Policy
hearing, ``Examining the Importance of Paid Leave for Working
Families,'' July 11, 2018
Dear Members of Congress,
Thank you for the opportunity to provide feedback as you weigh
legislative options regarding paid family and medical leave. At some
point, nearly everyone will need time away from work to deal with a
serious personal or family illness, or to care for a new child. While
we recognize and echo the stipulation that new parents need a national
paid leave policy, we must include family caregivers of older adults
and people with disabilities in the conversation. We want to be
constructive partners in crafting a paid leave policy which will allow
family caregivers to remain in the workforce and save for retirement
while providing much-needed care to those with serious illnesses or
disabilities.
About the National Alliance for Caregiving
The National Alliance for Caregiving (NAC), established in 1996, is a
non-profit coalition of over 60 national organizations focusing on
advancing family caregiving through research, innovation, and advocacy.
For more than 20 years, we have led public policy research and advocacy
efforts to support America's family caregivers. We are most well-known
for research that establishes a current and descriptive profile of
unpaid family caregivers in the United States, such as the nationally
representative Caregiving in the U.S. studies with AARP, conducted in
1997, 2004, 2009, and most recently in 2015.\1\ This work, along with
the work of our colleagues, has led to increased national attention to
the issue of caregiving across the lifespan. The data on family
caregiving demonstrates why paid leave is important not only for new
parents, but also for individuals who need to care for family members
who are ailing, aging, or have disabilities.
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\1\ The National Alliance for Caregiving. (2018). General
caregiving research. Retrieved from: https://www.caregiving.org/
research/general-caregiving/.
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The Need to Support Paid Family Leave Across the Lifespan
Family caregivers are unpaid relatives, partners, friends, or neighbors
who provide a wide range of assistance to individuals of all ages. They
are the predominant providers of long-term services and supports to
persons with illnesses or disabilities, and in general are thought to
provide help that is of high quality and that is consistent with
individual preferences. They play a significant role in ongoing,
routine chronic care processes--and act as a member of the care
delivery team. They may live with, or apart from, the person receiving
care--and care may be of short or long duration. Important individual
and societal consequences resulting from caregiving are well
documented. Establishing public policies that sustain and support
families and friends who provide health-related assistance to persons
living with chronic disease and disability, or recovering from acute
health events is, therefore, a critical consideration to supporting
population health. Conversations surrounding paid leave must include
family caregivers because a national paid leave policy would affect
them significantly.
According to the most recent edition of our study, Caregiving in the
U.S. 2015, conducted in collaboration with the AARP Public Policy
Institute, an estimated 43.5 million adults in the United States
provide unpaid care to an adult or a child. Most caregivers are women,
but about 40 percent are men (and among younger cohorts, men and women
are equally as likely to provide care). Caregivers spend approximately
24.4 hours a week providing care to their loved one, with nearly one-
quarter providing 41 or more hours of care a week. A third of
caregivers are ``higher-intensity'' (21+ hrs./wk.), providing 62.2
hours of care each week on average. Three in five care recipients have
a long-term physical condition, and the main reasons recipients
reported for needing care are ``old age,'' Alzheimer's or dementia,
surgery recovery, cancer, mobility issues, and mental health issues.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ The National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP Public Policy
Institute. (2015). Caregiving in the U.S. Retrieved from: https://
www.caregiving.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/2015_
CaregivingintheUS_Final-Report-June-4_WEB.pdf.
This study also shows that only about half of caregivers say another
unpaid caregiver helps their care recipient. Certain groups of
caregivers are more likely to be the sole unpaid caregiver, including
higher-hour caregivers (57 percent with no other unpaid help) and those
caring for a spouse (78 percent). Only 32 percent of caregivers report
their loved one gets paid help from aides, housekeepers, or other
people paid to help them. One in three caregivers has no help at all--
paid or unpaid. When asked if they had a choice in taking on the
responsibility to provide care for their loved one, half of caregivers
self-reported they had no choice in taking on their caregiving
responsibilities.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Ibid.
Impact of Caregiving on Work
The financial challenges mounting against family caregivers occur in at
least three distinct ways:
1. Through a lack of take-home pay because of reduced working
hours;
2. By accumulating out-of-pocket caregiving-related monthly
expenses; and
3. Through a diminished ability to save for retirement.
Further, while unpaid leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act
(FMLA) provides important job protections, it is not available to all,
and many cannot afford to take this leave. This lack of access results
in many challenges for the family caregiver, as described in the
scenario below.
Becky is a 59-year-old woman who has spent the past three years
caring for her mom and an elderly uncle at the same time.
Becky, who had a job as a manager at a paper plant, made a good
living with a salary of about $70,000 and benefits. At first,
she tried to continue working while caring for her mother who
had dementia. Becky would check in with her mother several
times a day but, as her mother's dementia worsened, Becky was
afraid to leave her mother home alone. She tried to use paid
caregivers' help but found them too expensive and unreliable.
Then her uncle, a caregiver's widower, fell and broke his hip
and could no longer live alone. He too came to live with Becky.
Unfortunately, after a year in which her increasing lateness
and emergency absences caused problems with her boss, Becky
gave up and left her job to stay at home as a caregiver. For
three years, she cared for her two relatives until her mother
died and her uncle moved into a nursing home. What happened at
the end of three years? At 59 and with her technology skills a
little rusty, Becky found it quite difficult to get another job
at the same managerial level she had before. Eventually, she
found a job, but the benefits were not nearly as rich. There
was minimal health insurance, and the company had only a
defined contribution retirement plan to which employees could
contribute. Becky had lost three years of contributions to
Social Security and the paper company's defined benefit plan.
Also, because of no income and expenses in paying for
additional health care services for her mother and uncle, Becky
had been unable to save money for her retirement.
National Data on Caregiving and Work
When it becomes difficult to balance caregiving with work, or if the
demands of work come into conflict with one's caregiving
responsibilities, some caregivers make changes to their work situation.
Six out of 10 caregivers report having to make a workplace
accommodation as a result of caregiving, such as cutting back on their
working hours, taking a leave of absence, receiving a warning about
performance or attendance, or other such impacts. Higher-hour
caregivers are more likely to report experiencing nearly all of these
work impacts. Caregivers working at least 30 hours a week are more
likely to report having workday interruptions as a result of
caregiving. Caregivers employed for fewer than 30 hours are more likely
to report cutting back their work responsibilities. Forty-eight percent
of caregivers who take time off to fulfill caregiving responsibilities
report losing income, and, of caregivers who leave the workforce, more
than half (52 percent) said they did so because their jobs did not
allow the flexibility they needed to work and provide elder care.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Ibid.
Other research has shown that the percentage of adult children
providing personal care and/or financial assistance to a parent has
more than tripled over recent decades. Currently, a quarter of adult
children, mainly Baby Boomers, provide this type of care to a parent.
The total estimated aggregate lost wages, pension, and Social Security
benefits of these caregivers of parents are nearly $3 trillion. The
individual cost impact of caregiving for women regarding lost wages and
Social Security benefits is $324,044; men are not far behind with an
estimated loss of $283,716 for men. On average, men and women are
losing more than a quarter million dollars in future retirement income
when providing eldercare--roughly $303,880 caring for an older
relative.\5\ This data further makes the case that family caregivers
need a funded national paid leave policy because without paid leave, we
risk a future generation that lacks retirement security and will
further strain our health and social care systems.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ MetLife, The National Alliance for Caregiving, and Center for
Long Term Care Research and Policy, New York Medical College. (2011).
Caregiving Costs to Working Caregivers: Double Jeopardy for Baby
Boomers Caring for Their Parents. Retrieved from: https://
www.caregiving.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/mmi-caregiving-costs-
working-caregivers.pdf.
Employees in the 50+ age range--often their peak earning years--are
also at the greatest risk of being a caregiver for an older relative.
Employers can provide workplace accommodations such as paid family and
medical leave so that caregivers can continue to stay in the workforce
while providing care. Assessing the long-term financial impact of
caregiving for aging parents on caregivers themselves is especially
important since it can jeopardize their future financial security.
There is also evidence that caregivers experience considerable health
issues as a result of their focus on caring for others, particularly
for medically complex diseases such as Alzheimer's and the related
dementias. The need for flexibility in the workplace and in policies
that would benefit working caregivers will increase as more working
caregivers approach their own retirement while still caring for
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
another, such as an aging parent.
Paid family and medical leave can also help offset the out-of-pocket
costs that many caregivers face in providing care. A study from AARP,
Family Caregiving and Out of Pocket Costs: 2016 Report, found that
family caregivers, on average, are spending about $6,954 per year on
out-of-pocket costs related to caregiving. Caregivers of people with
dementia spent over ten thousand dollars to provide care (an average of
$10,697) and long-distance caregivers spent over eleven thousand
($11,923), a troubling statistic, given the rising incidence of
dementia and the increase in families moving across country for work.
The study also found that there are variations in caregiving
expenditures related to the race/ethnicity of the caregiver. For
instance, Hispanic/Latino and African American caregivers report that
44 and 34 percent of their income respectively goes towards out-of-
pocket expenditures, compared to only 14 percent for white
caregivers.\6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ AARP. (2016). Family Caregiving and Out-of-Pocket Costs: 2016
Report. Retrieved from: https://www.aarp.org/content/dam/aarp/research/
surveys_statistics/ltc/2016/family-caregiv
ing-costs.doi.10.26419%252Fres.00138.001.pdf.
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The Promise of Paid Family Leave in Reducing Health System Costs
Four states currently have paid family and medical leave insurance
programs: California, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and New York. These
programs have shown promising results. For instance, California's paid
family leave program, the first in the country, went into effect more
than 14 years ago and might have positive implications for long-term
care policy. A 2017 report published in the Journal of Policy Analysis
and Management is the first empirical study to examine the effects of
paid family leave on long-term care patterns. The study found that the
implementation of paid family leave reduced nursing home utilization
for older adults by 11 percent.\7\
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\7\ Arora, K., and Wolf, D. (2017). ``Does Paid Family Leave Reduce
Nursing Home Use? The California Experience.'' Journal of Policy
Analysis and Management, 37(1), pp. 38-62.
We are encouraged by recent federal activity on the issue of caregiving
as America ages. Notably, we are thankful for congressional leadership
on the RAISE Family Caregivers Act (Public Law No: 115-119) and the VA
Mission Act (Public Law No: 115-182). The RAISE Family Caregivers Act
noted the critical importance of supporting caregivers across the
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lifespan.
In the same way, we believe that existing legislative proposals to
support family caregivers should be disease- and age-agnostic,
recognizing the financial strain facing caregivers who must choose
between work and family. While there are multiple proposals for paid
family and medical leave, we believe that the Family and Medical
Insurance Leave (FAMILY) Act (S.337/H.R. 947), which would establish a
national paid leave program, is currently the strongest and most well-
rounded proposal to ensure that caregivers across the lifespan have
access to paid leave. This bill would provide workers with up to 12
weeks of partial income when they take time for their own serious
health condition, including pregnancy and childbirth recovery; the
serious health condition of a child, parent, spouse or domestic
partner; the birth or adoption of a child; and/or for military
caregiving and leave purposes. The benefit would be administered
through a new Office of Paid Family and Medical Leave within the Social
Security Administration, and payroll contributions would cover both
insurance benefits and administrative costs.
We have been honored to be a part of the Respect A Caregiver's Time
(ReACT) coalition (https://respectcaregivers.org/) which represents
many national and multinational employers as they search for workplace
solutions for family caregivers. Paid leave is one of the various
promising proposals to aid working caregivers that came of that
collaborative process. Private market innovators such as Adobe and
Deloitte have been successful in supporting an aging workforce and
providing needed flexibility to those who care. There is still much to
be done to support family caregivers across the lifespan. We caution
against programs that require a caregiver to ``borrow'' against their
future retirement or Social Security income, for the reasons described
above--caregivers are already facing retirement insecurity due to their
caregiving role and may not be able to delay their own retirement due
to a health issue.
A national paid family and medical leave policy would provide a
necessary step in the path to ensuring financial independence for our
nation's 43.5 million caregivers. The FAMILY Act would take us in the
right direction. We are happy to answer any questions or to provide
research and information for your decision-making process. In addition
to contacting me directly, my Director of Advocacy, Michael R. Wittke,
B.S.W., M.P.A., is available to you to provide additional information
on state and federal family caregiving proposals. You can reach him by
emailing mike@care
giving.org.
Thank you again for your time and the opportunity to submit comments.
Sincerely,
C. Grace Whiting, J.D.
President and CEO
[email protected]
______
American Association of University Women (AAUW)
July 10, 2018
Senator Bill Cassidy Senator Sherrod Brown
Chairman Ranking Member
Subcommittee on Social Security,
Pensions, and Family Policy Subcommittee on Social Security,
Pensions, and Family Policy
U.S. Senate U.S. Senate
Committee on Finance Committee on Finance
Washington, DC 20510 Washington, DC 20510
Dear Chairman Cassidy and Ranking Member Brown,
On behalf of the 170,000 bipartisan members and supporters of the
American Association of University Women (AAUW), I would like to thank
you for the opportunity to submit this letter in advance of the
Subcommittee's hearing, ``Examining the Importance of Paid Family Leave
for American Working Families.'' We ask that this letter be included in
the hearing record.
Our current leave system is not meeting the basic health and economic
needs of workers and their families. Unfortunately, more than 100
million people, or around 85 percent of workers, do not have paid
family leave, and around 60 percent of workers lack access to paid
personal leave through their employers.\1\
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\1\ U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (September 2017). National
Compensation Survey: Employee Benefits in the U.S. (Tables 16 and 32).
www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/benefits/2017/ebbl0061.pdf.
To meet this critical need, AAUW supports the Family and Medical
Insurance Leave (FAMILY) Act (S. 337) and urges this Subcommittee take
up and pass the bill. The FAMILY Act would establish a self-funding
paid family and medical insurance program. A national paid leave
program would help to eliminate employees' fears of losing their jobs
or risking their economic security in order to take necessary time off
work. Ultimately, this act will benefit workers, their families,
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businesses, and our economy.
Access to paid family and medical leave is critical--it helps new
parents, their children, older family members, and workers themselves
deal with serious illnesses and injuries or the birth of adoption of
children. Health outcomes are improved when paid leave is utilized.\2\
Some workers do have access to unpaid leave through the Family and
Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which currently provides eligible workers
with up to 12 weeks of unpaid job-protected leave for medical and
parental purposes. However, FMLA is not enough--even when covered, many
employees cannot afford to take unpaid leave that jeopardizes their
family's economic security.\3\ Furthermore, many Americans do not
qualify for FMLA.
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\2\ Institute of Medicine. (2008). Retooling for an Aging America:
Building the Health Care Workforce. www.iom.edu/Reports/2008/Retooling-
for-an-Aging-America-Building-the-Health-Care-Workforce.aspx. Arbaje,
et al. (2008). ``Postdischarge Environmental and Socioeconomic Factors
and the Likelihood of Early Hospital Readmission Among Community-
Dwelling Medicare Beneficiaries.'' The Gerontologist, 48(4), 495-504.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18728299. Arora, K., and Wolf, D.A. (2017,
November 3). ``Does Paid Family Leave Reduce Nursing Home Use? The
California Experience.'' Journal of Policy Analysis and Management,
37(1), 38-62. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/
pam.22038. Gomby, D., and Pei, D. (2009). Newborn Family Leave: Effects
on Children, Parents, and Business. www.packard.org/wp-content/uploads/
2011/06/NFLA_fullreport_final.pdf.
\3\ AAUW. (2017). AAUW Quick Facts: Paid Leave. www.aauw.org/files/
2017/08/QuickFacts
_PaidLeave-nsa.pdf.
The FAMILY Act would provide workers with up to 12 weeks of partial
income replacement when they take time off for serious health
conditions or caregiving purposes. The income replacement would amount
to 66 percent of an individual's monthly wages, up to a capped amount
for high-wage earners. The FAMILY Act would cover workers in all
companies no matter the size. The program would be funded by small
employee and employer payroll contributions of two tenths of 1 percent
each or about $1.50 per week for the average worker. It would be
administered through a new Office of Paid Family and Medical Leave
within the Social Security Administration. The FAMILY Act's approach
builds on the success of several state paid family and medical leave
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
programs.
A federal paid leave program will build stronger families, healthier
workers, and successful businesses. Paid leave contributes to improved
newborn and child health by allowing both parents the time they need to
help with healthcare decisions and responsibilities. For example, paid
leave make it more likely that new mothers will be able to take the
amount of time off recommended by doctors, and their children are more
likely to receive medical check-ups and immunizations.\4\ Paid leave
allows ill or injured adults time to recover. Paid leave enables people
to help their loved ones, including older family members with health
problems, recover from illness and avoid complications and hospital
readmissions, which reduces health costs.\5\ Lastly, paid leave keeps
people in their jobs while reducing turnover costs. Companies typically
pay about one-fifth of an employee's salary to replace that
employee,\6\ making such unnecessary turnover very costly for
employers. As just one example, in California, a state that has a
successful family leave insurance program, workers in low-wage, high-
turnover industries are much more likely to return to their jobs after
using the state's program.\7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Gomby, D., and Pei, D. (2009). Newborn Family Leave: Effects on
Children, Parents, and Business. www.packard.org/wp-content/uploads/
2011/06/NFLA_fullreport_final.pdf and Berger, L., Hill, J., and
Waldfogel, J. (2005). ``Maternity Leave, Early Maternal Employment and
Child Health and Development in the U.S.'' The Economic Journal,
115(501), F44.
\5\ Institute of Medicine. (2008). Retooling for an Aging America:
Building the Health Care Workforce. www.iom.edu/Reports/2008/Retooling-
for-an-Aging-America-Building-the-Health-Care-Workforce.aspx.
\6\ Boushey, H., and Glynn, S. (2012). ``There Are Significant
Business Costs to Replacing Employees.'' Center for American Progress.
www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/CostofTurnover.pdf.
\7\ Appelbaum, E., and Milkman, R. (2011). Leaves That Pay:
Employer and Worker Experiences With Paid Family Leave in California.
www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/reports/leaves-that-pay.
The FAMILY Act is the right next step toward supporting families and
building successful businesses. The approach of the FAMILY Act is
affordable, cost-effective, sustainably funded, and does not cut from
or reduce benefits from other benefits programs on which people rely.
To that end, we urge this Subcommittee to take up and pass the Family
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
and Medical Insurance Leave (FAMILY) Act (S. 337).
Cosponsorship and votes associated with this legislation may be scored
in the AAUW Action Fund Congressional Voting Record for the 115th
Congress. Please do not hesitate to contact me at 202-785-7720 or Anne
Hedgepeth, director of federal policy, at 202-785-7724, if you have any
questions.
Sincerely,
Deborah J. Vagins
Senior Vice President, Public Policy and Research
Cc: Members of Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions, and Family
Policy
______
National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare
111 K Street, NE, Suite 700
Washington, DC 20002
202-216-0420
www.ncpssm.org
July 10, 2018
The Honorable Bill Cassidy, M.D. The Honorable Sherrod Brown
Chairman Ranking Member
U.S. Senate United States Senate
Committee on Finance Committee on Finance
Subcommittee on Social Security,
Pensions, and Family Policy Subcommittee on Social Security,
Pensions, and Family Policy
Washington, DC 20510 Washington, DC 20510
Dear Chairman Cassidy and Ranking Member Brown:
On behalf of the millions of members and supporters of the National
Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, I am writing to
express our strong opposition to legislation that would create a new
parental leave benefit that would be paid for by cutting the future
Social Security benefits of those who choose to receive this proposed
new benefit.
As we understand the proposal, which has been developed by the
Independent Women's Forum (IWF), new parents would be allowed to
receive up to twelve weeks of paid parental leave by borrowing from the
eligible parents' future Social Security benefits. Apparently, the
parental leave program would determine the amount of the leave benefit
by using the Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) benefit formula.
Participation would be voluntary, but a consequence of participation
would be a reduction or delay in participants' future Social Security
retirement benefits that would offset the costs of the family leave
benefits they receive.
The National Committee believes that Congress should develop provisions
that provide financial assistance to parents and other caregivers that
ease the burden of child or elder care. However, paid caregiving leave
should not be funded by raiding the Social Security trust funds. We
offer the following observations:
Essential Social Security benefits should not be traded away for
paid family leave. Our Social Security system is a foundation of
economic security for workers and their families in the event of a
worker's retirement, disability or death. While we believe that
expanding access to paid parental leave is important for all workers,
we do not think that Social Security should be used to pay for these
benefits.
Workers should not face the cruel dilemma of future delays or
reductions in Social Security benefits to pay for family leave benefits
today. Study after study has shown how difficult it is for workers to
estimate their financial needs in retirement. Having to choose at an
early age between paid family leave in the here and now and reductions
in future retirement benefits presents all parents with a cruel dilemma
that is unnecessary and unwise.
Retirement security should be strengthened, not eroded.
According to the Urban Institute, under the IWF proposal, parents who
take 12 weeks of paid leave would have to delay their Social Security
retirement benefits by five to six months, depending on details in the
legislation. Those receiving paid family leave for 24 weeks would see
their future Social Security benefits reduced for a total of 10 to 12
months. For many future retirees, this delay will be a severe financial
burden, and one that may come as a surprise to those affected by it. It
will be a burden because Social Security is a major source of income
for most retirees; it provides over half of total income for most aged
beneficiaries, and 90 percent or more of income for nearly one in four
aged beneficiaries and over two in five aged non-married beneficiaries.
Given the limited nature of other pensions and retirement income, these
individuals will be ill-equipped to repay the family leave they
received so many years ago.
Delays or permanent reductions in Social Security benefits will
harm seniors. The IWF and similar proposals could be paid for in a
number of ways. For example, some might propose increasing the
retirement age for individuals who previously received paid family
leave (in effect a permanent reduction). Alternatively, costs could be
recovered by withholding all of a retiree's initial Social Security
until the paid family leave has been fully repaid. While we understand
that the funding concept is to fully compensate the Social Security
trust funds for all benefits paid, the extent of an individual's
liability isn't entirely clear. For example, would former family leave
recipients have to cover lost interest incurred by the trust funds?
Would they be responsible for repaying leave payments made to
individuals who die before reaching retirement age? Neither the trust
funds nor retirees should have to pay for these costs.
The Social Security Administration is already seriously
underfunded and in no position to undertake a complex new workload. For
a number of years now Congress has significantly underfunded SSA's
administrative budget. Massive backlogs have developed in the hearing
offices and those who request a hearing on their disability benefits
are required to wait nearly two years, on average, for a decision on
their claim. Administration of a paid family leave program would be a
major new responsibility for SSA, one for which they would need
substantial additional administrative funding. We are uncertain as to
the likelihood that such funding will be made available, leading to the
possibility that the agency would have to draw on already-existing
resources to implement a program of paid family leave.
To be clear, the National Committee supports the concept of paid family
leave. Ours is one of the few advanced countries in the world that does
not provide some form of assistance to young families undertaking the
task of caring for a newborn child. However, we do not think that those
seeking to establish such a program should look to the Social Security
program as a means of paying for the benefits or for their
administration. Since the inception of the program, Americans have
regarded their contributions to Social Security as sacrosanct and
available only for Social Security. The National Committee believes it
should stay that way, and therefore urges you to oppose any legislation
that relies on Social Security as a means for financing a program of
paid family leave.
Sincerely,
Max Richtman
President and CEO
cc: The Honorable Orrin Hatch The Honorable Ron Wyden
Chairman Ranking Member
U.S. Senate U.S. Senate
Committee on Finance Committee on Finance
Washington, DC 20510 Washington, DC 20510
______
Social Security Works
1440 G Street, NW
Washington, DC 20005
July 10, 2018
The Honorable Bill Cassidy The Honorable Sherrod Brown
Chair Ranking Member
Subcommittee on Social Security,
Pensions, and Family Policy Subcommittee on Social Security,
Pensions, and Family Policy
U.S. Senate U.S. Senate
Committee on Finance Committee on Finance
Washington, DC 20510 Washington, DC 20510
Dear Chairman Cassidy and Ranking Member Brown,
While Social Security Works appreciates that your subcommittee is
holding hearings on the crucially important issue of paid family and
medical leave, we strongly oppose any proposals that cut Social
Security.
Americans are overwhelmingly supportive of paid leave and Social
Security. As the wealthiest nation in the world at the wealthiest
moment in its history, we can afford both. Specifically, Congress
should add paid family and medical leave as a covered benefit under
Social Security, as part of legislation that expands Social Security.
It should reject proposals that seek to force Americans to make the
unconscionable choice of whether to be economically less secure as
young adults planning a family or in old age.
Our nation is facing a retirement income crisis caused by the decline
of traditional pensions, the inadequacy of 401(k)s, decades of rising
inequality and stagnating wages. It is also facing rising income and
wealth inequality. Since 1979, the before-tax incomes of the top 1
percent of America's households have increased more than four times
faster than the incomes of the bottom 20 percent. The middle class is
disappearing.
Young people are also facing an economic crisis. They are burdened by
immoral amounts of student debt. The nation's fertility rate is
dropping, apparently at least partly because of the cost of bearing and
rearing children.
To address all of these problems, we should increase Social Security's
modest benefits and add paid family and medical leave as an additional
benefit--a universal benefit paid for by requiring the wealthiest among
us to contribute their fair share. Policymakers who suggest forcing
workers to give up part of their retirement benefits if they take paid
leave are hurting families, increasing income inequality, and
exacerbating the nation's looming retirement income crisis.
Social Security was created in 1935 to replace wages lost as a result
of old age, so that Americans would have guaranteed income in
retirement. In the decades following, Social Security was expanded to
protect workers from other events that lead to loss of wages--long-term
disability and the death of a family breadwinner.
Wages are also lost when people take time out of the paid workforce to
have children, as well as to care for themselves and other family
members when they are sick. While Social Security successfully covers
long-term income losses, our Social Security system, unlike those of
many other countries, lacks wage replacement for short-term income
losses. It's long past time for us to join the rest of the
industrialized world in having a national program of paid family and
medical leave.
Proposals like the Independent Women's Forum (IWF) plan, however, are
cynical and harmful to American families. The IWF proposal would allow
new parents to take up to twelve weeks of leave with partial wage
replacement--but only in return for a reduction in their Social
Security benefits when it comes time to retire. This ``deal'' purports
to add paid family leave to Social Security but in reality, it is
simply a benefit cut. The last thing American families need is to be
forced to cut their future benefits to pay for pressing needs like paid
leave. Nor is there any reason to force them to make that choice. To
repeat, we are the wealthiest country in the history of the world.
Protecting Social Security and expanding it to include a real paid
family and medical leave program is a question of political willpower
and values, not affordability.
While the IWF claims they want to help women, in reality women's
retirement security would take the biggest hit from this plan because
women provide the substantial majority of caregiving and they will
disproportionately borrow against their own Social Security benefits.
It is important to note that women already have extremely low Social
Security benefits, on average, both in absolute terms and in comparison
to men's benefits. A woman's average monthly Social Security benefit is
already 20 percent lower than a man's. They depend on Social Security
more because they, on average, have lower wages, tend to work in jobs
without supplemental retirement income plans and live longer than men.
Indeed, two-thirds of those aged 65 and older who are living in poverty
are women. That percentage is even higher at older ages.
In addition to forcing new parents, who need parental leave, to cut
their own future retirement benefits, the IWF plan is also very
narrowly targeted to only cover parental leave. It does nothing for
those who need medical leave either for themselves or to care for a
loved one.
American families should have paid family leave and a secure
retirement. Every member of Congress should reject the IWF plan and any
other plan that tries to disguise a Social Security benefit cut in the
sheep's clothing of another deserving proposal, like paid family leave
or student debt cancellation.
We look forward to your support in this matter. We offer our assistance
to help create true paid family and medical leave in the United States
as part of an expanded Social Security.
Sincerely,
Nancy J. Altman
President, Social Security Works
______
1,000 Days, et al.
July 11, 2018
Dear Member of Congress,
On behalf of the undersigned organizations and the tens of millions of
working families we represent, we urge you to support the Family And
Medical Insurance Leave (FAMILY) Act (S. 337/H.R. 947). The FAMILY Act
would create a national family and medical leave insurance program to
help ensure that people who work can take the time they need to address
serious health and caregiving needs. It would help support working
families' economic security, promote gender equity in workplaces,
create a more level playing field for businesses of all sizes and
strengthen our economy. The FAMILY Act is the national paid family and
medical leave plan voters want and our country needs.
The benefits of paid family and medical leave are well documented, yet
the vast majority of working people in the United States do not have
access to this basic protection. More than 100 million people--or 85
percent of workers--do not have paid family leave through their jobs,
and more than 60 percent lack access to paid personal medical leave
through their employer.\1\ Access rates for workers in lower-wage jobs
are even lower, and most recent private sector advances are
disproportionately concentrated in higher-skill industries and among
higher-paid employees, creating even greater disparities between lower-
and higher-paid workers.\2\ Even unpaid leave through the Family and
Medical Leave Act (FMLA) is inaccessible to nearly two-thirds of
working people, either because of eligibility restrictions or because
they simply cannot afford to take unpaid leave.\3\ This means that when
serious personal or family health needs inevitably arise, people face
impossible choices between their families' well-being, their financial
security and their jobs.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2017, September). National
Compensation Survey: Employee Benefits in the United States, March 2017
(Tables 16 and 32). Retrieved 19 June 2018, from https://www.bls.gov/
ncs/ebs/benefits/2017/ebbl0061.pdf.
\2\ Ibid. See also National Partnership for Women and Families.
(2017, September). Access to Paid Leave Remains `Dismal,' New Bureau of
Labor Statistics Data Show, Despite Public Sector Progress. Retrieved
21 June 2018, from http://www.nationalpartnership.org/news-room/press-
releases/access-to-paid-leave-remains-dismal-new-bureau-of-labor-
statistics-data-show-despite-public-sector-progress.html.
\3\ diversitydatakids.org. (2015). Working Adults Who Are Eligible
For and Can Afford FMLA Unpaid Leave (Share). Brandeis University, The
Heller School, Institute for Child, Youth, and Family Policy
Publication. Retrieved 19 June 2018, from http://
www.diversitydatakids.org/data/ranking/529/working-adults-who-are-
eligible-for-and-can-afford-fmla-unpaid-leaveshare/
#loct=2&cat=44,25&tf=17.
The FAMILY Act would create a strong, inclusive national paid family
and medical leave insurance program and set a nationwide paid leave
baseline. Employees would earn two-thirds of their wages, up to a cap,
for a limited period of time (up to 60 workdays, or 12 workweeks in a
year) to address their own serious health issue, including pregnancy or
childbirth; to deal with the serious health issue of a family member;
to care for a new child; and for certain military caregiving and leave
purposes. Employees, employers and self-employed workers would fund
both the benefits and the administrative costs of the program by
contributing a small amount in each pay period to a self-sustaining
fund, administered through a new Office of Paid Family and Medical
Leave. Eligibility rules would allow younger, part-time, low-wage and
contingent workers to contribute and benefit, regardless of their
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
employer's size or their length of time on the job.
The FAMILY Act builds on successful state programs. California has had
a paid family and medical leave insurance program in place since 2004,
New Jersey since 2009, Rhode Island since 2014, and New York since
2018. Strong new programs will take effect in Washington state and the
District of Columbia in 2020 and Massachusetts in 2021. Evidence from
the existing state programs shows these programs' value and
affordability; all are financially sound and self-sustaining, and each
state that has paid leave in place has or is exploring ways to make
them even more accessible to people who need family leave. Analyses of
California's law show that both employers and employees benefit from
the program.\4\ In New Jersey, the program's costs have been lower than
expected and public attitudes toward the program are favorable.\5\
Early research on Rhode Island's program found positive effects for new
parents, and a majority of small- and medium-sized employers were in
favor of the program one year after it took effect.\6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Appelbaum, E., and Milkman, R. (2013). Unfinished Business:
Paid Family Leave in California and the Future of U.S. Work-Family
Policy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
\5\ Press of Atlantic City. (2010, November 15). Paid Family Leave/
Working Well. Retrieved 19 June 2018, from http://
www.pressofatlanticcity.com/opinion/editorials/article_0d6ba980-3a1d-
56f7-9101-258999b5d9d0.html; See also Houser, L., and White, K. (2012,
October). Awareness of New Jersey's Family Leave Insurance Program Is
Low, Even as Public Support Remains High and Need Persists. Rutgers
University, The State University of New Jersey Center for Women and
Work Publication. Retrieved 19 June 2018, from http://njtimetocare.com/
sites/default/files/03_New%20Jersey%20Family%20Leave%20Insurance-
%20A%20CWW%20Issue%20Brief.
pdf.
\6\ National Partnership for Women and Families. (2015, February).
First Impressions: Comparing State Paid Family Leave Programs in Their
First Years. Retrieved 19 June 2018, from http://
www.nationalpartnership.org/research-library/work-family/paid-leave/
first-impressions-comparing-state-paid-family-leave-programs-in-their-
first-years.pdf; Bartel, A., Rossin-Slater, M., Ruhm, C., and
Waldfogel, J. (2016, January). Assessing Rhode Island's Temporary
Caregiver Insurance Act: Insights from a Survey of Employers. U.S.
Department of Labor Publication. Retrieved 19 June 2018, from https://
www.dol.gov/asp/evaluation/completed-studies/Assessing
RhodeIslandTemporaryCaregiverInsuranceAct_InsightsFromSurveyOfEmployers.
pdf.
The FAMILY Act would address the full range of care needs people face,
including the growing need to provide elder care. Changing demographics
mean more adults will need elder care and the number of potential
family caregivers is shrinking: For every person age 80 and older, the
number of potential family caregivers will fall from about seven in
2010 to four by 2030, and then to less than three by 2050.\7\ It is
also important to note that more than 75 percent of people who take
family or medical leave each year do so for reasons other than
maternity or paternity care. They take leave to care for family members
with serious illnesses, injuries or disabilities or for their own
serious health issue.\8\ The majority of parents, adult children and
spouses who provide care for ill family members or children with
disabilities also have paying jobs, and most work more than 30 hours
per week while also managing their caregiving responsibilities.\9\ The
majority of military caregivers--and more than three-quarters of
caregivers for post-9/11 wounded warriors--are also in the labor
force.\10\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ Redfoot, D., Feinberg, L., and Houser, A. (2013, August). The
Aging of the Baby Boom and the Growing Care Gap: A Look at Future
Declines in the Availability of Family Caregivers. AARP Public Policy
Institute Publication. Retrieved 19 June 2018, from http://
www.aarp.org/content/dam/aarp/research/public_policy_institute/Itc/
2013/baby-boom-and-the-growing-care-gap-insight-AARP-ppi-Itc.pdf.
\8\ Klerman, J.A., Daley, K., and Pozniak, A. (2012, September).
Family and Medical Leave in 2012: Technical Report (Exhibit 7.2.8, p.
142). Abt Associates Publication. Retrieved 19 June 2018, from https://
www.dol.gov/asp/evaluation/fmla/fmla-2012-technical-report.pdf.
\9\ National Alliance for Caregiving. (2015, November). Caregiving
in the U.S. National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP Public Policy
Institute Publication. Retrieved 19 June 2018, from http://
www.caregiving.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/
2015_CaregivingintheUS_Final-Report-June-4_WEB.pdf.
\10\ Ramchand, R., Tanielian, T., Fisher, M.P., Vaughan, C.A.,
Trail, T.E., Batka, C., Voorhies, P., Robbins, M.W., Robinson, E., and
Ghosh-Dastidar, B. (2014). Hidden Heroes: America's Military Caregivers
(Figure 3.8). RAND Corporation Publication. Retrieved 19 June 2018,
from http://www.rand.org/health/projects/military-caregivers.html.
The FAMILY Act would support improved health outcomes and could lower
health care costs. New mothers who take paid leave are more likely to
take the amount of time away from work recommended by doctors,\11\ and
their children are more likely to be breastfed, receive medical check-
ups and get critical immunizations.\12\ When children are seriously
ill, the presence of a parent shortens a child's hospital stay by 31
percent;\13\ active parental involvement in a child's hospital care may
head off future health problems, especially for children with chronic
health conditions,\14\ and thus reduce costs. Paid leave also lets
people help older family members recover from serious illnesses,
fulfill treatment plans, and avoid complications and hospital
readmissions.\15\ Early research has found that California's paid leave
program reduced nursing home utilization.\16\ And, for the millions of
families in communities that are struggling with opioid and other
substance use disorders, paid leave supports family caregivers, who
play a key role in care and recovery by helping loved ones with health
care arrangements and treatment.\17\
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\11\ Gomby, D., and Pei, D. (2009). Newborn Family Leave: Effects
on Children, Parents, and Business. David and Lucile Packard Foundation
Publication. Retrieved 19 June 2018, from http://paidfamilyleave.org/
pdf/NebwornFamilyLeave.pdf.
\12\ Heymann, J., Sprague, A.R., Nandi, A., et al. (2017). ``Paid
parental leave and family wellbeing in the sustainable development
era.'' Public Health Reviews, 38(21). Retrieved 19 June 2018, from
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5810022/pdf/
40985_2017_Article
_67.pdf.
\13\ Heymann. J. (2001, October 15). The Widening Gap: Why
America's Working Families Are in Jeopardy--and What Can Be Done About
It. New York, NY: Basic Books.
\14\ Heymann, J., and Earle, A. (2010). Raising the global floor:
dismantling the myth that we can't afford good working conditions for
everyone. Stanford, CA.: Stanford Politics and Policy.
\15\ See e.g., Institute of Medicine. (2008, April 11). Retooling
for an Aging America: Building the Health Care Workforce, 254.
Retrieved 19 June 2018, from http://www.nationalacademies.
org/hmd/reports/2008/retooling-for-an-aging-america-building-the-
health-care-workforce.aspx; Arbaje, et al. (2008). ``Postdischarge
Environmental and Socioeconomic Factors and the Likelihood of Early
Hospital Readmission Among Community-Dwelling Medicare Beneficiaries.''
The Gerontologist, 48(4), 495-504. Summary retrieved 19 June 2018, from
https://www.ncbi.nlm.
nih.gov/pubmed/18728299.
\16\ Arora, K., and Wolf, D.A. (2017, November 3). ``Does Paid
Family Leave Reduce Nursing Home Use? The California Experience.''
Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 37(1), 38-62. Retrieved 19
June 2018, from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/
pam.22038.
\17\ Biegel, D.E., Katz-Saltzman, S., Meeks, D., Brown, S., and
Tracy, E.M. (2010). ``Predictors of Depressive Symptomatology in Family
Caregivers of Women With Substance Use Disorders or Co-Occurring
Substance Use and Mental Disorders.'' Journal of Family Social Work,
13(2), 25-44.
The FAMILY Act also would strengthen large and small businesses and
support entrepreneurs. Paid leave reduces turnover costs--typically
about one-fifth of an employee's salary \18\--and increases employee
loyalty. In California, nine out of 10 businesses surveyed reported
positive effects or no impacts on profitability and productivity after
the state's paid leave program went into effect.\19\ Small businesses
reported even more positive or neutral outcomes than larger
businesses.\20\ Small business owners from across the nation expect
that the FAMILY Act model would help level the playing field with large
corporations, improve worker retention, productivity and morale, and
help protect their economic security if an accident or medical
emergency occurs.\21\ This is part of the reason that 70 percent of
small businesses surveyed nationwide support the FAMILY Act approach of
shared payroll deductions.\22\ By including self-employed people, the
FAMILY Act would also help entrepreneurs balance the risks of starting
a new business with the need to ensure their families' health and
security.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\18\ Boushey, H., and Glynn, S. (2012, November 16). There Are
Significant Business Costs to Replacing Employees. Center for American
Progress Publication. Retrieved 19 June 2018, from http://
www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/CostofTurnover.pdf.
\19\ See note 4.
\20\ Ibid.
\21\ Main Street Alliance. (2017). National Paid Family and Medical
Leave: A Proposal for Small Business Success. Retrieved 19 June 2018,
from https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/mainstreetalliance/pages/10/
attachments/original/1486411533/PFML_2017_Report.pdf?14864
11533.
\22\ Lake Research Partners. (2017, February). Polling commissioned
by Small Business Majority and Center for American Progress. Retrieved
19 June 2018, from http://www.smallbusiness
majority.org/sites/default/files/research-reports/033017-paid-leave-
poll.pdf.
National paid family and medical leave has broad support from voters
across party lines. Supermajorities of voters across party lines
support a comprehensive, 12-week national paid family and medical leave
law, including 66 percent of Republicans, 77 percent of independents
and 93 percent of Democrats. Nearly two-thirds of voters (64 percent)
say they would ``strongly favor'' such a law.\23\ In focus groups
conducted with conservative and independent voters in September 2017,
voters preferred the FAMILY Act's ``personal and family security fund''
model over an employer tax credit, tax-free savings account or a
limited parents-only leave program.\24\ Additional qualitative research
conducted around the same time shows voters prefer a national plan that
covers all family relationships and includes employment
protections.\25\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\23\ Lake Research Partners and the Tarrance Group. (2016,
November). Polling commissioned by the National Partnership for Women
and Families. Retrieved 19 June 2018, from http://
www.nationalpartnership.org/research-library/work-family/key-findings-
2016-election-eve-election-night-survey.pdf.
\24\ Perry Undem Research and Bellwether Consulting. (2018,
January). Highlights From Focus Groups With Conservative Voters on Paid
Family and Medical Leave (on file with the National Partnership for
Women and Families).
\25\ Lake Research Partners and MomsRising.org (2018, February).
Interested Parties Memo on Key Findings From Recent Qualitative
Research. Retrieved 19 June 2018, from https://s3.amazonaws.com/
s3.momsrising.org/images/MomsRising__LPR_Interested_Parties_memo_on_
paid_leave.pdf.
It is well past time for the United States to adopt a nationwide paid
family and medical leave standard--but policy details matter
tremendously. Disparities in people's access to paid leave, changing
demographics and the realities working families face today require that
any national plan be comprehensive of working people's needs as
reflected in the FMLA, inclusive of all working people across the
United States and provide a meaningful duration of leave and wage
replacement rate to make taking leave financially possible for all
working people. Responsible governance requires that any plan be
affordable, cost-effective and sustainably funded with new revenue--not
funded by cutting or reducing benefits from programs people rely on.
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Any plan that fails to meet these tests is unacceptable.
The FAMILY Act is the only national paid family and medical leave
proposal that reflects what most people in the United States need. We
urge you to support and co-sponsor this essential legislation today and
to reject inadequate proposals that would fail to meet the needs of the
nation's workforce, families or businesses--and that would do more harm
than good.
Sincerely,
National Organizations
1,000 Days
9to5, National Association of Working Women
A Better Balance
American Academy of Nursing
American Association of People with Disabilities
American Association of University Women (AAUW)
American Civil Liberties Union
American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO
American Medical Student Association
American Medical Women's Association
American Psychological Association
American Public Health Association
American Society on Aging
American Sustainable Business Council
A. Philip Randolph Institute
Association of Flight Attendants--CWA
Association of Reproductive Health Professionals (ARHP)
Association of University Centers on Disabilities
Association of Women's Health, Obstetric, and Neonatal Nurses
Autistic Self Advocacy Network
Bend the Arc Jewish Action
Black Women's Health Imperative
Black Women's Roundtable
Caregiver Action Network
Catalyst
Center for American Progress Action Fund
Center for Community Change Action
Center for Popular Democracy Action
CLASP
Coalition on Human Needs
Communications Workers of America (CWA)
Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd, U.S.
Provinces
Demos
Ecumenical Poverty Initiative
Every Child Matters
Faith in Public Life
Family Equality Council
Family Values @ Work
Family Voices
First Focus Campaign for Children
The Gerontological Society of America
Hadassah, The Women's Zionist Organization of America, Inc.
Hispanic Federation
Human Rights Watch
Interfaith Worker Justice
Jewish Women International
Jobs With Justice
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
Main Street Alliance
Mi Familia Vota
Mom2Mom Global
MomsRising
NAACP
NARAL Pro-Choice America
National Alliance for Caregiving
National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum (NAPAWF)
National Association for Rural Mental Health
National Association of County Behavioral Health and Developmental
Disability Directors
National Association of Social Workers
National Center for Lesbian Rights
National Center for Transgender Equality
National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care
National Council of Jewish Women
National Education Association
National Employment Law Project
National Employment Lawyers Association
National Health Law Program
National Institute for Reproductive Health (NIRH)
National LGBTQ Task Force Action Fund
National Network to End Domestic Violence
National Organization for Women
National Partnership for Women and Families
National Respite Coalition
National Women's Health Network
National Women's Law Center
NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice
Organization United for Respect at Walmart
Oxfam America
ParentsTogether
Partnership for America's Children
People for the American Way
People's Action Institute
Physicians for Reproductive Health
PL+US: Paid Leave for the U.S.
Poligon Education Fund
Promundo-U.S.
Public Advocacy for Kids
RESULTS
ROC United
SEIU
Small Business Majority
TASH
U.S. Breastfeeding Committee
U.S. Women's Chamber of Commerce
UltraViolet
Union for Reform Judaism
United Food and Commercial Workers International Union
United State of Women
United Steelworkers
URGE: Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity
Voices for Progress
Women of Reform Judaism
The Women's Caucus of the American Psychiatric Association
Women's Media Center
Workplace Fairness
Young Invincibles
YWCA USA
ZERO TO THREE
Alabama
AIDS Alabama
California
2020 Mom
Asset Building Strategies
Business and Professional Women
BreastfeedLA
CA Work and Family Coalition
California Breastfeeding Coalition
Center for WorkLife Law, University of California, Hastings College of
Law
ChangeLab Solutions
Child Care Law Center
EMC Strategies
Equal Rights Advocates
Family Voices of California
Food Chain Workers Alliance
Futures Without Violence
Legal Aid at Work
Maternal Mental Health NOW
National Council of Jewish Women, Los Angeles Section
YWCA Berkeley/Oakland
YWCA San Francisco and Marin
Colorado
13th Moon Midwifery
9to5 Colorado
All Families Deserve a Chance Coalition
Colorado Coalition for the Homeless
Colorado Consumer Health Initiative
Colorado Fiscal Institute
Colorado Lactation Consultant Association
Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights
(COLOR)
Movement Advancement Project
NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado
National Coalition Against Domestic Violence
National Council of Jewish Women, CO. State Policy Advocate, Advocacy
Chair, Advocacy Committee
SynerGenius Telepresence
United for a New Economy
Women's Lobby of Colorado
Connecticut
All Our Kin
Connecticut Women's Education and Legal Fund (CWEALF)
Connecticut Working Families Organization
Hispanic Federation--CT
Delaware
Breastfeeding Coalition of Delaware
Delaware Ecumenical Council on Children and Families
District of Columbia
Herd on the Hill
Jacobs Institute of Women's Health
Jews United for Justice
Florida
Advocacy Chair National Council of Jewish Women Palm Beach Section
Central Florida Jobs With Justice
FL Alliance of Community Development Corporations, Inc.
Hispanic Federation--FL
National Council of Jewish Women Florida State Policy Advocate Advocacy
Chair
National Council of Jewish Women, Florida
National Council of Jewish Women, Valencia Shores Section
Organize Florida
Hawaii
Hawaii Children's Action Network
Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies Coalition of Hawaii
YWCA O'ahu
Illinois
AIDS Foundation of Chicago
EverThrive Illinois
HealthConnect One
National Council of Jewish Women, South Cook Section, State Policy
Advocate
NCJW Illinois, State Policy Advocate
Oak Park River Forest Food Pantry
Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law
Women Employed
YWCA of the University of Illinois
Indiana
Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence
Indiana Institute for Working Families
Iowa
Leadership Team of the Sisters of Charity, BVM
Kansas
Kansas Breastfeeding Coalition, Inc.
Kentucky
Kentucky Equal Justice Center
Lactation Improvement Network of Kentucky
Louisiana
National Council of Jewish Women, Greater New Orleans Section
Maine
Maine Women's Lobby
Maryland
Jews United for Justice
Job Opportunities Task Force
Lactation Education Resources
Leadership for Education Equity
Maryland Family Network
NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland
National Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd
Public Justice Center
Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities Coalition
Massachusetts
Equal Exchange
Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action
Massachusetts Communities Action Network
Michigan
Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice
Minnesota
Children's Defense Fund--Minnesota
ISAIAH
Minnesota Association of Professional Employees
TakeAction Minnesota
Missouri
NARAL Pro-Choice Missouri
Nebraska
Sisters of Mercy West Midwest Justice Team
Nevada
Advanced Breastfeeding Support of Las Vegas
Make It Work Nevada
New Hampshire
Campaign for a Family Friendly Economy
New Jersey
Anti-Poverty Network of New Jersey
New Jersey Citizen Action
NJ Breastfeeding Coalition, Inc.
NJ Time to Care Coalition
SPAN Parent Advocacy Network
Union of Rutgers Administrators, AFT Local 1766
New Mexico
Southwest Women's Law Center
New York
AAUW of Rockland County
Arrangements Abroad Inc.
Center for Children's Initiatives
Center for Frontline Retail
The Children's Agenda
Citizen Action of New York
Early Care and Learning Council
Fearless Talent Development Inc.
Gender Equality Law Center
Greater New York Labor-Religion Coalition
Hope's Door
Indivisible Westchester
Labor-Religion Coalition of NYS
League of Women Voters of St. Lawrence County, NY
Legal Momentum
Masten Block Club Coalition and the Board of Block Clubs of Buffalo and
Erie County
National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs-NYC
(NFBPWC-NYC)
New York Paid Leave Coalition
New York Union Child Care Coalition
PowHer New York
Rios de Agua Viva United Church of Christ
Westchester National Organization for Women
Women's Resarch and Education Fund
The YMCA of Greater Rochester
YWCA of Binghamton and Broome County
North Carolina
Action NC
NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina
National Coalition of 100 Black Women Inc.--Queen City Metropolitan
Chapter
NC AFL-CIO
NC Alliance for Retired Americans
NC Child
North Carolina Council of Churches
North Carolina Justice Center
North Carolina Women United
Women AdvaNCe
Working America North Carolina
YWCA Asheville
North Dakota
Family Voices of ND
North Dakota Women's Network
Ohio
Appalachian Breastfeeding Network
Innovation Ohio
NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio
National Coalition of 100 Black Women Central Ohio
National Council of Jewish Women, Ohio State Policy Advocate
Ohio Domestic Violence Network
The Ohio Women's Public Policy Network
Oregon
Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon (APANO)
Cascade AIDS Project
Center for Parental Leave Leadership
Children First for Oregon
Family Forward Oregon
NARAL Pro-Choice Oregon
Pennsylvania
Maternity Care Coalition
One PA
PathWays PA
Southwest PA National Organization for Women
Women and Girls Foundation of Southwest Pennsylvania
Women's Law Project
YWCA Titusville
Rhode Island
Rhode Island KIDS COUNT
South Dakota
Brookings Supports Breastfeeding
Tennessee
Black Children's Institute of Tennessee
State Policy Advocate National Council of Jewish Women--Tennessee
Vermont
Hunger Free Vermont
Main Street Alliance of VT
Peace and Justice Center
Vermont Family Network
Voices for Vermont's Children
Virginia
Division for Early Childhood of the Council for Exceptional Children
(DEC)
NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia
National Military Family Association
Virginia Organizing
Washington
Economic Opportunities Institute
Legal Voice
PAVE Family to Family Health Information Center
YWCA Clark County
West Virginia
WV Citizen Action Group
Wisconsin
9to5 Wisconsin
Keep Families First Coalition
Marathon County Democratic Party
Mid-Day Women's Alliance of Appleton, WI
Unitarian Universalist Women's Federation
Wisconsin Alliance for Women's Health
Wisconsin Breastfeeding Coalition
Wisconsin Early Childhood Association
______
Paid Leave for the United States (PL+US)
P.O. Box 411075
San Francisco, CA 94141
July 11, 2018
Chairman Cassidy and Ranking Member Brown, as you examine the
importance of paid family leave for American working families, we urge
you to take into consideration the voices of workers and employers.
Below are quotes from some of the statements PL+US has collected from
across the country. Full statements will be shared with Members of the
Committee individually.
NATIONAL
Listed alphabetically by organization
Brian Rosenberg--Founder Gays With Kids
As a gay dad, I didn't get any paid leave when my kids were born. So
after I used all my vacation, I worked from home, holding our baby
while I worked, grateful my colleagues excused the screaming infant in
the background. It was hard, but it would have been awful not to be
there at all. Our country and our families are changing, and as the
founder of Gays With Kids, the world's leading community for gay dads
and dads-to-be, I know this more than most. We gay dads are responsible
not only for creating our families, but for raising our kids, too. And
many of us spend our entire savings, or even have to take out loans, to
create our families. Without paid family leave, these dads find it
impossible to take unpaid leave.
Andy Katz-Mayfield--CEO of Harry's
I'm neither a politician nor an expert on social security. But I am a
dad. Personally, I feel incredibly lucky to have had the resources,
infrastructure, and flexibility to have had the opportunity to spend
time with my family after my daughter was born. Moreover, as the
founder and CEO of Harry's, I'm in a unique position to ensure that all
parents on our team have access to parental leave. I'm proud that our
policy offers 16 paid weeks for all new parents--mothers, fathers,
adoptive parents, and birthing parents--because spending time with a
newborn shouldn't have to be a privilege or a financial burden.
Jennifer Y. Hyman--CEO and Co-Founder of Rent the Runway
As the CEO and Co-Founder of Rent the Runway, I equalized benefits for
all 1,300 hourly and salaried employees across my company several
months ago. While it is important for business leaders to create social
change, it is incumbent upon our government to ensure that every worker
across the U.S. is given adequate paid leave to care for their family.
. . . History has shown that we cannot rely on business leaders alone
on the issue of paid leave; lack of government policy means that most
American employers do not grant any, enough or equal paid leave to all
employees. . . . To deny America's workers time to celebrate the birth
of a newborn, to grieve the death of a loved one or to care for a sick
family member is to rob them of their humanity. We already distinguish
between one's value to a company's bottom line via compensation;
however, one's value as a human being is equal. Lack of paid parental
leave is a widespread business practice, but that precedent does not
make it right--it is time to change paid leave legislation to provide
every American with the humanity they deserve.
John Foraker--CEO of OFARM
I am a father of four and CEO of Once Upon A Farm (OFARM) . . . one of
our core values at OFARM is to fight for and support efforts to drive
positive social change and food justice for the benefit of parents,
kids and families. We believe Paid Family Leave (PFL) is an issue with
clear benefits to society that are worth fighting for. We strongly
support the implementation of comprehensive national PFL legislation
and are hopeful elected leaders will see the significant positive
benefits to our society and economy from implementation of such policy.
At OFARM, we are doing our part. . . . We have 35 people in our company
and 15 kids ages 6 and under. As we grow, there will be many more OFARM
babies in the coming years and we know that our success over the long
term will depend on the quality, happiness, and productivity of our
employees so we want to make the transition into parenthood easier for
our employees. . . . The U.S. can do better, and we are encouraged
there's potential movement in Washington to address this important
societal issue. We stand ready to help in any way we can.
Pat Miguel Tomaino--Director of Socially Responsible Investing Zevin
Asset Management, LLC
Zevin Asset Management wishes to encourage the efforts of this
subcommittee on paid family leave and to underscore the importance of
improving paid family leave policy--not only for workers, but for the
companies and investors which rely on their long-term health and human
capital. As a testament to the investment community's keen interest in
improving paid family leave policy, I refer the subcommittee to [an]
investor statement on paid family leave published last month. Please
review the statement in its entirety. Very clearly, investors are
seeking greater equality, adequacy and accessibility in companies' paid
family leave policies. . . . [S]uitable paid family leave positions
workers and companies to seize long-term opportunities and guard
against human capital risk. However, more support from government is
needed. Federal policy certainty and targeted resources would promote
the long-term interests of U.S. employers. [An investor statement
endorsed by 58 investment companies and asset owners with assets
totaling $169 billion is available at http://www.zevin.com/documents/
familyleave.pdf.]
STATE
Listed alphabetically by state then last name
Marie Morgan--Birmingham, Alabama
Studies show that it's advantageous for the child's growth and
development as well as maternal health and recovery and paternal
bonding. Paid family leave really addresses the health of the family as
a whole which obviously positively impacts individuals but also lowers
healthcare costs and increases long-term productivity.
Tasha Porcello--Anchorage, Alaska
Forcing new parents to choose between their income and/or jobs and
their family is bad for families, employers and the country. Parents
who adopt children need time. Adult children who are caregivers for
elderly/disabled parents need time without fear of losing their jobs.
Employees who are not torn between work duties and families are better
more productive employees. Good for businesses as well.
Brenda Hall Martin--North Pole, Alaska
As a teacher, I always had family paid leave and assumed everyone else
did, too! I used it when I had my two children AND when my father was
dying of cancer. Life is stressful and challenging enough without
having to worry about loss wages when dealing with emergencies. Please
help. Thank you. This is long overdue!
Karen Schairer--Sedona, Arizona
If pro-lifers are really interested in infant well-being, then a mother
should have enough money to care for her child, and enough time to give
it the love it needs. Anything less is the worst kind of hypocrisy.
Sandy Whitley--Mesa, Arizona
I am a nurse and I see almost everyday the stress and strain of loved
ones not being present to care for and comfort their loved one in a
hospital bed. It is traumatic for everyone involved. It is the same
always--I cannot afford to take time off work.
Barbara Wood--Prescott, Arizona
The foundation of a good family is to allow individuals to have time
with their family without the fear of losing their jobs.
Faebyan Whittle--Fayetteville, Arkansas
Paid family leave matters because it gives parents and children a
strong foundation-our human history is based on our relationships to
our family. Its about time to normalize the importance of family in the
workplace. Patagonia is a company I respect for giving both parents
paid leave. Its about time to see both global and small businesses do
the same.
Ryan Cervantes--Los Angeles, California
I am a gay man, and while I am not a father now, I hope to be someday.
When I was younger I worked as a nanny and loved the day-to-day work of
caring for young children. I'm not alone, studies show that the
majority of Millennial men consider parenthood as central to their
identity, are doing more childcare than ever before, and the rates of
stay-at-home fathers are climbing. When I am a father, I want to have
the same access to paid parental leave as birthing mothers, as well as
time for family caregiving. When men are able and encouraged to take
paid family leave, it has lasting positive effects on families and
children, as well as improving gender equity. This is why I strongly
support comprehensive, inclusive, federal policy on paid family leave.
Todd Chittenden--Eureka, California
I worked for a company many years ago in the State of California that
allowed me to take bonding leave. I was able to do this a second time
for my youngest son as well. I wish that all new parents could get the
same good fortune I had, simple as that. I now have a 14-year-old, and
an 11-year-old who I believe benefited much from the extra time I was
able to spend with them, and for the most part, are incredible human
beings. This is why I support extending paid family leave to all
families in the U.S.
Meika Ellison--Sacramento, California
I'm a mother to a 3-year-old and have been struggling ever since her
birth because I never received paid leave. I was living in Missouri and
tried my best to hide my pregnancy at my job. They found out before my
probation was over so they fired me and even had the nerve to suggest
abortion. I came back home to California and couldn't pick up work
because of how much I was showing. This is wrong! We need a high
quality paid family leave policy that makes people feel safe and not
stressed when they're about to give life.
Girshriela Green--Los Angeles, CA
While working at Walmart I saw many of my coworkers struggle when
welcoming a new baby. So many of my coworkers didn't have the time that
they needed to recover from childbirth or to care for a newborn.
Earlier this year, full-time Walmart associates succeeded in winning
the same paid family leave policy as salaried employees--6 weeks of
parental leave for all new parents in addition to 10 more weeks for
birthing moms. This is a tremendous victory for 500,000 working people
in the United States--but it's not enough. 550,000 part-time associates
at Walmart still don't have access to any paid family leave at all.
Many of these people would like to work full-time but Walmart denies
them hours in order to deny them benefits. We are still fighting and
organizing to win paid family leave for our part-time coworkers, but we
don't know how long that could take. I support strong public policy on
paid family leave so that everyone has the time to be with their family
when they are needed most, and so that nobody is left out.
Rosario Luis--Orange, California
A few years ago, I was waiting to welcome my first child into this
world and also saying goodbye to my father who was hospitalized due to
brain trauma. It was such a challenging, beautiful, and incredibly
stressful time for my husband and me. I needed paid family leave to
care for my father and my new child. But the options I had were not
enough. I know I'm not alone in my experience. It's unjust that working
families do not have adequate paid family leave. I ended up leaving my
job working for a non-profit because of the passing of my father while
I was four months pregnant was an excruciatingly painful time in my
life. Three months after the birth of my first baby I got a new job and
went back to work and my husband became the primary caregiver. My
earning were just enough to pay for our rent, food, and diapers. Now
I'm in a similar position. When I give birth to my second child in a
few months, I still won't have access to paid family leave.
Colin Mutchler--Oakland, California
I'm a father of a 2.5 year old, and we are now pregnant with our
second. We both had good leave--were able to bond with our baby and not
stress about money/living expense. . . . As someone who has benefitted
from paid family leave, I want all families to have access to paid
family leave because it improves bonding and helps with recovery. If we
really care about families, we need to make sure a national policy
includes all families.
Samantha Riegelsberger--Turlock, California
My son was diagnosed with a serious mental disorder in March of 2018. I
needed to go on paid family leave for 6 weeks. I worried about my son
and got him where he needed to go. As it was ending, I had to start
worrying about income. Although our situation didn't change I needed to
work. Unfortunately my work of over 4 years has no opening for a
schedule change which complicates things now having to job search for
one that does fit my schedule needs. Months later, still on medical
leave, I have had no income and accumulated debt which paid for our
food and bills that we needed. Families shouldn't be struggling in a
time of dismay.
Niko Walker--Los Angeles, California
I am a transgender male from Los Angeles, California, and support equal
access to paid family leave for all new parents--including non-birthing
parents. Paid family leave provides critical support for families when
welcoming a new child. However, many private sector policies provide
less leave to non-birthing parents or none at all. This discrimination
against dads and non-birthing parents creates de-facto exclusion for
the LGBTQ+ community, as same-sex couples are more likely than
heterosexual couples to be raising an adopted or fostered child. The
families that are receiving the least amount of paid leave may also be
the ones that need it the most. According to the National Center on
Adoption and Permanency, studies suggest that lesbians and gay men may
be more likely than heterosexual adults to adopt older children and
those with special needs. . . . Offering less paid family leave to dads
and adoptive parents leaves these families, and children, less than
adequate time to address the important issues in their lives.
Karen Tucker--Denver, Colorado
I am a full time career professional with a toddler and baby #2 due in
3 weeks. This policy is crucial for my financial independence and
success for my family.
Ocean Pellet--Waterford, Connecticut
One needs a way to care for ones family members without loosing the
ability to pay the rent and feed the family. Paid family leave would go
a long way to keep families healthy and in their homes.
Darla Wilson--Wilmington, Delaware
As a single mother, I was fortunate to be able to utilize the paid
family leave provided by my employer. I believe ALL working Americans
deserve the same benefit, so I support a national paid family leave
policy and applaud the Senate for finally taking the initial step
toward that end.
Carol Cox--Fort Meyers, Florida
I had to quit a full-time job to take care of my aging mother. If I had
been able to take some paid family leave, I might not have had to
retire from a job I loved.
Andrea Keller--Ketchum, Idaho
I am a mother to be in November and don't need the added stress of
finances when me and my newborn are trying to bond within the 1st year
of his life. Any and all leave would help so significantly words cannot
describe.
Sarah Kiely--Chicago, Illinois
This should be the end of my first week back to work, instead, it's the
end of my 4th week back to work. When I was pregnant and reviewing my
company (a hospital) policy on maternity leave I was distraught. I
would need to save and use all my vacation days to help me get paid
during my maternity leave. I stressed about how long I would have with
my baby during those early weeks of life when everyone says how
important it is for a child to be with their mother. I got paid for 7
weeks but used all my vacation hours (123 hours). I was fortunate to
receive one week paid, and 4 weeks paid at 75 percent (other women
aren't as lucky) from our company. I went an additional two weeks
unpaid and had to repay my health care premiums. We couldn't afford for
me to take more time away, so after nine weeks I went back to work . .
. after major surgery (C-section). My daughter and I were just getting
into our natural rhythm and I could no longer be with her. It broke my
heart but it's what we had to do. My husband stays home with her during
the day and works nights and weekends. . . . Politicians talk about how
important family is, yet we currently do not have much time together as
a family unit because we can't afford the outrageous cost of childcare.
Paige Boesen--Chicago Heights, Illinois
I'm currently 7 months pregnant and will have unpaid maternity leave
from my employer. This would make a world of difference for my husband
and I. It's slightly scary to think of living on one income for 12
weeks.
Adriana House--Avon, Illinois
It is important for the health of every family, it is civil in a civil
country, and nobody should have to choose between their family and the
ability to arrive at the end of the month! For many people that means
food on the table!
Colleen Wilkerson--Indianapolis, Indiana
If you have ever had a serious health issue, or take care of a
seriously ill family member (I do), or want/need to bond with your
newborn or newly adopted child, then Paid Family Leave (PFL) is
essential. In a modern, progressive society ALL working citizens in the
U.S. deserve it.
Margaret Runaas--Ainsworth, Iowa
Our children are our future, and paid maternity and paternity leave are
vital for providing the care that infants need in their critical first
weeks of life. I am one of the lucky few who was able to have paid
leave for myself and my husband when my son was born. With all of the
difficulties we faced in my son's first weeks of life, it would have
been almost impossible to establish breastfeeding without both of us at
home. All parents should have this opportunity, not just a privileged
few.
Cassandra Lyons--Lexington, Kentucky
Include the voices of workers in the hearing on paid family leave. DC
insiders should not be playing politics with our livelihood without our
input.
Bobbiejo Winfrey--Louisville, Kentucky
Because of family leave, my parents were able to come down from
Kentucky and visit me while I was in another state, Florida, recovering
from a six organ transplant which involved a six month hospital stay.
Being able to see one of them during that hard and long recovery helped
me to survive, especially as I was in a strange environment and far
from my home and my community. I have already been blessed with more
than 12 more years of life because of the transplant, so I am ever
grateful that my parents had the family leave that they did and want
others to benefit from the same if needed.
Felicia Adams--New Orleans, Louisiana
When my mother was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2013, it
changed the course of not just her life, but our whole family. . . . My
mother raised five children, worked her whole life, and now is a
grandmother to thirteen. It wasn't easy for her to admit she needed
help, but that was the reality we faced. . . . We realized that the
only way we could make sure Mom had the care she needed and deserved
was for me to care for her. I moved in with my parents, quit my job,
and delayed finishing nursing school. . . . We know that too many
families dealing with Parkinson's or other chronic medical issues are
not nearly as lucky. Not everyone has a relative who can drop out of
school or take the financial hit to quit their job. . . . Far from
being a welfare handout, family leave allows workers to take care of
their families without jeopardizing their employment. Even a short-term
job loss can be devastating for a family living paycheck-to-paycheck,
and maintaining job continuity is a key factor in allowing workers to
earn raises and other career advancements. . . . I have no regrets
about the time I took to care for my mother. Throughout this whole
process, we have trusted in God and in each other, as we always have.
But a little help to ease the way could do a lot of good for a lot of
Louisiana families, and we sincerely hope Congress will engage in a
serious debate and consideration of a paid family leave policy.
Amy Pulliam--Baton Rouge, Louisiana
When my daughter, Virginia, was only 3 months old, she needed surgery
to repair her heart. Virginia's surgery was at a hospital in Houston,
and she stayed there for 3 months to recover, which meant that my
fiance and I had to drive 5 hours back and forth from where we live
near Baton Rouge so that we could be with her. I used all of my
vacation time to make sure that I could be there for my daughter and it
was not nearly enough. I've had to cut down to part-time hours and my
fiancee is working nights. . . . This is no way to treat families. . .
. My family struggled with all of the expenses related to traveling to
and from Houston, and on top of that we had to pay for the insurance my
company offers so that we could keep it during this time. Virginia is
now 18 months old, and she's amazing to me. At some point down the
line, she will need another surgery, and I'll need to take more time
off, but I still don't have any paid family caregiving leave that would
mean so much for my family.
Eric Poulin--South Portland, Maine
I'm a millennial, prime age for starting a family and settling down.
But the cost of buying a house and having a child is so prohibitively
expensive in this country that my wife and I are holding off. And based
on our salaries and jobs, we're better off than many in our generation.
It's insane and inhumane that paid family leave is not required of all
employers.
Bre Ono--Maryland
I am a mom to an almost 3-year old daughter and I'm pregnant with my
second child due October 2018. When my daughter was born in 2015, I was
covered by some short term disability for childbirth recovery, but like
so many people in this country, it was not enough time, and I had to
rely on piecing together my PTO and FMLA to ensure that I had the time
needed with my newborn. Additionally, when my daughter was 2 months
old, I had a health diagnosis that would cause me to go beyond the
available weeks of FMLA. This was a time of true uncertainty for me and
my husband. Because I work in the healthcare field, I know the
importance of paid family leave. All newborns need time to bond with
their parents and adequate moms need time to recover from childbirth.
But we don't all have equal access to high-quality paid family leave.
Some employers offer substantial paid family leave policies, while
others simply comply with FMLA, and the majority of working people are
faced with the difficult choice of going without a paycheck or leaving
a newly arrived child before they are ready.
Linda Cades--Kennedyville, Maryland
When my first baby was born, I was teaching at a university. He was
born July 31; the semester began in mid-August, and I went back to
work. I could have taken the semester off, but it would have been
unpaid. I later worked for another college. Faculty could take a paid
semester off. Staff, much lower paid employees, could take paid time
off but only by using any accumulated sick or vacation time. That might
be as little as 2 weeks, forcing them back to work and saddling them
with high childcare bills they could ill afford. People also need help
caring for ill family members. When my Dad was diagnosed with lung
cancer, my Mom was already well into a 15 year battle with Alzheimer's
disease. She was too ill to care for him, so I took a leave of absence
to see him through his treatment. I was lucky: I had about 4 months of
accumulated sick/vacation leave and used all of it. After that, it
would have been unpaid. Most of my colleagues would have had to take
unpaid leave to help their families.
Sarah Richardson--Windsor Mill, Maryland
Even before I became a mother 2 months ago, I have seen the struggles
of my friends and family as they tried to balance having a child,
having the time to bond and take care of their children, and being able
to make ends meet. I am a federal employee, with one of the best leave
plans in the country, and I was only able to take two months of leave
before I had to go back to work. Some of that is unpaid Family Medical
Leave (FMLA) because even I did not have enough time in my leave bank
to cover my doctors' appointments (I had a high risk pregnancy that
required extra monitoring and recovery time), as well as time to spend
with my child. The first few month of a child's life are critical for
bonding with their parents. But we as a nation are makings profits and
money more important that families. Many of my friends who wanted to
have children are putting it off or not having them because they can't
afford the time to take off work. The cost to our wallets and our
careers is making children a luxury item that many cannot afford. If we
could get 6 months of paid leave for both mothers and fathers, it is
making a sound investment in our families and our country's future.
Peter Cox--Boston, Massachusetts
This is a parents' issue, not a women's issue or a men's issue. In a
modern America where equal rights and gender equity in the workplace
count, paid parental leave is a huge, foundational policy choice. As
working parents, we support paid parental leave for Moms and Dads!
Carrie Latourette--Grand Ledge, Michigan
At the time my children were born, I was fortunate to be employed by a
company that offered paid family leave. All of us benefited from that
arrangement. As a mom, I was able to focus on bonding with my babies.
For many weeks, my children had their mother's undivided attention.
When I returned to the workforce, my employer had my appreciation and
loyalty. This should be everyone's story.
Mary Suagee-Beauduy--Cass Lake, Minnesota
I was able to stay home with my two children when they were born. I
breastfed them both to give them a lifetime of good health. Bonding
between parents and their infants is well documented and sets the stage
for well-adjusted and productive human beings. Every citizen should be
able to start life with these benefits. I support family leave for
everyone. This needs to be a national policy.
Cecelia Mackenzie--Myrtle, Mississippi
One thing the United States of America has seemed to lost is the focus
on and importance of families. I believe in families with all my heart
and that they should be made a priority if we are to ever become
``great again.'' I hope Congress will consider hearing real people to
know that this is a real problem for many of them. You have been tasked
with making choices that are best for our country, and the best way to
do that is to have all the facts and see exactly how it affects people,
for both good and bad.
Natasha Hopkins--Missouri
For decades, American workers have sustained a record of increased
productivity in spite of decreased benefits; scant, stagnant or reduced
wages; and, insufficient appreciation for their contributions to the
operational success, repute and prosperity of respective enterprises.
At the very least, a comprehensive paid family leave policy would
ensure the provision of quality, dignified care for the infirm when
needed; preserve strong familial bonds, peace of mind and a measure of
financial stability; and, secure a more robust work force with shared
affinities.
J. Esposito--Sparks, Nevada
My daughter had to move back in with my husband and I because there
wasn't paid family leave available to her after the birth of her son.
My daughter-in-law had to return to work five weeks after the birth of
her baby because she couldn't afford to take even one more day off of
work or she would lose her home. It shouldn't have to be a choice
between keeping a roof over your head (your own roof, not your parents'
roof) and having a child. It should not cause food insecurity or
homelessness, but unfortunately in this country it causes both. We are
the only first-world country which doesn't offer paid family leave, and
it's absurd.
Taryn Clayton--Phillipsburg, New Jersey
It's heartbreaking to leave a 6 week old baby and go back to work
because you can't afford to go without a paycheck.
Carol Carlson--Summerfield, North Carolina
We need to value families in the work force and their need to care for
children and older members of their families.
Yulia Mikhailove--Socorro, New Mexico
This is one of the few non-partisan, common-sense issues. How can one
NOT support family leave? I cannot think of single possible argument
against it. I was fortunate enough to be able to stay home when my kids
were babies, because my husband earned enough to support us all and had
an insurance through his work, but for many new parents this is not an
option.
Linda McCoy--Edmond, Oklahoma
I have spent several years taking care of my elderly parents. Every
time I had to leave work or miss work all together, my pay was docked.
They didn't need me at home all the time, but when they did need me I
had to leave. This put a severe financial hardship on me. After my dad
passed, Mom was fine, until she started falling. It finally got to the
point I had to stop working outside the home so I could care for her.
She now pays me what I was making working an intermediate hours job to
care for her 24/7. There isn't enough money to hire help. . . . Had I
had paid family leave, I wouldn't be in the bind we're in now.
Laura Bahar--Cincinnati, Ohio
[Paid Family Leave] matters to me because I'm expecting twins at the
end of the year and I need time to bond with my babies.
Carol Nowlin--Columbus, Ohio
I had an emergency C-section and was in no condition to return to work.
I had to fight to get 8 weeks of absence and financial necessity was a
driving factor in my quick return. Paid family leave would tell parents
they are valued workers too.
Ashley Thurston--Galion, Ohio
In America today, a family NEEDS two incomes to survive. I'm a working
mother that has had to struggle though what should be one of the
happiest times in our lives. Then struggle after returning to work,
just to catch up.
Ann Cleaver--Easton, Pennsylvania
I am pregnant with my second child. My husband and I have crushing
school debt and I am unable to take a single sick or vacation day
during my pregnancy to save them all to be able to afford to even take
6 weeks off to be with my newborn. I went to school to be a speech
therapist and help others and don't even deserve paid leave? It
outrages me I have to use vacation and holidays and god forbid not get
sick while pregnant not to go into credit card debt and borrow money to
afford bills while recovering from giving birth. We need to learn from
other developed nations and provide this basic right!
Sherri D'Orio--Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Anyone who has gone through the first weeks of a baby's life would
understand how important it is.
James Langenhahn--Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Family leave is crucial to families in crisis.
Theo Giesy--Gloucester, Virginia
Just as every worker should have paid sick leave to take care of his/
her illnesses, every worker should have paid time off to care for a
dependent who is ill. Every new parent should have paid time off to
bond with the new addition to the family. Caring for loved ones is an
important part of being human. No one should have to choose between
caring for loved ones and supporting them.
Tiara Leonard--Alexandria, Virginia
Paid family leave provides time for parents to bond with their new
children. This bonding time during early childhood translates to strong
sense of self for all those involved. A life with purpose translates to
positive impacts in communities. Positive impacts yield a fruitful
nation.
Christa Sharpe--Alexandria, Virginia
Giving mothers protected time home with their newborns leads to fewer
cases of SIDS, higher levels of child attachment and security (which
gives long term social and personal health benefits as the child ages!)
and creates a culture that values children, breastfeeding, and the
biological, neurological and social benefits that are gained from
mother-child time together. This would 100% set every child in the US
on the right path of health, safety, attachment and security . . . and
allow new mothers the time to heal, connect with their child, and
reduce their rates of depression, anxiety and isolation post-birth!
This WILL lead to a healthier and more productive, peaceful nation.
Don't just let wealthy, privileged moms who work at the most
progressive companies have this benefit. ALL children and ALL moms
deserve this, and it's what's best for our nation. Please get on board
with research and preventative care--and protect the need for ALL
mothers to recover from birth and nurture
Jess Svabenik--Gig Harbor, Washington
Paid family leave is not about providing money for parents, but about
providing parents for babies in their first and most fragile moments.
I'm a mom, and I think its so important to think about our kids, and
what they need. I support strong federal policy on paid family leave
because when we leave it up to employers to provide this critical
benefit, so many lower-wage working people get less leave, or none at
all. Just because your parent makes a lower wage, you shouldn't get
less time with your parents when you're at your most fragile.
______
Kathryn Zeanah, Ph.D., LP, NCSP and
Susan Borchers Zeanah, M.Ed.
July 11, 2018
U.S. Senate
Committee on Finance
Dirksen Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, DC 20510-6200
Chairman Cassidy, Ranking Member Brown, and Members of the
Subcommittee:
In October 2017, our family was blessed with the addition of our second
child. We were overjoyed and wanted nothing more than to immerse
ourselves in getting to know this new little being who filled us all
with so much love. And while we did do that, we also had to field phone
calls from the HR department at my work so that they could know exactly
what day my daughter was born and could calculate exactly how much
unpaid time I was going to be taking. I work as a school psychologist,
and in the district where I work, there is an incredibly complicated
matrix with all kinds of stipulations and caveats about how much time a
person can take off after they have a child, but you only get paid time
if you have enough sick time saved up to cover it. And even then,
you're only allowed to take 6 (!) weeks, even if you have more time
saved.
My wife and I carefully calculated, planned, and budgeted for the
amount of time that we anticipated I would have to take as unpaid.
Then, shortly after my daughter was born, we learned that we had
misinterpreted the guideline and miscalculated the amount of time. Now,
instead of taking 2 weeks unpaid, I would be forced to take an entire
month unpaid or return to work when my daughter was only 6 weeks old
and my body was not fully healed. We were forced to use some of our
savings to cover the unanticipated unpaid time. Fortunately, we had a
little bit of money in our savings to be able to do this so that my
body could heal and my daughter could stay home for a few extra weeks.
But not without sacrifice, as we had to use money that otherwise would
have been put toward our children's future college tuition or perhaps
our own retirement fund.
It is unacceptable that our country has yet to recognize the importance
of providing families with paid time off to care for their loved ones.
And now, some of your colleagues have introduced a bill that would
force families to take from Social Security now in order to take paid
time off, but leaving them in dire straits when they actually get to
the point that they will need to use social security. Speaking as
someone who has already had to dip into savings in order to cover
expenses now, this is incredibly short sighted and unacceptable.
I hope you will continue to fight for what is truly best for our
families, by supporting and co-sponsoring the FAMILY Act (S. 337),
which would create a strong, inclusive paid family and medical leave
program that does not raid Social Security.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Kathryn Zeanah, Ph.D., LP, NCSP, and
Susan Borchers Zeanah, M.Ed.
______
Levi Strauss & Company
July 20, 2018
The Honorable Orrin Hatch The Honorable Ron Wyden
Chairman Ranking Member
U.S. Senate U.S. Senate
Committee on Finance Committee on Finance
Washington, DC 20510 Washington, DC 20510
The Honorable Bill Cassidy The Honorable Sherrod Brown
Chairman Ranking Member
U.S. Senate U.S. Senate
Subcommittee on Social Security,
Pensions, and Family Policy Subcommittee on Social Security,
Pensions, and Family Policy
Washington, DC 20510 Washington, DC 20510
Dear Senators Hatch, Wyden, Cassidy, and Brown:
On July 11, 2018, the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Social Security,
Pensions, and Family Policy held a valuable hearing titled ``Examining
the Importance of Paid Family Leave for American Working Families''
that reviewed the merits of different proposals to expand access to
paid family leave in America. I am writing to you today on behalf of
Levi Strauss & Co. to express our support for S. 337, the Family and
Medical Insurance Leave Act (``FAMILY Act'').
Founded over 160 years ago, Levi Strauss & Co. is today an iconic
American company known the world over as the market-leader in denim
jeans and casual pants. Our products are sold under the
Levi's', Dockers', Signature by Levi Strauss &
Co.TM, and DenizenTM brands. Headquartered in San
Francisco, Levi Strauss & Co. employs a workforce of roughly 7,500
individuals in 41 states in a variety of roles including distribution,
design, logistics, and retail.
At Levi Strauss & Co., our people make us who we are. This means
creating an environment that enables our employees to be healthy,
happy, and successful at home and at work. To further that mission,
last year, Levi Strauss & Co. expanded our parental leave policy. We
offer all LS&Co. hourly and salaried U.S. employees with 8 weeks of
paid parental leave. Our policy covers mothers and fathers at the time
of a child's birth or adoption as well as the placement of a foster
child in an employee's care. This paid leave is in addition to existing
short-term disability benefits for birth mothers. We know first-hand
the importance of paid leave in our employees' lives. Unfortunately,
only 15 percent of workers in the United States have access to paid
family leave through their employers, and fewer than 40 percent have
access to personal medical leave through employer-provided short-term
disability insurance. It is time for all workers in the United States
to have the same support that we offer our employees.
The FAMILY Act will create an affordable, sustainable, and national
paid family and medical leave program. Under the bill, two-thirds of an
employee's wages are guaranteed up to a cap for 60 work days in a year
in order to care for a new child, an employee's own serious health
issues, including pregnancy, or for a family member's serious health
issues. The program is responsibly funded through a small payroll
contribution from employers and employees--just two tenths of 1 percent
each. With this structure, the FAMILY Act can provide critical support
to all of America's families just when they need it most.
Levi Strauss & Co. supports the FAMILY Act \1\ because access to paid
family and medical leave is both the right and the smart thing to do
for businesses, workers, and families. Research from companies and
states that already offer paid leave shows that it reduces employee
turnover and improves employee loyalty, lowering re-training costs for
private companies. Studies also demonstrate that paid leave provides
income stability for workers, improves newborn health outcomes, and
ensures parents have quality bonding time with a new child. And, for
companies like us, the FAMILY Act would help level the playing field by
ensuring that all workers have a baseline of paid leave. It is time for
the U.S. to adopt a comprehensive national paid family and medical
leave policy like the FAMILY Act.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ https://www.levistrauss.com/2016/12/12/levi-strauss-co-expands-
parental-leave-for-u-s-employees/.
Thank you for holding this important hearing, and I look forward to
working with you to expand access to paid family leave in the United
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
States.
Thank you,
Anna Walker
Senior Director, Global Policy and Advocacy
Cc: Senator Kirsten Gillibrand
Senator Joni Ernst
______
Prepared Statement of Hon. Bill Cassidy,
a U.S. Senator From Louisiana
Working families are at the core of our social fabric and economic
success. American workers increasingly feel good about their
prospects--a recent poll shows economic optimism at a 13-year high. Yet
some families have been left behind. For nearly a decade, wages and
growth were stagnant. Health care and education costs skyrocketed.
American families expect more.
Over the past 2 years, I have worked to help families get more
money in their pocketbooks and better benefits to navigate the ebbs and
flows of life. Many families in my home State of Louisiana are seeing
last year's tax cut reflected in their paychecks, and I continue to
work on lowering health care costs for families. To consider another
thing which may help, today we will examine a paid leave benefit for
working families.
A 2017 Pew poll shows overwhelming majorities of Americans support
paid sick leave and paid maternity leave. Paternity leave and family
leave also have strong public support. Yet views on the structure and
funding of a paid leave program vary.
By way of background, the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993
provides most U.S. workers with up to 12 weeks of job-protected leave
to care for a new child or to address an illness. However, it does not
cover all workers--such as some small business and part-time employees.
And, the guarantee is for unpaid leave. Many workers can't afford to
take time off.
Most employees receive some type of paid time off--for holidays,
vacation, or illness. Yet the Pew study indicates fewer workers have
access to defined paid family leave versus other types of leave. And
paid family leave is rare in low-income households.
There are several reasons to support paid leave for workers. I will
mention three:
1. Improving health outcomes. As a doctor, I am concerned
about infant and maternal health. At 6 per 1,000 live births,
infant mortality is higher in the United States than in 25 of
28 other developed countries. A recent study reports that if a
new mother takes paid leave, readmittance rates for her and her
infant decrease by 50 percent. (February 2018, Maternal and
Child Health Journal.)
2. Helping families manage work and home responsibilities,
particularly for lower-income workers. Pew reports, among
individuals taking family or medical leave, only 38 percent in
families with income less than $30,000 received any pay. For
families with higher incomes, the figure is 74 percent.
3. Creating incentives to stay in the workforce, which
supports productivity and economic growth. Long-run economic
growth is a function of workforce participation and labor
productivity. With an aging population, it is essential that
our workforce remains strong.
2012 Rutgers study--women who work 20+ hours per week before
childbirth and who take paid leave afterward--they are 93
percent more likely to be working 9 months postpartum, versus a
woman who doesn't take leave.
AEI-Brookings study--work hours for mothers who took paid
leave were 10-17 percent higher than before paid leave was
instituted.
With last year's tax cuts bill, we see workers getting some help.
First, the bill included a 2-year pilot program authored by Senators
Fischer and King: a tax credit to employers who offer low- and
moderate-income employees at least 2 weeks of paid leave. Numerous
companies announced new or expanded paid leave programs after the tax
bill--including Starbucks, Walmart, and Lowe's.
As we will see today, there is bipartisan interest in expanding
paid maternal, family, and medical leave. I am pleased to convene this
initial conversation--to consider policy options and trade-offs.
Preserving the retirement benefits promised to American workers is
paramount. Any proposal that relies on Social Security cannot weaken
Social Security. The 2018 Trustees Report projects that Social Security
will go bankrupt by 2034, and that in order to close the shortfall,
benefits today would have to be cut by 17 percent for all
beneficiaries, including those already collecting. I am committed to
addressing this looming crisis, because we cannot let that happen.
Doing nothing is not an option.
Another Social Security priority is the Windfall Elimination
Provision, which impacts many civil servants. Although not directly
related to today's topic, WEP must be included in the discussion of
preserving Social Security benefits.
Again, I'm pleased to convene these panels of experts to consider
policies that help working families, and create incentives for
Americans to stay in the workforce and help build the greatest economy
in the world.
______
Prepared Statement of Hon. Joni Ernst,
a U.S. Senator From Iowa
Chairman Cassidy, Ranking Member Brown, and members of the
subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to testify before you today. I
also want to thank my dear friend and colleague, Senator Gillibrand,
for being an important voice in this discussion.
The issue of paid leave is incredibly important. Millions of
mothers, fathers, grandparents, and families across the country
struggle with the realities of childbirth and infant care while also
working hard to put food on the table and raise strong and healthy
families. It is long overdue that Congress not just have a conversation
on these matters but get serious about a path forward.
As a mother myself, I know that being a parent is never an easy
task. Additionally, throughout my career, I have worked with and heard
from numerous working parents, including those on my own staff, who
have struggled to navigate the challenges of balancing work with the
need to provide safe and supportive care for their new babies. Some are
fortunate enough to have paid benefits provided by their employers.
However, many families in America do not have this luxury.
To illustrate just how difficult it is for working moms and dads, I
want to share the story of a constituent named Jessica. Jessica is the
epitome of what it means to be an Iowan. She's been working since she
was sixteen and done everything from working at a call center, to
waitressing, which is her current position.
Jessica is also married and she and her husband are the proud
parents of two young boys. They work day in and day out to provide for
their growing family. Along the way it hasn't been easy. Money, at
times, has been tight and both Jessica and her husband had to decide
between working and meeting rent and taking time to care for their
newborn.
Common sense tells us that it's important for parents to spend time
with their newborn. The bond that is formed when parents first lay eyes
on their child only becomes stronger the longer they spend together.
A recent study by the International Journal of Child Care and
Education Policy found the amount of time that new parents spend around
their newborn has a direct influence on the quality of mother-child
interactions as well as childhood and adolescent outcomes.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40723-018-0041-
6#Sec19.
Paid family leave policies have been shown to increase
breastfeeding rates \2\ and are associated with better infant health
outcomes as well as decreased rates of low birth weight and infant
mortality.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26991788.
\3\ http://www.mdpi.com/2227-9032/4/2/30/html.
When Jessica had her son Karter, she was only able to take two
weeks off before returning to work. This is despite the fact that she
had a C-section which made it difficult and painful for her to work in
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
the first few weeks after delivery.
She would go to work in the morning but when her lunch break came
she would go to the bathroom, pump milk, and then run home to give it
to her husband. All within an hour. Her husband works nights so when
Jessica returned home at the end of the day she only had a few precious
hours to spend with Karter and her husband before he had go to work.
Jessica is expecting her third child and is due in December. She is
unsure how much time she and her husband will be able to take off.
Jessica's experience is a similar story in households around the
country. As a Nation, we can do better for our families.
President Trump highlighted paid leave during his State of the
Union address and his administration was the first to budget for a
national paid leave program. Through the leadership of Ivanka Trump,
the administration has worked closely to develop a dialogue with
Congress. I'm glad to see that members of the House and Senate and from
both sides of the aisle are paying attention to this issue, recognizing
that moms and dads across the country are trying to figure out how to
ensure their babies are well cared for and nurtured in those precious
first few weeks of life.
By paying attention to these needs, we are also recognizing the
important economic contribution of these families who give so much to
our communities. Our policies should reflect the evolving needs of this
workforce and reduce barriers that pose challenges to parents balancing
families and work.
As a conservative, I want to craft paid leave policy that can not
only attract consensus, but is viable for families, employers, and the
economy, recognizing that working parents by definition are an
essential part of many businesses. Few businesses can afford more taxes
or more cuts to their bottom line. So we have to find a solution that
doesn't make our economy worse off or decrease the jobs available to
working parents.
I feel it is important to target a paid leave benefit to
individuals who don't have access to these benefits such as the two-
thirds of low-income families that don't have paid leave. These
families are also more likely to work on an hourly basis where if they
do not work, they do not get paid--they don't enjoy sick leave or
vacation or other forms of leave that can help bridge the gap.
For the past few months, I have been working with Senators Marco
Rubio and Mike Lee on the issue of paid leave. We have been exploring
how new parents could elect to receive a paid leave benefit through
Social Security. In return for receiving these benefits, participants
would defer the collection of their Social Security benefits upon
retirement. We are still working through the complexities but I am
hopeful we can craft a policy that will benefit families who need paid
leave the most.
Thank you again, Chairman Cassidy and Ranking Member Brown, for
holding this hearing today. I look forward to working with you on the
important issue of paid leave.
Helping families is an issue we can all agree on and I hope that we
can have a productive dialogue on how Congress can best help them.
______
Prepared Statement of Hon. Kirsten E. Gillibrand,
a U.S. Senator From New York
Thank you, Chairman Cassidy and Ranking Member Brown, for holding
this very important hearing today.
Here's the truth: at some point, every one of us is going to have a
situation where we just need to take some time to be with our families
and take care of them.
It might be a medical emergency--maybe your spouse is diagnosed
with cancer--or maybe you suddenly need to care for an aging parent
who's been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, or maybe you're starting a new
family and just had a baby.
Whatever the case, no working American should ever have to choose
between their family and their paycheck.
But if you don't have paid leave, then that's exactly the choice
you have to make. And this is especially true if you are working a low-
wage job.
And that's unfortunately what millions of Americans have to deal
with every time there's a family emergency.
Right now, 85 percent of all American workers don't have access to
paid family and medical leave.
And lower-income workers are even less likely to have it.
We are the only industrialized country in the world that doesn't
guarantee some form of paid leave to workers.
Recent reports have shown that this costs families $20 billion a
year.
And it also creates a sticky floor, where too many women get stuck
in low-wage jobs with no way to advance, every time they come back from
taking paid leave.
So Congress desperately needs to catch up. We need a national paid
leave program now.
The good news is that both parties recognize this problem.
Individual States are taking the lead, all over the country, with
many bipartisan State laws.
And I'm grateful that my Republican colleagues are committed to
supporting a national paid leave program that's based on a social
insurance model.
But I urge them to support the comprehensive and fiscally
responsible FAMILY Act.
Here's why. First, the FAMILY Act is an earned benefit. It stays
with you throughout your life, wherever you work, wherever you live.
Second, the FAMILY Act is affordable, especially compared to the
cost of inaction. It only costs as much as a cup of coffee per week,
and it provides 66 percent of your wages, which is very important for
low-wage workers.
Third, the FAMILY Act covers all workers, including part-time
workers, for any event a family might face. Three out of four people
who take unpaid FMLA leave, take it for reasons other than the birth of
a new child. The FAMILY Act covers birth and adoption, taking care of
an older family member, or addressing one's own personal medical needs.
Fourth, the FAMILY Act levels the playing field for small
businesses, so they can actually compete for talent with the Googles
and Facebooks of the world. That's why it has been endorsed by small
business groups.
It has also been endorsed by many larger business, many of which
provide leave. They know that paid leave is good for profit, it's good
for employee retention, it's good for productivity, and it's good for
morale.
And finally, the FAMILY Act does not create the false choice
between covering someone during a medical emergency today and cutting
their social security retirement benefits later.
It doesn't take money from the social security trust fund, which
would harm the current and future financial security of our seniors.
People can and should be able to have paid leave while they're
working and a safe and secure retirement later on.
This is a good bill that's been endorsed by a coalition that
includes Fortune 500 companies and small business. It's good for
workers, it's good for businesses, and it's good for the country.
I urge my colleagues to support the FAMILY Act, and I encourage
this committee to continue paying attention to this important issue.
Thank you.
______
Prepared Statement of Carolyn O'Boyle,
Managing Director, Deloitte Services LP
Chairman Cassidy, Ranking Member Brown, other members of the
subcommittee, good afternoon. Thank you for inviting me to testify at
this hearing on the importance of paid family leave for American
families. I appreciate the subcommittee's attention to such an
important issue, as well as the opportunity to share with you
Deloitte's experiences with implementing our own industry-leading Paid
Family Leave Program.
My name is Carolyn O'Boyle. I am a Managing Director in Deloitte's
Talent organization, serving as the Chief Operating Officer and the
leader of the Talent Strategy and Innovation team. I have worked at
Deloitte for 17 years, in both our Consulting practice and Talent
organization, and in that latter capacity have had the privilege of
working to enhance employee engagement by developing innovative
experiences, processes, and policies for our people. And family leave
is not just an abstract program for me, since I took advantage of our
program when I had my son, Jack.
To understand why we created an inclusive and flexible family leave
program, let me briefly share with you more about our organization and
our workforce. In the Deloitte U.S. firm, we employ over 90,000
professionals working across 20 industry sectors. Our people provide
industry-leading audit & assurance, consulting, tax, risk and financial
advisory services to clients.
Our people are our primary and greatest asset and, as such, their
well-being is critical to our success. At Deloitte, we are committed to
fostering what we call a ``culture of courage''--one in which our
strategy and investments best support the needs of our people. We care
about them and want them to be successful in both their professional
and personal lives. We do this by creating an inclusive culture where
everyone can feel valued and by giving them the support to focus on
their unique needs.
Recognizing that our professionals have unique needs throughout
their lives and careers, we are continually scanning the market--and
surveying our people--to make sure our benefits are competitive and
impactful. In 2015, we conducted a marketplace pulse survey on parental
leave and found that 88 percent of the respondents would value a
broader paid leave policy to include family care beyond parental leave.
This, in addition to our focus on innovating our well-being related
offerings, prompted our CEO, Cathy Engelbert, and her leadership team
to address shifting caregiving dynamics and emerging flexibility needs.
Previously, parental leave at Deloitte provided up to 8 weeks of
paid leave to eligible professionals welcoming a new child through
birth or adoption as a primary caregiver or 3 weeks as a non-primary
caregiver. However, with a workforce spanning 5 generations and the
changing nature of caregiving in the U.S. today, we recognized that
both men and women of all generations face challenges in supporting the
well-being of their families. These challenges can manifest themselves
in multiple forms, from lost productivity, to employee disengagement,
to higher turnover. At Deloitte, we had observed that turnover for
employees was significantly higher in the year following a leave. We
also understood the stress that our people faced from trying to manage
through these situations. We recognized that if our people were able to
balance their caregiving needs with their professional lives, they
would be more productive and we would reduce turnover, and support the
culture we aspire to have--one where our people feel supported and have
the resources to manage their personal lives and work, while building a
meaningful career.
As a result, in September 2016, we introduced our expanded and
holistic Paid Family Leave Program, the first of its kind in
professional services, distinguished by several characteristics.
First, the program recognizes that caregiving goes beyond that of
welcoming a new child. The program provides up to 16 weeks of paid
leave to eligible U.S. employees--male and female--to support a broader
range of life events--from the arrival of a new child, to caring for a
spouse or domestic partner, parent, child, or sibling with a serious
health condition. Second, the expanded program recognizes that both
parents play an important role in caregiving and eliminates any
disparity between primary and non-primary designations.
Our Paid Family Leave Program also provides our people with the
flexibility to schedule the leave to meet the needs of their family.
The 16 weeks can be taken all together or in any increments beyond the
minimum of three days a week. Offering this kind of inclusive and
flexible leave empowers our people to manage their work and personal
lives to meet unique needs.
Before implementing the policy, we took an important step in our
decision-making process by calculating and analyzing the costs and
benefits of the new policy to our firm. First, we estimated the cost of
replacement labor during a projected number of weeks needed to fill
gaps for those on leave. Additionally, we considered the significant
amount of benefits from leave programs that are qualitative in nature.
We concluded the expanded Paid Family Leave Program would benefit our
business and our future growth by helping us retain talent, reduce
absenteeism, and positively impact employee engagement and
productivity. What we did not expect, was the overwhelming response of
gratefulness from our employees who simply appreciated the peace of
mind in knowing they had the opportunity to take the time needed during
life's challenging situations.
Since the policy's implementation, more than 5,000 Deloitte
professionals have accessed the program, providing even greater insight
into its benefits. We found our businesses were able to temporarily
backfill many of the roles with other team members and our projected
costs were significantly lower than we originally anticipated.
Our culture and team-based service delivery model allows us to flex
when one of our professionals takes leave. We acknowledge, however,
that there is no one-size-fits-all model that will work for all
organizations. That said, we do believe caregiving programs like
Deloitte's positively impact the broader economy. Statistics show that:
Workers miss an average of 6.6 days of work per year tending
to caregiving demands, costing the US economy approximately $25
billion in lost productivity annually. (Gallup)
And, when workers are forced to exit the labor force to
address caregiving needs, they lose income (an average of
$324,000 in lifetime wages) and Social Security benefits.
(Metlife)
The impact that this program had on our people was evident
immediately, as seen in some of the responses that our CEO Cathy
Engelbert received to the announcement:
I don't have children but have aging parents and am very
happy to see that included as an option for the future for me
if needed. It means a lot.
Specifically for me, as a gay man who anticipates growing a
family through adoption, I am sincerely grateful to have the
opportunity to have significant paid time off to bond with my
child/children regardless of my gender, relationship status,
birth/adoption of a child, etc.
I actually cried when I read this. Thank you so very much
for this new benefit. My siblings and I had to put our dad in
assisted living last February. Prior to his admission, many
hours were spent in emergency rooms, going to doctor's.
appointments and comforting my mom, who was also unwell.
Since its inception, Deloitte's Paid Family Leave Program has
impacted the lives of thousands of professionals and their families.
Like many of our professionals, Marcia falls into the ``sandwich
generation,'' providing care for her aging mother and her son. Marcia
requested paid family leave when her 17-year-old son Noah needed more
intensive treatment for symptoms arising from his Asperger's syndrome
and her elderly mother fell and broke her pelvis at the same time. As
Marcia noted, ``I was grateful to Deloitte for giving me the
opportunity to support Noah through this program. Honestly, I don't
know what I would have done if I didn't have access to the Paid Family
Leave Program. It would have been incredibly stressful. If I'd tried to
keep working through all that was going on, my clients wouldn't have
had the best of me, that's for sure.''
We also are seeing greater participation from men in the program.
Our CEO received a thank you note from an employee, who wanted Cathy to
know that because he was able to stay home for 16 weeks with their
child, his wife was able to return to her medical practice:
My wife is currently pregnant, and has a demanding medical
career. Asia will only be able to take a few weeks off after
our baby girl is born, and we were worried about having enough
time at home with our new baby before having to send her to
daycare. The new Paid Family Leave Program is going to give me
the opportunity to spend a great amount of quality time at home
with our new baby. We are all so happy that we have been
afforded this opportunity and it is going to make a meaningful
impact in our family life.
Similarly, one of our professionals told Cathy about his son who
has autism. This dad was challenged with managing his demanding work
schedule:
[When] I told you the story of my son who has autism and the
challenges of balancing my commitment to client service with
the need to take the time to fully implement his learning
program at a critical time in his development, your
recommendation was to be bold and lead by example to take the
time to use the program if it suited me. I wanted to inform you
that I have taken your advice. I have had good, supportive
conversations with my leaders . . . and good conversations with
the client leads who were equally supportive of my needs. The
Deloitte team has rallied around me to make sure I can truly
disconnect for the short time I am going to be taking. I wanted
to specifically thank you for your guidance, because I am sure
I would not have had the courage to do this on my own.
About a month before Deloitte announced the expanded Paid Family
Leave Program, managing director David's wife Theresa was diagnosed
with Stage 4 lung cancer. David and Theresa realized their time was
limited. David doesn't know what they would have done without the
leave. Theresa needed full-time care, but they had just moved 1,200
miles away from home--the diagnosis came through the day after they
sold their home in Washington State and moved to San Diego. ``We had no
one nearby,'' he says. ``Having the leave gave me more time to
investigate and arrange support options available through the community
and hospitals. And it gave me the freedom to be there for my wife, take
her to appointments, and when she was in the hospital, to stay by her
side the entire time.''
As these stories illustrate, this expanded leave program has had a
profound impact on our people, and the realized benefits have far
outstripped concerns about operational disruption from expanded leave.
We have observed several interesting outcomes. First, for professionals
taking advantage of the program for parental leave, women are taking
slightly longer leaves than previously. For men, we are seeing both an
uptick in participation and an increase in leave duration, but we have
received feedback that our program positively contributes to the
careers of women who don't work for us because we offer it for men as
well. This reinforces the research on changing societal/generational
norms that suggested men were looking for more partnership in early
childcare. This outcome also supports broader inclusion goals that we
have as an organization--since making it more acceptable and conducive
for men to take time off removes a hurdle to women advancing into
leadership roles. Second, the participation rate for caregiver leave
has remained relatively stable since this program was introduced,
suggesting there is a stable group of employees facing these challenges
at any point. Having the program in place allows us to more effectively
plan and manage our workforce. Finally, as the participation numbers--
and personal stories--suggest, implementing the new program was only
one component of our success. Equally important has been a culture that
empowers our people to take advantage of this benefit. Through strong
leadership support, frequent public storytelling and role modeling
behavior, our people have felt comfortable taking leave, secure in the
belief that they would be supported and not face negative
repercussions.
Every day our professionals are helping our clients solve their
greatest challenges and making a positive impact in their communities.
Our leaders understand that if we want our people to grow and develop
in their careers, and provide our clients with exceptional service, we
need to support them in all facets of their lives. To put it simply, we
do not want our people to leave the workforce due to caregiving needs
at home. It's our responsibility and commitment as an organization to
our people to ensure that they don't have to make that choice between
family and career.
Thank you again, Chairman Cassidy and Ranking Member Brown, for
providing me with this opportunity to share information with the
subcommittee about Deloitte's Paid Family Leave Program. I look forward
to answering any questions you or the other members may have about it
at this time.
______
Questions Submitted for the Record to Carolyn O'Boyle
Questions Submitted by Hon. Michael F. Bennet
Question. From your testimony, it seems your new Paid Leave Program
has had remarkable benefits for employees, but you've also cited
several benefits for the firm: increased retention, reduced
absenteeism, and improved engagement and productivity.
Ms. O'Boyle, what do you think the impact of a national paid leave
program would be on our economy and economic growth, from the company's
point of view?
Answer. In our experience, Deloitte's Paid Family Leave Program has
been extremely beneficial--reducing turnover and increasing employee
engagement. We acknowledge that there is no one-size-fits-all model
that will work for all organizations. That said, we do believe
caregiving programs like Deloitte's could positively impact the broader
economy in these same ways.
Question. You've mentioned that culture was equally important in
empowering people to take advantage of your program. Could a national
paid leave program be successful if it depends so much on each
company's individual culture?
Answer. Culture has been important in helping our professionals
feel comfortable and empowered to take advantage of this program.
Making a national paid leave program a benefit for all could provide a
sense of that empowerment outside of any one company's culture.
Question. Deloitte has operations in several States that have their
own paid family leave programs, including recent legislation that was
just passed in Massachusetts.
Answer. To the extent a Deloitte employee may be eligible for both
Deloitte's Paid Family Leave Program and a State family leave or wage
replacement program, the employee would apply for both programs and the
benefits would be coordinated. Specifically, Deloitte would offset any
Paid Family Leave benefits it pays to the employee by the amount of the
State benefit for which the employee is eligible so that the employee
receives no more than 100 percent of his/her salary
Question. In your testimony, you mentioned that men are now
participating more and taking longer leaves. You said that making it
more acceptable and conducive for men to take time off was removing a
hurdle for women to advance into leadership roles. You even mentioned
that higher participation by men was positively contributing to the
careers of women who don't work at the firm.
Could you describe how paid family leave can lead to better gender
parity in the workplace?
Answer. Well-intended, traditional leave programs that provide a
disproportionate amount of time off for women versus men may
unintentionally be perpetuating or reinforcing stereotypes around
``traditional'' gender and family roles. However, today's workforce is
dramatically different, with an increasingly wide range of non-
traditional family structures in place, including single-parent
households, dual-income parents, female breadwinners, and a multi-
generational workforce--each of whom face their own set of unique
challenges in supporting the well-being needs of their families. As
such, by acknowledging that caregiving needs are ultimately gender-
neutral, paid family leave could break down some of the historical
gender barriers and reduce gender-based biases, leading to greater
parity in the workplace.
Question. How important is it for men and women to receive the same
amount of time off for things like a new baby?
Answer. Given the changing nature of caregiving in the U.S. today,
we believe that both men and women of all generations face challenges
in supporting the well-being needs of their families. We do not believe
these needs are gender-specific--rather, they are unique to each
individual and family--and, as such, it's important that the amount of
time off is also consistent.
Question. In addition to parental leave, your policy also allows
paid leave for things like caring for a spouse or parent. Some
proponents argue this improves the gender parity of paid leave and the
workplace. What have you seen at Deloitte?
Answer. At Deloitte, we realized that our people--both men and
women, across generations--face challenges in supporting the unique
well-being needs of their families, brought on by a number of factors
including the presence of many generations in the workforce, the
changing nature of caregiving in the U.S., and shifting societal norms.
Our Paid Family Leave Program ``levels the playing field'' in the eyes
of our people by acknowledging that the role of caregiver wears no
gender or generational label, thereby reducing stereotypes and
promoting parity across gender and generations.
______
Question Submitted by Hon. Tim Scott
Question. There is a growing consensus on Capitol Hill that
recognizes the need to promote a Federal paid leave policy that
empowers employees who are also new parents, caregivers, and even
chronically ill. There is also an increasingly large number of
employers who have instituted their own paid leave policies, indicating
that job creators are recognizing the need and desire for such a
benefit. Just like individuals confront a host of life events that are
unique to themselves and their families, not all employers or
industries are the same. A mandatory Federal paid leave policy applied
to all industries may be detrimental to definite-term, project-specific
industries due to their different work conditions and performance
demands. Construction jobsites, for example, employ multiple
contractors who work consecutively on time-sensitive projects where
both employers and employees have agreed to contracts that cover pay
and benefits, including family leave.
As we continue to consider various national paid leave program
proposals, what considerations should be made to accommodate and
complement the unique needs of various and distinct industries?
Specifically, could you provide a more detailed description of the
provisions for effective, productive coverage for workers and employers
in definite-term, multi-employer performance settings?
Answer. We acknowledge that there is no one-size-fits-all model
that will work for all organizations. Our experiences have been
influenced by the fact that we're a professional services firm and our
team-based service delivery model allows us to flex when one of our
professionals takes leave. Any national legislative proposals would
need to consider the diversity of business models in the economy.
______
Prepared Statement of Vicki Shabo, Vice President for Workplace
Policies and Strategies, National Partnership for Women and Families
Good afternoon, Chairman Cassidy, Ranking Member Brown, and members
of the committee. I am pleased to be here to discuss how the United
States can adopt a paid family and medical leave program that addresses
the needs of working people, families and businesses across the
country.
My name is Vicki Shabo, and I am vice president for workplace
policies and strategies at the National Partnership for Women and
Families. The National Partnership is a nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy
organization based in Washington, DC. We promote fairness in the
workplace, reproductive health and rights, access to quality,
affordable health care, and policies that help women and men meet the
dual demands of work and family. Our goal is to create a society that
is free, fair and just, where nobody has to experience discrimination,
all workplaces are family friendly, and every family has access to
quality, affordable health care and real economic security.
It is encouraging that our conversation today is premised on the
notion that there is national economic value and a human investment
imperative in creating a national paid leave program, and that using a
social insurance model is the best way to go. I'm very hopeful that
this general agreement signifies that national paid family and medical
leave is now no longer a question of ``if'' or ``why'' but rather
``when,'' ``what'' and ``how.'' The details matter tremendously.
Fortunately, research, experience and public opinion demonstrate
clearly that the United States needs a comprehensive, inclusive,
affordable, and sustainable national paid leave plan that does not
leave anyone behind.
At the National Partnership, we have been working on this issue for
decades. Since our founding in 1971 as the Women's Legal Defense Fund,
the National Partnership has fought for every major Federal policy
advance that has helped women and families, including our leadership in
passing the Nation's unpaid leave law, the Family and Medical Leave Act
(FMLA), 25 years ago. Today, we convene the National Work and Family
Coalition, which includes hundreds of organizations nationwide fighting
for a national paid family and medical leave plan and other policies to
create a more family friendly and equitable economy and country.
A key part of our work to advance paid leave has involved helping
to test policy solutions, and we have been honored and humbled to work
with advocates and legislators in dozens of States and cities that have
adopted paid family and medical leave and paid sick days laws that now
cover approximately 41 million people. Just last month, we celebrated
Massachusetts becoming the sixth State plus the District of Columbia to
enact a comprehensive paid family and medical leave insurance program,
and it did so with bipartisan support and the signature of a Republican
governor. Massachusetts joins Washington State in demonstrating that
strong, sustainable policies are achievable through real bipartisan
partnerships and the engagement of large and small businesses, consumer
groups, children's advocates, medical professionals, and others.
These States set important examples as Congress considers how to
make paid leave available for the more than 100 million working
people--85 percent of the workforce--who do not have paid family leave
at their jobs right now.\1\ These are sons and daughters, mothers and
fathers, husbands and wives who too often are forced to make
heartbreaking choices involving work and financial stability, family
responsibilities, and providing or receiving care. Lack of access to
paid leave is particularly challenging for people who work in
industries and occupations that pay low wages, for workers of color and
for women, who continue to handle most caregiving for their families
and suffer direct and indirect economic penalties that last into
retirement. And it is not just these individuals and families who feel
the effects of the country's paid leave gaps, but businesses, social
service providers, health systems, and our economy too.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2017, September). National
Compensation Survey: Employee Benefits in the United States, March 2017
(Table 32 and Appendix 2). Retrieved 2 July 2018, from https://
www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/benefits/2017/ebbl0061.pdf.
America's need for paid leave is well-established and clear--and
need doesn't distinguish by political party, or family type, or care
need. No one should be kept from seeing their baby's first smile,
whether at home or in the NICU, and no one should be forced to miss the
opportunity to help a parent--or God forbid, a child--get to cancer
treatments, or hold the hand of a spouse as she recovers from a stroke
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
or an injury sustained in military service.
Too often, conversations about paid leave focus exclusively on new
moms and babies and--to be sure--the critical importance of parental
leave for moms, dads, and kids is well-supported by health and economic
research. But parental leave is not even half of what's needed, and a
poorly designed program that results in a cut in Social Security
retirement benefits and siphons much-needed resources from existing
Social Security obligations without providing new revenue for benefits
and administration would grave harm.
In my testimony today, I will first talk about why the United
States needs a comprehensive paid leave plan and present research and
evidence that supports our vision of what a national paid leave plan
should include. Right now, the only pending legislation that reflects
that vision is the Family And Medical Insurance Leave (FAMILY) Act (S.
337/H.R. 947). I will also discuss our deep concerns about a plan
proposed by the Independent Women's Forum in which Senators Rubio,
Ernst, and Lee have expressed interest. This plan has includes elements
that are gravely concerning and would do more harm than good,
including: (1) forcing unnecessary tradeoffs between paid leave and
Social Security benefits, which will have devastating effects on the
retirement security of women, low-wage workers, and people of color;
(2) limiting guaranteed access to paid leave to parents of new children
while excluding millions of others who need paid family or medical
leave, which will lead to a double-hit for many older workers; and (3)
setting benefits too low to make paid leave affordable for most people
and, in the process, reinforcing rather than reducing gender bias. I
look forward to this hearing today as the beginning of what I hope will
be a robust bipartisan conversation that soon leads to a national paid
leave solution.
i. a shifting landscape for families: demographic and labor force
trends require a comprehensive national paid family and medical leave
solution
Discussions about paid leave--here in Congress, at the State and
local levels, in the private sector, among researchers, and in the
media--are more vibrant than ever. The economic imperative for a
national policy on paid leave is now part of conversations in both the
Democratic and Republican parties and in boardrooms and breakrooms in
unprecedented and very welcome ways. Conservative and progressive
economists and politicians warn that the country is missing out on
substantial economic activity--estimated at $500 billion dollars by the
U.S. Department of Labor--because women, in particular, are held back
from participating in the workforce in equal shares as their peers in
other high-wealth countries.\2\ Families lose an estimated $20.6
billion in wages each year due to inadequate or no paid leave.\3\
Employers bear high costs of turnover, ranging between 16 percent and
more than 200 percent of a worker's annual wages, when people leave
their jobs \4\--which employees are about four times more likely to do
when they do not have paid leave.\5\ And the human and fiscal costs of
America's paid leave crisis--measured in child and maternal health
effects, nursing home utilization, long-term health costs and more--are
vast. This is why child development experts,\6\ business and management
experts,\7\ medical providers and experts in social work and
gerontology \8\ have joined advocacy and small business organizations
\9\ in telling Congress that it is past time to address America's paid
leave crisis with a comprehensive, national paid family and medical
leave program.
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\2\ U.S. Department of Labor. (2015, September). The Cost of Doing
Nothing: The Price We All Pay Without Paid Leave Policies to Support
America's 21st Century Working Families. Retrieved 2 July 2018, from
https://www.dol.gov/wb/resources/cost-of-doing-nothing.pdf; see also
American Enterprise Institute and Brookings Institution. (2017, May).
Paid Family and Medical Leave: An Issue Whose Time Has Come. Retrieved
2 July 2018, from https://www.
brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/
es_20170606_paidfamilyleave.pdf.
\3\ Glynn, S.J., and Corley, D. (2016, September). The Cost of
Work-Family Policy Inaction: Quantifying the Costs Families Currently
Face as a Result of Lacking U.S. Work-Family Policies. Center for
American Progress publication. Retrieved 2 July 2018, from https://cdn.
americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/22060013/
CostOfWorkFamilyPolicyIn
action-report.pdf.
\4\ Boushey, H., and Glynn, S.J. (2012, November 16). There Are
Significant Business Costs to Replacing Employees. Center for American
Progress publication. Retrieved 2 July 2018, from https://
cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/16084443/
CostofTurnover0815.
pdf.
\5\ Menasce Horowitz, J., Parker, K., and Graf, N. (2017, March
23). Americans Widely Support Paid Family and Medical Leave, but Differ
Over Specific Policies. Pew Research Center publication. Retrieved 2
July 2018, from http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2017/03/23/americans-
widely-support-paid-family-and-medical-leave-but-differ-over-specific-
policies/ (unpublished calculation).
\6\ Divecha, D., and Stern, R. (2015, February 10). ``Give our
children a strong start.'' The Hill. Retrieved 2 July 2018, from http:/
/thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/healthcare/232214-give-our-children-a-
strong-start.
\7\ Letter From Business School Faculty to Congress in Support of
National Paid Leave and the FAMILY Act. (2015, September 15). Retrieved
2 July 2018, from http://worklife.
wharton.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Final-Business-School-
Professors-Letter-to-Congress-in-Support-of-the-FAMILY-Act-September-
15-2015.pdf.
\8\ Aging and Social Work Experts' Letter to Congress in Support of
Strong National Paid Family and Medical Leave. (2017, November 1).
Retrieved 2 July 2018, from http://www.bc.edu/content/dam/files/
research_sites/agingandwork/pdf/documents/Caregiving_letter_10_30_2017
.pdf.
\9\ FAMILY Act Coalition Letter to Congress. (2016, June 29).
Retrieved 2 July 2018, from http://www.nationalpartnership.org/
research-library/work-family/coalition/family-act-coalition
-letter.pdf; National Partnership for Women and Families. (2017,
February). Organizations Endorsing the Family And Medical Insurance
Leave (FAMILY) Act. Retrieved 2 July 2018, from http://
www.nationalpartnership.org/research-library/work-family/coalition/
family-act-reintroduction-coalition-quote-sheet.pdf.
A. The Indisputable Need for Leave So Parents Can Care for Children--
Not Just at Birth or Adoption But for the Long Haul
Much of the national conversation about, and attention to, paid
leave has focused on the needs of mothers and, increasingly, fathers to
care for their newborn children. We absolutely know that parental
leave--for all parents of new children, whether newborn, newly adopted
or newly placed in a foster home--is important for families' economic
security, women's workforce participation and earnings over time, child
and maternal health, shared division of care within two-parent
households, and family well-being.\10\ Parental leave also helps
families maintain financial independence and reduce their use of public
programs, such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) or
other public assistance.\11\ Rather than pursuing draconian SNAP and
Medicaid work requirements that punish people for experiencing poverty,
we should look to paid leave as a policy that truly promotes a
connection to work. With paid leave, women are more likely to return to
work and to earn higher wages within the year after a child's birth,
and both women and men are significantly less likely to use SNAP or
other public programs in the year after a child's birth.\12\ A national
commitment to paid leave is a national commitment to increasing
workforce attachment, labor force participation and financial
independence.
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\10\ ZERO TO THREE and National Partnership for Women and Families.
(2017, January). The Child Development Case for a National Paid Family
and Medical Leave Program. Retrieved 2 July 2018, from http://
www.nationalpartnership.org/research-library/work-family/paid-leave/
the-child-development-case-for-a-national-paid-family-and-medical-
leave-insurance-program.pdf; American Academy of Pediatrics (2015,
March 20). Major Pediatric Associations Call for Congressional Action
on Paid Leave. Retrieved 3 July 2018, from https://www.aap.org/en-us/
about-the-aap/aap-press-room/pages/familyleaveact.aspx.
\11\ Houser, L., and Vartanian, T.P. (2012, January). Pay Matters:
The Positive Impacts of Paid Family Leave for Families, Businesses and
the Public. Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey Center for
Women and Work publication. Retrieved 2 July 2018, from http://www.
nationalpartnership.org/research-library/work-family/other/pay-
matters.pdf; Houser, L., and Vartanian, T.P. (2012, April). Policy
Matters: Public Policy, Paid Leave for New Parents, and Economic
Security for U.S. Workers. Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
Center for Women and Work publication. Retrieved 2 July 2018, from
http://go.nationalpartnership
.org/site/DocServer/RutgersCWW_Policy_Matters_April2012.pdf; see also
note 5.
\12\ Houser, L., and Vartanian, T.P. (2012, January). Pay Matters:
The Positive Impacts of Paid Family Leave for Families, Businesses and
the Public. Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey Center for
Women and Work publication. Retrieved 2 July 2018, from http://www.
nationalpartnership.org/research-library/work-family/other/pay-
matters.pdf; Houser, L., and Vartanian, T.P. (2012, April). Policy
Matters: Public Policy, Paid Leave for New Parents, and Economic
Security for U.S. Workers. Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
Center for Women and Work publication. Retrieved 2 July 2018, from
http://go.nationalpartnership
.org/site/DocServer/RutgersCWW_Policy_Matters_April2012.pdf.
Indeed, it is very encouraging that a growing number of lawmakers
on both sides of the political aisle agree, at least in principle, that
the United States needs a national approach to paid parental leave. But
details matter tremendously--and a program that undermines social
insurance protections without new revenue, fails to replace wages at
rates that allow both lower-income and middle-income families to afford
leave, and fails to provide employment security is not the approach we
support or the country needs. I'll come back to those points in Section
III below--but first I would like to address the evidence that
demonstrates that a plan that provides leave only in connection with a
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child's birth or adoption isn't nearly enough.
Children's health needs do not end after the first few months of
their lives. Children, especially those with disabilities and chronic
health issues, may need care for months or years. When a child is
critically ill--whether at birth or later--the presence of a parent
shortens her or his hospital stay by 31 percent.\13\ Active parental
involvement in a child's hospital care may head off future health care
needs and reduce costs.\14\ But parents without paid leave risk their
economic security and their child's well-being by providing care. And
sometimes it's the parent of a young child who needs care themselves or
must provide care for another family member--and the lack of paid leave
in those situations can have serious, long term effects on household
financial stability too.
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\13\ Heymann. J. (2001, October 15). The Widening Gap: Why
America's Working Families Are in Jeopardy--and What Can Be Done About
It. New York, NY: Basic Books.
\14\ Heymann, J., and Earle, A. (2010). Raising the global floor:
dismantling the myth that we can't afford good working conditions for
everyone. Stanford, CA: Stanford Politics and Policy.
A more comprehensive approach would best serve parents and kids. A
12-week unpaid leave sends millions of working families down deep
financial rabbit holes, whereas a paid leave plan that provides even
two-thirds' wage replacement for any FMLA reason during that time is
estimated to reduce the percentage of families that face significant
economic insecurity by a whopping 81 percent nationwide and by 82
percent in the States represented by the chair and ranking member of
this subcommittee.\15\
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\15\ diversitydatakids.org. (2018). Full-Year Working Adults Ages
21-64 Living in Families Estimated to be Below 200 Percent of the
Federal Poverty Line After Wage Loss Due to 12 Weeks of Paid/Unpaid
Family or Medical Leave (Share). Brandeis University, The Heller
School, Institute for Child, Youth, and Family Policy publication.
Retrieved 2 July 2018, from http://www.diversitydatakids.org/data/
ranking/670/full-year-working-adults-ages-21-64-living-in-families-
estimated-to-be-below-200/#loct=2&cat=54,25&tf=21&ch=132,133,134
(unpublished calculation by the National Partnership for Women and
Families).
B. The Urgent and Growing Need for Family Care Leave and Personal
Medical Leave
Put simply, paid leave for new parents is necessary, but it is not
a sufficient or complete response to the needs of working people and
families. In fact, according to the most recent data commissioned by
the U.S. Department of Labor, leaves taken for the birth or placement
of a child account for about one-fifth (21 percent) of the 20 million
leaves taken for FMLA purposes each year.\16\ In contrast, as shown in
the pie chart below, approximately 75 percent of people take leave to
care for a seriously ill, injured, elderly or disabled loved one, a
serious personal injury, illness or disability, or to address the
deployment or injury of a military service member in their family.\17\
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\16\ Klerman, J.A., Daley, K., and Pozniak, A. (2012, September 7).
Family and Medical Leave in 2012: Technical Report. Abt Associates
publication. Retrieved 2 July 2018, from http://www.dol.gov/asp/
evaluation/fmla/fmla2012.htm.
\17\ Ibid.
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1118.001
In States that have had temporary disability insurance (TDI) and
paid family leave programs in place the longest, people who take paid
medical leave through the States' TDI programs also account for a much
larger share of claims than parental leave or family care leave.\18\
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\18\ Analysis of State temporary disability insurance and paid
family leave insurance programs in California, New Jersey, and Rhode
Island conducted by Dr. Sarah Jane Glynn for the National Partnership
for Women and Families, January 2018, based on: State of California
Employment Development Department. (2018, June 12). Disability
Insurance (DI)--Monthly Data. Retrieved 2 July 2018, from https://
data.edd.ca.gov/Disability-Insurance/Disability-Insurance-DI-Monthly-
Data/29jg-ip7e/data; State of California Employment Development
Department. (2018, June 12). Paid Family Leave (PFL)--Monthly Data.
Retrieved 2 July 2018, from https://data.edd.ca.gov/Disability-
Insurance/Paid-Family-Leave-PFL-Monthly-Data/r95e-fvkm; New Jersey
Department of Labor and Workforce Development. (2016, October).
Temporary Disability Insurance Workload in 2015: Summary Report.
Retrieved 6 July 2018, from https://www.nj.gov/labor/forms_pdfs/tdi/
TDI%20Report%20for%202015.pdf; New Jersey Department of Labor and
Workforce Development. (2016, October). Family Leave Insurance Workload
in 2015: Summary Report. Retrieved 6 July 2018, from https://
www.nj.gov/labor/forms_pdfs/tdi/
FLI%20Summary%20Report%20for%202015.pdf; Rhode Island Department of
Labor and Training. (2017). TDI Annual Update: January-December 2016.
Retrieved 6 July 2018, from http://www.dlt.ri.gov/lmi/pdf/tdi/2016.pdf;
Silver, B., Mederer, H., and Djurdjevic. E. (2016, April). Launching
the Rhode Island Temporary Caregiver Insurance Program (TCI): Employee
Experiences One Year Later. Retrieved 6 July 2018, from http://
www.dlt.ri.gov/tdi/pdf/RIPaidLeaveFinalRpt0416URI.pdf.
Health emergencies should not trigger financial emergencies--but
too often they do because workers who cannot access paid leave either
forgo leave altogether or face substantial financial challenges,
leading them to dip into savings earmarked for another purpose, take on
debt, put off paying bills or use public assistance programs.\19\
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\19\ Stepler, R. (2017, March 23). Key takeaways on Americans'
views of and experiences with family and medical leave. Pew Research
Center publication. Retrieved 6 July 2018, from http://
www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/03/23/key-takeaways-on-americans-
views-of-and-experiences-with-family-and-medical-leave/ft_17-03-
23_familyleavetakeaways_2/.
A white paper the National Partnership will release soon, co-
authored by Dr. Sarah Jane Glynn, who is a fellow with the National
Academy of Social Insurance and a member of the bipartisan Brookings-
AEI Working Group on Paid Leave, shows that demand for family
caregiving and personal medical leave will only continue to grow. This
white paper builds on a report we released last year, Our Aging, Caring
Nation, which shows that a parents-only paid leave plan would leave
behind too many people in every State.\20\ Louisiana's population, for
example, has one of the highest shares of family caregivers, with one-
fifth of adults caring for family members with an illness or
disability; a parental leave-only plan would do nothing to support
them, enhance their families' economic stability or address their care
needs.\21\
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\20\ National Partnership for Women and Families. (2017, June). Our
Aging, Caring Nation: Why a U.S. Paid Leave Plan Must Provide More Than
Time to Care for New Children. Retrieved 2 July 2018, from http://
www.nationalpartnership.org/research-library/work-family/paid-leave/
our-aging-caring-nation-why-a-us-paid-leave-plan-must-provide-more-
than-time-to-care-for-new-children.pdf.
\21\ Ibid.
Family caregiving is a major part of life for millions of working
people. Today, 43.5 million people provide unpaid care to family
members, and most family caregivers also have full-time, paying
jobs.\22\ An estimated 36 million working age adults live with a family
member with a disability.\23\ And there is increasing stress on members
of the sandwich generation, the portion of the workforce that is caring
for both children and older adults.\24\ Millennials (18- to 34-year-
olds), whom policymakers may incorrectly assume only need leave to care
for a new child, actually need a much more comprehensive leave plan:
Among the Nation's 40+ million caregivers, one in four is a millennial,
who is typically providing 20 or more hours of care to a family member
with a serious health issue and working full-time.\25\ In addition, the
majority of military caregivers--and more than three-quarters of
caregivers for post-9/11 wounded warriors--are also in the labor
force.\26\
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\22\ National Alliance for Caregiving. (2015, June). Caregiving in
the U.S. 2015. National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP Public Policy
Institute publication. Retrieved 2 July 2018, from http://www.aarp.org/
content/dam/aarp/ppi/2015/caregiving-in-the-united-states-2015-report-
revised.pdf.
\23\ Grant, K., Sutcliffe, T.J., Dutta-Gupta, I., and Goldvale, C.
(2017, October 1). Security and Stability: Paid Family and Medical
Leave and its Importance to People With Disabilities and Their
Families. Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality publication.
Retrieved 2 July 2018, from http://www.georgetownpoverty.org/wp-
content/uploads/2017/10/Georgetown_PFML
-report-hi-res.pdf.
\24\ Parker, K., and Patten, E. (2013, January). The Sandwich
Generation: Rising Financial Burdens for Middle-Aged Americans. Pew
Research Center Publication. Retrieved 9 July 2018, from http://
www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/01/30/the-sandwich-generation/; Institute
for Women's Policy Research, and IMPAQ International. (2017, January
19). Family and Medical Leave-Taking Among Older Workers. Retrieved 2
July 2018, from https://iwpr.org/publications/family-medical-leave-
taking-among-older-workers/.
\25\ Flinn, B. (2018, May). Millennials: The Emerging Generation of
Family Caregivers. AARP Public Policy Institute Publication. Retrieved
2 July 2018, from https://www.aarp.org/content/dam/aarp/ppi/2018/05/
millennial-family-caregivers.pdf.
\26\ Ramchand, R., Tanielian, T., Fisher, M.P., Vaughan, C.A.,
Trail, T.E., Epley, C., Voorhies, P., Robbins, M.W., Robinson, E., and
Ghosh-Dastidar, B. (2014). Hidden Heroes: America's Military Caregivers
(see Figure 3.8). RAND Corporation publication. Retrieved 9 July 2018,
from http://www.rand.org/health/projects/military-caregivers.html.
Demographic trends point squarely to even more strain on people
caring for elderly relatives in coming decades. In 2000, the median age
in the United States was 35.3,\27\ but as the Baby Boom generation
continues to age, the median age is projected to rise to 41 by 2060;
the size of the population 65 years or older is projected to be larger
than the population under 18 by then.\28\ These lopsided generational
numbers don't add up when it comes to care. The mismatch between the
Baby Boom generation and the generations that have followed means that
the number of potential family caregivers for each person age 80 and
older will fall from about one in seven in 2010 to one in four by 2030,
and then to less than one in three by 2050.\29\ Each family member
available to provide care will be called on to do more, for more aging
loved ones, while likely also needing to hold a paying job. A plan that
covers only new parents utterly fails to address their needs or those
realities.
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\27\ U.S. Census Bureau. (2017, June 22). The Nation's Older
Population Is Still Growing, Census Bureau Reports [press release].
Retrieved 7 July 2018, from https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-
releases/2017/cb17-100.html.
\28\ Ortman, J. (2012, December 14). A Look at the U.S. Population
in 2060. Retrieved 7 July 2018, from https://www.census.gov/newsroom/
cspan/pop_proj/20121214_cspan_popproj.pdf.
\29\ Redfoot, D., Feinberg, L., and Houser, A. (2013, August). The
Aging of the Baby Boom and the Growing Care Gap: A Look at Future
Declines in the Availability of Family Caregivers. AARP Public Policy
Institute publication. Retrieved 2 July 2018, from http://www.aarp.org/
content/dam/aarp/research/public_policy_institute/ltc/2013/baby-boom-
and-the-growing-care-gap-insight-AARP-ppi-ltc.pdf.
This is a care issue, a personal economic security issue for the
growing legions of caregivers and a budget issue for the United States.
The interactions between caregiving and retirement security are
especially germane as this committee considers whether to force
tradeoffs between Social Security retirement benefits and paid parental
leave. AARP and MetLife Mature Market Institute estimate that a woman
who is 50 years of age or older who leaves the workforce to care for an
aging parent will lose more than $324,000 in wages and retirement.\30\
For men, the figure is substantial as well--close to $284,000 in lost
wages and retirement.\31\ It would be a cruel double hit to adopt a
paid leave plan that fails to cover family caregivers while
simultaneously forcing trade-offs between parental leave and Social
Security retirement benefits: Older workers caring for loved ones would
not have paid leave when they need it--and those who took parental
leave decades earlier would face delayed retirement and lower Social
Security benefits from a plan that carves parental leave benefits out
of Social Security retirement funds. Both a paid leave plan and Social
Security must honor the value of caregiving.
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\30\ MetLife Mature Market Institute. (2011, June). The MetLife
Study of Caregiving Costs to Working Caregivers: Double Jeopardy for
Baby Boomers Caring for Their Parents. Retrieved 2 July 2018, from
https://www.caregiving.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/mmi-caregiving-
costs-working-caregivers.pdf.
\31\ Ibid.
In addition, most working people will themselves need medical leave
at some point in their lives and millions of people do not have it--a
compelling national problem that any national paid family and medical
leave program should solve. Less than 40 percent of the workforce has
personal medical leave through an employer's TDI plan and access varies
dramatically by job type and wage level.\32\ There are increasing
numbers of mothers-to-be who face life-threatening complications during
or after childbirth;\33\ a growing number of Americans with chronic
health conditions;\34\ and a growing share of older people who remain
in the workforce well past the traditional retirement age either
because they want to continue working or because they have no other
financial option but may also have chronic or acute health issues.\35\
Ensuring working people can have paid leave to take time away from
their jobs with access to some wage replacement and then go back to
work is far preferable to the alternatives, which include no leave,
delayed care that jeopardizes their health and increases costs, or an
exit from the workforce altogether.
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\32\ See note 1, table 16.
\33\ Norton, A. (2012, October). ``Birth Complications on the Rise
in the U.S., Study Finds.'' Huffington Post. Retrieved 2 July 2018,
from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/24/usbirth-
complications_n_2008771.html.
\34\ See note 23; see also Bodenheimer, T., Chen, E., and Bennett,
H.D. (2009, January 1). ``Confronting the Growing Burden of Chronic
Disease: Can the U.S. Health Care Workforce Do the Job?''
HealthAffairs, 28(1), https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.28.1.64.
\35\ U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2017, October 24). Civilian
labor force participation rate, by age, sex, race, and ethnicity, Table
3.3 Civilian labor force participation rate, by age, sex, race, and
ethnicity, 1996, 2006, 2016, and projected 2026. Retrieved 7 July 2018,
from https://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_303.htm; Lester, G. (2009). The
Aging Workforce and Paid Time Off. University of California, Berkeley
Institute for Research on Labor and Employment publication. Retrieved 7
July 2018, from http://www.irle.berkeley.edu/files/2009/The-Aging-
Workforce-and-Paid-Time-Off.pdf; see also note 20.
Evidence of the value of paid leave to working people, their
families, health systems and government is clear. Paid family leave can
support working people who are helping older family members recover
from serious health issues, fulfill treatment plans, and avoid
complications and hospital readmissions--all of which boost health and
reduce costs.\36\ Among cancer patients and survivors, access to paid
leave is significantly related to completing treatment, managing
symptoms and side effects, and being able to afford treatments--yet
only half of cancer patients and survivors report having access to paid
leave that extends beyond a few paid sick days.\37\ Among family
members caring for a loved one with cancer, access to paid leave is
significantly related to helping loved ones get to treatment, caring
for them and caring for their own health, but only 4 in 10 caregivers
say they are able to take paid leave.\38\ Family caregiving can also
support aging in place, which can reduce costs on public programs, but
this is more practical when paid leave is available. A California study
found that implementation of the State's paid leave program accounted
for an 11-percent relative decline in elderly nursing home usage.\39\
And, for the millions of families in communities that are struggling
with opioid and other substance use disorders, paid leave supports
family caregivers, who play a key role in care and recovery by helping
loved ones with health care arrangements and treatment.\40\
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\36\ See e.g., Institute of Medicine. (2008, April 11). Retooling
for an Aging America: Building the Health Care Workforce (p. 254).
Retrieved 2 July 2018, from http://www.
nationalacademies.org/hmd/reports/2008/retooling-for-an-aging-america-
building-the-health-care-workforce.aspx; Arbaje, A.I., Wolff, J.L., Yu,
Q., Powe, N.R., Anderson, G.F., and Boult, C. (2008). ``Postdischarge
Environmental and Socioeconomic Factors and the Likelihood of Early
Hospital Readmission Among Community-Dwelling Medicare Beneficiaries.''
The Gerontologist 48(4), 495-504. Summary retrieved 9 July 2018, from
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18728299.
\37\ American Cancer Society Action Network. (2017, December 8).
Key Findings--National Surveys of Cancer Patients, Survivors, and
Caregivers. Retrieved 2 July 2018, from https://www.acscan.org/sites/
default/files/ACS%20CAN%20Paid%20Leave%20Surveys%20Key%20Find
ings%20Press%20Memo%20FINAL.pdf.
\38\ Ibid.
\39\ Arora, K., and Wolf, D.A. (2017, November 3). ``Does Paid
Family Leave Reduce Nursing Home Use? The California Experience.''
Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 37(1), 38-62. Retrieved 2
July 2018, from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pam.22038/
full.
\40\ Biegel, D.E., Katz-Saltzman, S., Meeks, D., Brown, S., and
Tracy, E.M. (2010). ``Predictors of Depressive Symptomatology in Family
Caregivers of Women With Substance Use Disorders or Co-Occurring
Substance Use and Mental Disorders.'' Journal of Family Social Work,
13(1), 25-44. Retrieved 7 July 2018, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
pmc/articles/PMC2834204/.
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C. The Future of Work
In addition to the demographic imperatives that intensify the need
for paid leave, we must also look at the future of work and labor
market trends. Of the 30 occupations with the most job growth
anticipated between 2016 and 2026, two-thirds are occupations that
typically pay wages below the current national median wage.\41\ These
are also jobs that, today, are unlikely to offer paid family leave
benefits.\42\ In addition, 10 of these 30 occupations pay low wages and
are disproportionately held by women--which underscores the need for
change because women continue to shoulder the bulk of caregiving for
children and older adults in their families.\43\ Unless the private
sector substantially enhances leave benefits for lower-wage workers--
which even conservative economists admit is extremely unlikely to
happen \44\--public policy interventions that create a national
baseline are required. Without them, the country will continue to
suffer from unrealized economic growth and cost-savings--and working
people across the country will continue to be unable to live their
dearly-held values related to families and care.
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\41\ U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2018, April 11). Occupations
with the most job growth, Table 1.4 Occupations with the most job
growth, 2016 and projected 2026. Retrieved 7 July 2018, from https://
www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_104.htm.
\42\ See note 1, tables 16 and 32; see also DeSilver, D. (2017,
March 23). Access to paid family leave varies widely across employers,
industries. Pew Research Center publication. Retrieved 7 July 2018,
from http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/03/23/access-to-paid-
family-leave-varies-widely-across-employers-industries/.
\43\ See notes 22 and 41; see also U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
(n.d.). Household Data, Annual Averages, 11. Employed persons by
detailed occupation, sex, race, and Hispanic or Latino ethnicity.
Retrieved 7 July 2018, from https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.pdf.
\44\ Mathur, A., McCloskey, A.M., and Rachidi, A. (2017, January
9). ``Child-Care and Paid-Leave Policies That Work for Working
Parents.'' National Review. Retrieved 5 July 2018, from http://
www.nationalreview.com/article/443654/child-care-paid-leave-reforms-
trump-administration-congress; Gitis, B. (2016, August 15). The Earned
Income Leave Benefit: Rethinking Paid Family Leave for Low-Income
Workers. American Action Forum publication. Retrieved 5 July 2018, from
https://www.americanactionforum.org/solution/earnedincome-leave-
benefit-rethinking-paid-family-leave-low-income-workers.
Accounting for the future of work also means grappling with the
impact of the contingent workforce and the ``gig'' economy, which is at
least 10 percent of the workforce.\45\ It is important to adopt a
national paid leave plan that includes people who are entrepreneurs,
freelancers, contract workers, and others who have what today are
considered ``nontraditional'' employment relationships that, in the
future, may be commonplace. People should have access to paid leave, no
matter their employers or their jobs.
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\45\ Mishel, L. (2018, June 7). Contingent Worker Survey is further
evidence that we are not becoming a nation of freelancers. Economic
Policy Institute publication. Retrieved 3 July 2018, from https://
www.epi.org/press/contingent-worker-survey-is-further-evidence-that-we-
are-not-becoming-a-nation-of-freelancers/.
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D. Benefits to Business
Paid leave not only benefits working families; it also benefits
employers both directly and indirectly. This recognition, propelled by
the growing body of evidence quantifying business value and
experiences, is a new and welcome part of the growing bipartisan
discussion on paid leave. Business value occurs whether paid leave is
adopted as an internal policy or through legislation creating a paid
family leave and medical leave insurance program.
Businesses that choose to implement paid leave policies find they
help attract talent. A 2016 survey by Deloitte found that 77 percent of
workers with access to benefits reported that the amount of paid
parental leave employers offer had some influence on their choice of
one employer over another.\46\ And EY reports that nearly 40 percent of
millennials say they would move to another country for better paid
leave.\47\
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\46\ Deloitte. (2016, June 15). Parental leave survey: Less than
half of people surveyed feel their organization helps men feel
comfortable taking parental leave [press release]. Retrieved 2 July
2018, from https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/deloitte-survey-
less-than-half-of-people-surveyed-feel-their-organization-helps-men-
feel-comfortable-taking-parental-leave-300284822.html.
\47\ EY. (2015, May 5). Global generations: A global study on work-
life challenges across generations. Retrieved 2 July 2018, from https:/
/www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/EY-global-generations-a-global-
study-on-work-life-challenges-across-generations/$FILE/EY-global-
generations-a-global-study-on-work-life-challenges-across-
generations.pdf.
Paid leave also positively affects employee retention. According to
Pew Research Center data, a larger share of workers with paid leave
return to their same employer,\48\ and the experiences of high-end
companies like Google, Accenture and Aetna bear this out, with each
reporting lower turnover rates among affected employees after improving
their paid leave policies.\49\ Retaining workers is important because
of the high costs that employers bear as a result of employee turnover.
For high-wage, high-skilled workers, including in fields like
technology, accounting and law, turnover costs can amount to 213
percent of workers' salaries.\50\ Across all occupations, median
turnover costs are estimated to be 21 percent of workers' annual wages
and, even in middle- and lower-wage jobs, turnover costs are estimated
to be 16 to more than 20 percent of workers' annual wages.\51\ Direct
costs associated with turnover include separation costs, higher
unemployment insurance, costs associated with temporary staffing, costs
associated with searching for and interviewing new workers, and
training costs for new workers.\52\ Indirect costs can arise from lost
productivity leading to and following employee separations, diminished
output as new workers ramp up, reduced morale and lost institutional
knowledge.\53\
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\48\ See note 5.
\49\ Stroman, T., Woods, W., Fitzgerald, G., Unnikrishnan, S., and
Bird, L. (2017, February). Why Paid Family Leave Is Good for Business.
Boston Consulting Group publication. Retrieved 2 July 2018, from http:/
/media-publications.bcg.com/BCG-Why-Paid-Family-Leave-Is-Good-Business-
Feb-2017.pdf.
\50\ See note 4.
\51\ Ibid.
\52\ Allen, D.G., Bryant, P.C., and Vardaman, J.M. (2010).
``Retaining talent: Replacing misconceptions with evidence-based
strategies.'' The Academy of Management Perspectives, 24(2), 48-64.
\53\ Hausknecht, J.P., and Holwerda, J.A. (2013). ``When does
employee turnover matter? Dynamic member configurations, productive
capacity, and collective performance.'' Organization Science, 24(1),
210-225; see also note 30.
Finally, paid leave improves employees' overall well-being: A 2016
EY study found that more than 80 percent of companies that offer paid
leave reported a positive impact on employee morale, and more than 70
percent reported an increase in employee productivity.\54\ After Nestle
improved its parental leave policy, health care costs for infants whose
parents took paid leave under the policy went down and mothers who used
the policy reported lower rates of anxiety and filed fewer mental
health claims.\55\
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\54\ See note 49.
\55\ The Paid Leave Project. (2017, December). Case Study: Nestle
USA. Retrieved 2 July 2018, from http://www.paidleaveproject.org/wp-
content/uploads/2017/12/Nestle-Case-Study-layout-12-1-17.pdf.
This data is compelling, but the reality is that--even faced with
the most persuasive evidence possible--private-sector initiatives will
never cover all, or even most, working people. That is why a public
policy standard that recognizes the shared value of leave for
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employees, employers and the economy is needed.
Businesses need not fear paid leave insurance programs. Research
consistently shows that employers have not been unduly challenged by
the public policies adopted in States, have not encountered negative
effects of the policies, and, if anything, that companies have found
these policies helpful. Businesses in California, New Jersey, and Rhode
Island are supportive of those States' laws. In California, researchers
found that the vast majority of employers see a positive effect or no
effect on employee productivity, profitability, and performance related
to the paid leave law that has been in place since 2004--and smaller
businesses saw even more positive or neutral effects than larger
businesses.\56\ Many may even have experienced cost-savings by
coordinating their benefits with the State plan.\57\
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\56\ Milkman, R., and Appelbaum, E. (2013). Unfinished Business:
Paid Family Leave in California and the Future of U.S. Work-Family
Policy (pp. 67-68). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press; Bartel, A.,
et al. (2014, June 23). California's Paid Family Leave Law: Lessons
From the First Decade. U.S. Department of Labor publication. Retrieved
2 July 2018, from http://www.dol.gov/asp/evaluation/reports/
paidleavedeliverable.pdf.
\57\ Ibid.
Even the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), one of the
chief opponents of paid family leave before it was passed in
California, issued a report finding that employers' concerns about the
program had ``not been realized'' and that the law created ``relatively
few'' new burdens for employers.\58\ A report prepared on behalf of the
New Jersey Business and Industry Association finds that the majority of
both small and large New Jersey businesses adjusted easily to the
State's law and experienced no effects on business profitability,
performance, or employee productivity.\59\ This finding is consistent
with qualitative research conducted among a cross-section of New Jersey
employers.\60\
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\58\ Redmond, J., and Fkiaras, E. (2010, January). Legal Report:
California's Paid Family Leave Act Is Less Onerous Than Predicted.
Society for Human Resource Management publication. Retrieved 9 July
2018, from https://www.sheppardmullin.com/media/article/809_CA%20Paid
%20Family%20Leave%20Act%20Is%20Less%20Onerous%20Than%20Predicted.pdf.
\59\ Ramirez, M. (2012). The Impact of Paid Family Leave on New
Jersey Businesses. New Jersey Business and Industry Association and
Rutgers University, The State University of New Jersey presentation.
Retrieved 9 July 2018, from http://bloustein.rutgers.edu/wp-content/
uploads/2012/03/Ramirez.pdf.
\60\ Lerner, S., and Appelbaum, E. (2014, June). Business as Usual:
New Jersey Employers' Experiences With Family Leave Insurance. Center
for Economic and Policy Research publication. Retrieved 2 July 2018,
from http://www.demos.org/sites/default/files/publications/nj-fli-2014-
06.pdf.
In Rhode Island, business supporters were important allies in
passing the paid leave law, and early research suggests that businesses
in key industries have adjusted easily. A study of small and medium-
sized food service and manufacturing employers in Rhode Island by
researchers at Columbia Business School reports no negative effects on
employee workflow, productivity, or attendance, and finds that 61
percent of employers report supporting the law.\61\ Larger and smaller
businesses were actively engaged in crafting an extremely strong paid
leave policy in Washington State, praised by the Washington Hospitality
Association, the Northwest Grocery Association and the Washington
Retail Association, and in Massachusetts as well.\62\
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\61\ Bartel, A., et al. (2016, January). Assessing Rhode Island's
Temporary Caregiver Insurance Act: Insights From a Survey of Employers.
U.S. Department of Labor publication. Retrieved 9 July 2018, from
http://www.dol.gov/asp/evaluation/completed-studies/
AssessingRhodeIsland
TemporaryCaregiverInsuranceAct_InsightsFromSurveyOfEmployers.pdf.
\62\ Washington Hospitality Association. (2017, June 30).
Businesses support bipartisan law creating statewide paid family and
medical leave. Retrieved 2 July 2018, from https://wahospitality.org/
blog/businesses-support-bipartisan-law-creating-statewide-paid-family-
and-medical-leave/; Leung, S. (2018, June 28). ``How progressives and
businesses made an unlikely deal on family leave.'' The Boston Globe.
Retrieved 2 July 2018, from https://www.
bostonglobe.com/business/other/2018/06/28/how-progressives-and-
businesses-made-unlikely-deal-family-leave/7fRz5Pv0VCy8WDbeG32VeP/
story.html?event=event25?event=event25.
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ii. a comprehensive, inclusive, affordable, and sustainable national
paid leave plan is what people want and the country needs
The National Partnership and our partners in the advocacy,
research, and business communities urge Congress to pass a national
paid family and medical leave plan that addresses working people's need
for leave for well-established FMLA reasons, offers meaningful benefits
and is affordable and sustainable for workers, employers and the
government. At this time, the Family And Medical Insurance Leave
(FAMILY) Act (S. 337/H.R. 947) is the only Federal proposal that meets
these essential requirements.
The FAMILY Act would create a strong, inclusive national paid
family and medical leave insurance program and set a nationwide paid
leave baseline. It would cover eligible individuals across the country,
no matter where they live, their employer or their job; and it would
apply whether they are caring for a new child, a seriously ill or
injured loved one, their own serious health condition or dealing with a
family member's call to military duty or a service member's health
issue. It would do so by creating a new, self-sustaining fund from
which working people would receive paid leave for up to 12 weeks.
Workers who typically earn low and even mid-level wages would receive
two-thirds of their typical wages for that time. And people who need to
take time away from their jobs would be protected from retaliation when
they do.
The FAMILY Act fund would be self-sustaining and deficit-neutral,
just like the State programs that have paved the way. Payroll
deductions from both employees and employers and contributions from
self-employed workers would fund both the benefits and the
administrative costs of the program. The program would be administered
through a new Office of Paid Family and Medical Leave within the Social
Security Administration (SSA) to help create an efficient, uniform
standard. Program integrity measures would help ensure appropriate use,
as has worked in the States. And employers that seek competitive
advantages over competitors or have a particular desire to attract
talent could add to FAMILY Act benefits.
The FAMILY Act would provide the comprehensiveness and
affordability that voters want in a paid leave plan, the help that
small businesses need to ensure their workers have access to leave, and
the consistency and certainty larger multi-State businesses want. It
also reflects core values on which people of all ideologies and parties
agree: connecting people to work, valuing care, honoring commitment to
family, encouraging health and the responsible use of heath care
services, supporting employment and business innovation, and
strengthening our economy.
Each component in the FAMILY Act is grounded in economic, health,
business, and user-centered research, including research based on the
experiences of workers and employers with State paid leave programs.
A. State Paid Leave Plans Show Us How to Design a Program Built to
Last--the FAMILY Act in Perspective
Six States plus the District of Columbia now have or will soon have
paid family and medical leave policies in place to guarantee private-
sector workers access to a portion of their wages when they need to
take time away from their jobs to care for themselves, a seriously ill
or injured loved one or a new child. California's program has been in
place since 2004, New Jersey's since 2009, Rhode Island's since 2014
and New York's launched this year. Each of these four States' programs
build on decades-old TDI programs, which have provided wage replacement
to workers with serious injuries or illnesses that required time away
from work. Strong new programs, built from scratch, will begin
collecting revenues within the next 2 years and begin offering paid
leave benefits in Washington State and the District of Columbia in
2020, and in Massachusetts in 2021.\63\
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\63\ National Partnership for Women and Families. (2018, July).
State Paid Family and Medical Leave Insurance Laws. Retrieved 2 July
2018, from http://www.nationalpartnership.org/research-library/work-
family/paid-leave/state-paid-family-leave-laws.pdf.
Evidence from the longest-standing State programs in California,
New Jersey, and Rhode Island shows that these programs benefit parents
and children, people with serious health issues, employers, and
taxpayers. Key data and findings are included in the attached National
Partnership for Women and Families fact sheet, Paid Leave Works in
California, New Jersey and Rhode Island. Researchers have also
identified areas for improvement in existing programs to better meet
people's needs. California has expanded its law multiple times and
newer State programs have innovated on the older programs, including by
offering higher rates of wage replacement for lower-wage workers,
longer leave durations, a wider range of family members to whom a
leave-taker can provide care and job protection guarantees that go
beyond Federal or State FMLA laws. An attachment to this testimony
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
includes a chart detailing the key parameters of each State's law.
State policy designs offer lessons about what a workable national
paid leave program should look like, and comparisons to more generous
State plans show that the FAMILY Act is a reasonable, common-sense
approach to guaranteeing paid leave to America's workforce. I'll touch
briefly on key elements that must be embedded in any paid leave plan in
order for it to meet the country's needs:
Comprehensive of all FMLA-covered events and gender-equal.
The FAMILY Act would provide paid leave to people equally, no
matter their gender, for each FMLA-covered event--caring for a
family member with a serious health condition, one's own
serious health condition, military family care needs and care
for a new child. In every State that has adopted a paid leave
plan so far--and in the vast majority of the bills introduced
in more than 30 States in the most recent legislative
sessions--paid leave would be available for new parents, people
caring for seriously ill or injured family members and people's
own serious illnesses. To create consistency and to meet the
needs of the workforce and employers now and in the future, any
Federal plan must include all of the FMLA-covered reasons that
working people need leave and must offer gender-equal benefits.
Adequate wage replacement. The FAMILY Act offers a 66-
percent wage replacement rate, up to a $4,000 monthly cap.
Early research on California indicated that California's
original wage replacement rate of 55 percent was too low for
low-wage workers to be able to make maximum use of leave, even
as its weekly cap ($1,216 in 2018, around $1,000 in 2013) was
high enough for middle-income workers;\64\ As a result of early
studies and a market research report conducted by the
California Employment Development Department,\65\ the
California legislature updated the State's paid family leave
program in 2016 to increase the wage replacement rate up to 70
percent for lower-wage workers and 60 percent for others. Rhode
Island's plan offers approximately 60 percent of a worker's
wages (up to just over $800 per week); New York's plan will
offer a two-thirds wage replacement rate when the program is
fully phased in in 2021 (with a maximum weekly benefit capped
at $1,000); and Washington, the District of Columbia, and
Massachusetts have each included higher wage replacement rates
of 80 to 90 percent for lower-wage workers so they can afford
to take leave, with reduced wage replacement rates for higher-
income workers (still averaging around two-thirds wage
replacement for median-wage workers, with weekly caps of $850-
1,000 per week).\66\
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\64\ Bana, S., Bedard, K., and Rossin-Slater, M. (2018, May).
``Trends and Disparities in Leave Use Under California's Paid Family
Leave Program: New Evidence From Administrative Data.'' AEA Papers and
Proceedings, 108, 388-391. Retrieved 3 July 2018, from https://
www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pandp.20181113; State of California
Employment Development Department. (2015, December 14). Paid Family
Leave Market Research. Retrieved 2 July 2018, from https://
www.edd.ca.gov/Disability/pdf/Paid_Family_Leave_Market_Research_
Report_2015.pdf; Milkman, R., and Appelbaum, E. (2013). Unfinished
Business: Paid Family Leave in California and the Future of U.S. Work-
Family Policy (pp. 67-68). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
\65\ State of California Employment Development Department. (2015,
December 14). Paid Family Leave Market Research. Retrieved 2 July 2018,
from https://www.edd.ca.gov/Disability/pdf/
Paid_Family_Leave_Market_Research_Report_2015.pdf.
\66\ See note 63.
Any Federal plan must replace at least two-thirds of a
worker's wages, as the FAMILY Act does, and offer a meaningful
capped benefit so that middle-wage workers can afford to take
leave. As Congress considers paid leave policy options, it
could also consider progressive wage replacement as the three
newest State programs have done, so that lower-wage workers
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
receive a higher share of their wages.
Meaningful duration of leave. The FAMILY Act offers a
combined 12 weeks of leave annually for all FMLA purposes to
create consistency with the FMLA, reflect the minimum amount of
leave needed for maternal and child health and to provide
adequate paid time off for people dealing with personal or
family care needs.\67\ States' TDI and paid family leave
programs go further, and analysis shows that people only use
the leave they need, rather than the maximum amount
available;\68\ after all, with replacement of only a portion of
one's typical wages, people have an incentive to get back to
work when their need to provide or receive care is over.
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\67\ WORLD Policy Analysis Center. (2018, February). A Review of
the Evidence on the Length of Paid Family and Medical Leave. Retrieved
3 July 2018, from https://www.worldpolicycenter.
org/sites/default/files/WORLD%20Brief%20-
%20Length%20Paid%20Family%20and%20Medical
%20Leave.pdf.
\68\ Analysis of State temporary disability insurance and paid
family leave insurance programs in California, New Jersey, and Rhode
Island conducted by Dr. Sarah Jane Glynn for the National Partnership
for Women and Families, January 2018; see also Bana, S., Bedard, K.,
and Rossin-Slater, M. (2018, May). ``Trends and Disparities in Leave
Use Under California's Paid Family Leave Program: New Evidence From
Administrative Data.'' AEA Papers and Proceedings, 108, 388-391.
Retrieved 3 July 2018, from https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/
pandp.20181113.
The duration of leave in the FAMILY Act is modest compared
to many State plans. California provides six weeks of paid
leave for family caregiving, including caring for a new child,
and 52 weeks of leave to recover from a temporary
disability;\69\ average utilization is 16 weeks for TDI and 5.4
weeks for paid family leave (women who give birth typically
take 12 weeks).\70\ New Jersey allows 6 weeks for family leave
and 26 weeks for temporary disability;\71\ average program
utilization is 71 days for TDI and 5.2 weeks for paid family
leave (again, women who give birth combine the two types of
leave).\72\ Rhode Island provides 4 weeks of family leave and
30 weeks of leave for temporary disability, up to a combined
total of 30 weeks per year;\73\ average utilization is 10.4
weeks for TDI and 3.6 weeks for paid family leave.\74\ New York
will eventually offer 12 weeks of family leave when the law is
fully phased in in 2021, and has long provided 26 weeks of
temporary disability leave.\75\ Washington State will soon
offer 12 weeks of family leave and 12 to 14 weeks of personal
medical leave, up to a combined total of 16 to 18 weeks per
year.\76\ And Massachusetts has just enacted a law that will
provide 12 weeks of family leave and 20 weeks of medical leave,
up to a combined total of 26 weeks annually.\77\
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\69\ Cal. Unemp. Ins. Code Sec. Sec. 3301(c), 2653.
\70\ State of California Employment Development Department. (2018,
June 12). Disability Insurance (DI)--Monthly Data. Retrieved 2 July
2018, from https://data.edd.ca.gov/Disability-Insurance/Disability-
Insurance-DI-Monthly-Data/29jg-ip7e/data; State of California
Employment Development Department. (2018, June 12). Paid Family Leave
(PFL)--Monthly Data. Retrieved 2 July 2018, from https://
data.edd.ca.gov/Disability-Insurance/Paid-Family-Leave-PFL-Monthly-
Data/r95e-fvkm.
\71\ N.J. Stat. Sec. 43:21-39(b).
\72\ New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development.
(2017, August). Temporary Disability Insurance Workload in 2016:
Summary Report. Retrieved 2 July 2018, from https://www.nj.gov/labor/
forms_pdfs/tdi/TDI%20Report%20for%202016.pdf; New Jersey Department of
Labor and Workforce Development. (2017, August). Family Leave Insurance
Workload in 2016: Summary Report. Retrieved 2 July 2018, from https://
www.nj.gov/labor/forms_pdfs/tdi/
FLI%20Summary%20Report%20for%202016.pdf.
\73\ R.I. Gen. Laws Sec. Sec. 28-41-7, 28-41-35(d)(1), (f).
\74\ Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training. (2017). 2016
Annual Report. Retrieved 3 July 2018, from http://www.dlt.ri.gov/pdf/
2016AnnualRpt.pdf.
\75\ N.Y. Workers' Comp. Law Sec. Sec. 204(2)(A), 205(1).
\76\ S.B. 5975, 65th Leg., 3rd Special Sess. (Wash. 2017).
\77\ H. 4640, 190th Gen. Court, Reg. Sess. (Mass. 2018).
Inclusive family definitions. The FAMILY Act incorporates
the FMLA's definition of family members (parents, children
under 18, adult children incapable of self-care, spouses) and
domestic partners. Each State paid leave law includes those
covered in this definition and all but one (New Jersey) is
substantially more expansive, recognizing that families come in
many forms. For example, in 2013, California amended its law to
allow family caregiving for grandparents, grandchildren,
siblings, and parents-in-law, and now every State paid leave
program except New Jersey's includes caring for a grandparent
in addition to a parent, spouse, partner, or child. Four States
permit family care leave to be used for siblings; three
recognize grandchildren; two recognize parents-in-law.\78\
Families in the United States are diverse, and Federal law
should recognize different ways that families manage the care
needs of their loved ones.
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\78\ See note 63.
Affordable, sustainable funding. The FAMILY Act would be
funded through small payroll deductions shared equally by
employers and employees, or paid in full by independent
contractors who receive 1099 forms. This is consistent with
State financing of paid leave: each State plan is funded
through payroll deductions that are either paid by employers,
employees, or shared in some proportion by each. In no State
are payroll deductions onerous, ranging from 0.09 percent in
New Jersey (taxed on only the first $33,700 in wages) for 6
weeks of family and parental leave \79\ and 0.126 percent in
New York for 8 weeks of family leave (taxed on the first
$67,908 in wages), to up to 1 percent of wages in California
(taxed on employees' first $114,967 in wages), which funds a
statewide program offering 52 weeks of TDI and 6 weeks of
family care and parental leave, and 1.1 percent in Rhode Island
(taxed on employees' first $69,300 in wages), which funds a
State program offering 30 weeks of disability and 4 weeks of
family care and parental leave.\80\
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\79\ State of New Jersey Employment Development Department. (n.d.).
FLI--Cost to the Worker. Retrieved 6 July 2018, from https://
www.nj.gov/labor/fli/content/cost.html; temporary disability insurance
is shared in New Jersey--0.19 percent of the first $33,700 for workers
and an amount ranging from 0.1 to 0.75 for employers on the first
$33,700 of a workers' wages to fund the State's 26-week temporary
disability insurance program. State of New Jersey Employment
Development Department. (n.d.). TDI--Cost to the Worker--State Plan.
Retrieved 6 July 2018, from https://www.nj.gov/labor/tdi/state/
sp_cost.html.
\80\ See note 63.
To my knowledge, there has not been any backlash in States
on these payroll deduction rates nor does the literature
reflect any indication of pushback on these rates as too high
or too onerous for either low-wage workers or, where
applicable, employers. Researchers have modeled the costs of
paid leave programs in States across the country and at the
Federal level and routinely estimate payroll deductions at or
below 1 percent--most within the 0.35 to 0.6 range--depending
on the duration of leave and the wage replacement rate.\81\
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\81\ Hayes, J., and Hartmann, H. (2018, February 2). Paid Family
and Medical Leave Insurance: Modest Costs Are a Good Investment in
America's Economy. Institute for Women's Policy Research publication.
Retrieved 5 July 2018, from https://iwpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/
02/B368_Paid-Leave-Fact-Sheet-1.pdf; Pennsylvania Department of Labor
and Industry. (2017, November 14). Paid Family and Medical Leave in
Pennsylvania: Research Findings Report (p. 16). Retrieved 3 July 2018,
from https://www.dol.gov/wb/media/Pennsylvania_Final_Report.pdf;
Montana Budget and Policy Center. (2016, May). Helping People Balance
Work and Family: It's Within Montana's Reach (Table 2). Retrieved 3
July 2018, from http://www.mbadmin.jaunt.
cloud/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Paid-Leave-Updated-Report-3.pdf;
Glynn, S.J., Goldin, G., and Hayes, J. (2016). Implementing Paid Family
and Medical Leave Insurance Connecticut (pp. 17-21). Institute for
Women's Policy Research publication. Retrieved 3 July 2018, from
https://www.ctdol.state.ct.us/FMLI%20report%20for%20CT.pdf; University
of Minnesota (2016, February). Paid Family and Medical Leave Insurance:
Options for Designing and Implementing a Minnesota Program (Table 63).
Retrieved 3 July 2018, from https://mn.gov/deed/assets/paid-family-
medical_tcm1045-300604.pdf; Albelda, R., and Clayton-Matthews, A.
(2016, July 18). Cost, Leave and Length Estimates Using Eight Different
Leave Program Schemes for Washington (Table 2). Retrieved 3 July 2018,
from http://governor.wa.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2016-11-
22_WAPaidLeave_modeling_final_report.pdf; see also ibid.
Employment protections. The FAMILY Act would offer anti-
retaliation protections to the 41 percent of workers who are
not covered by the Federal FMLA.\82\ This is critical because
research on California's program and New Jersey's has shown
that workers without FMLA job protection, particularly low-
income workers, often fear repercussions for taking leave and
therefore forgo the paid leave that the State plan makes
available.\83\ Newer State laws address this critical need for
employment security, with Massachusetts offering full job
protection--reinstatement to the same or an equivalent job
after returning from leave--for family and medical leave, and
New York and Rhode Island offering job protection for family
leave. The State FMLA law in California was just amended to
offer job protection to new parents in smaller businesses so
that these paid leave-takers are protected; FMLA and anti-
discrimination laws are also more expansive in Washington, DC
and Washington State and will protect some paid-leave takers
that are not covered by the Federal FMLA.\84\
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\82\ See note 16.
\83\ See note 65; see also Setty, S., Skinner, C., and Wilson-
Simmons, R. (2016, March). Protecting Workers, Nurturing Families:
Building an Inclusive Family Leave Insurance Program Findings and
Recommendations From the New Jersey Parenting Project. National Center
for Children in Poverty publication. Retrieved 3 July 2018, from http:/
/www.nccp.org/publications/pub_1152.html.
\84\ See note 63.
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B. Public Support for the FAMILY Act Approach
Not only is the FAMILY Act informed by research and successful
State experience, it is the type of plan voters support. Survey after
survey confirms that people in the United States want and need paid
family and medical leave and that a plan like the FAMILY Act fits their
needs and desires. At the end of 2016, 71 percent of voters said they
or their families would face substantial financial hardship if a
serious family or medical need arose.\85\ Eight in 10 (82 percent) said
it was important for Congress and the president to consider creating a
national paid leave plan. More than three-quarters (78 percent)
expressed support for a comprehensive, 12-week national paid family and
medical leave law, including 66 percent of Republicans, 77 percent of
independents and 93 percent of Democrats; nearly two-thirds of voters
(64 percent) said they would ``strongly favor'' such a law.\86\
Research in 15 States conducted earlier in 2016 confirmed voters'
willingness to pay for a paid leave plan, and most indicated they were
willing to pay much more than the FAMILY Act would cost.\87\
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\85\ Lake Research Partners and the Tarrance Group. (2016,
November). Polling commissioned by the National Partnership for Women
and Families. Retrieved 2 July 2018, from http://
www.nationalpartnership.org/research-library/work-family/lake-research-
partners-2016-election-eve-omnibus-toplines-for-national-partnership-
for-women-and-families.pdf.
\86\ Ibid.
\87\ National Partnership for Women and Families. (2016, September
29). Voters' Willingness to Pay for a National Paid Leave Fund.
Retrieved 3 July 2018, from http://www.
nationalpartnership.org/research-library/work-family/paid-leave/memo-
voters-willingness-to-pay-for-a-national-paid-leave-fund.pdf.
To follow up on national polling, the National Partnership
commissioned a bipartisan research team to conduct focus groups with
conservative and independent voters in September 2017 in Missouri,
Nevada, Texas, and Virginia. These voters, most of whom had voted for
the President Trump, preferred the FAMILY Act model to an employer tax
credit, a tax-free savings account or a limited parents-only leave
program; they found the shared contribution system used in the FAMILY
Act to be fair, its cost to be reasonable and its comprehensive
coverage of family care, personal medical leave, and parental leave to
be essential to meeting their current or anticipated needs.\88\
Additional qualitative research commissioned around the same time by
the national grassroots group, MomsRising, also concluded that voters
see the need for paid leave that covers all family care needs and
stress the importance of protecting leave-takers against adverse
consequences at work.\89\
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\88\ Perry Undem Research and Bellwether Consulting. (2018,
January). Highlights From Focus Groups With Conservative Voters on Paid
Family and Medical Leave (on file with the National Partnership for
Women and Families).
\89\ Lake Research Partners and MomsRising.org (2018, February).
Interested Parties Memo on Key Findings From Recent Qualitative
Research. Retrieved 2 July 2018, from https://s3.amazonaws.com/
s3.momsrising.org/images/MomsRising__LPR_Interested_Parties_memo_on_
paid_leave.pdf.
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C. Business Support for the FAMILY Act Approach
More than 75 companies and business leaders across the country have
endorsed the FAMILY Act.\90\ They represent a cross-section of
industries, including apparel manufacturing and sales, food and
hospitality, technology, and financial services. The reasons they give
echo those offered by more than 200 business and management school
experts who, in 2015, reached out to Congress asking for your support
in passing the FAMILY Act \91\--gender equity, workforce and talent
development, and U.S. competitiveness, among others.
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\90\ Better Workplaces, Better Businesses. (n.d.). Testimonials
From Business Leaders Who Support the FAMILY Act. Retrieved 2 July
2018, from http://betterwbb.org/testimonials-from-business-leaders-who-
support-the-family-act/.
\91\ See note 7.
Over the past 2 years, in individual discussions with company
leaders and in meetings with employer coalitions and benefits
consultants, we have seen a growing interest in establishing a national
paid leave baseline. Some businesses want the certainty and stability
that a Federal standard would provide; they believe paid leave is
coming, either at the State level or nationally, and would prefer to
level-set on a national basis. Others focus on the value that their own
strong paid leave policies have had on their employees' lives and
believe that all working people and families should have the same. For
example, a senior leader at Environmental Science Associates (ESA), a
mid-size company with several hundred employees at offices in
California and several other States, has spoken publicly about the
positive effects that California's law has had on employees there and
indicated that ESA would like their employees in other States to have
those benefits through public policy too.\92\
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\92\ Bonilla, A. (2017, March 29). ``Making the Business Case for a
More Family Friendly and Prosperous America'' [video stream of Silicon
Valley Community Foundation event]. Retrieved 6 July 2018, from https:/
/www.facebook.com/LeaveLogic/videos/1455624167795091/.
It is not just larger businesses that support the FAMILY Act
approach. Smaller businesses across the country see value in a shared-
cost model like the ones that have benefited small companies in
California, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. These small business owners
say the FAMILY Act model would help level the playing field with large
corporations, improve worker retention, productivity and morale, and
help protect their own economic security if an accident or medical
emergency occurs.\93\ This is part of the reason that 70 percent of
small businesses with 100 or fewer employees surveyed nationwide
support the FAMILY Act model of shared payroll deductions.\94\
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\93\ Main Street Alliance. (2017). National Paid Family and Medical
Leave: A Proposal for Small Business Success. Retrieved 2 July 2018,
from https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/
mainstreetalliance/pages/10/attachments/original/1486411533/
PFML_2017_Report.pdf?14864
11533.
\94\ Lake Research Partners. (2017, February). Polling commissioned
by Small Business Majority and Center for American Progress. Retrieved
2 July 2018, from http://www.smallbusiness
majority.org/sites/default/files/research-reports/033017-paid-leave-
poll.pdf.
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iii. paid leave and retirement security are both important--
one cannot come at the expense of the other
The developing consensus that a social insurance model is the right
way to design a national paid leave program is encouraging--and we
agree that, with new resources for start-up and technology
improvements, benefits and administration, the SSA is the agency that
is best positioned to administer this benefit. But it is reckless and
unnecessary to jeopardize Social Security's core functions and workers'
retirement savings in order to provide paid leave. Social Security
represents a promise to U.S. workers and their families that has been
built up and honored for more than 80 years; Social Security has a
history of updates to better reflect people's needs, but those updates
have always been additive. Social Security should not be limited, cut,
or privatized.
No one should face delayed retirement and a benefit cut in the
future because they access paid leave today. We are deeply concerned
that, under a plan proposed by the Independent Women's Forum (IWF),
working people would face exactly that Hobson's choice.\95\ The IWF
proposal would fundamentally alter the operating principle of Social
Security by contemplating that people who use the program early in life
would later face a penalty for doing so. No paid leave program should
ever penalize those who use it.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\95\ We are responding here to the January 2018 ``policy focus''
paper published by the Independent Women's Forum, which proposes
allowing people to use existing Social Security resources, at Social
Security Disability Insurance wage replacement rates, to fund 12 weeks
of paid parental leave. See Shapiro, K.A. (2018, Jan.), A Budget
Neutral Approach to Parental Leave. Independent Women's Forum
publication. Retrieved 9 July 2018 from http://iwf.org/publications/
2805496/Policy-Focus:-A-Budget-Neutral-Approach-to-Parental-Leave.
There are five key problems with the IWF approach, based on the
research and evidence presented above, the realities of retirement for
millions of women, low-
income workers, and people of color, and the current circumstances of
the SSA itself.
A. Parental Leave Only Is Insufficient
First, as discussed in Section I, any plan that applies only to
parents caring for new children and excludes 75 percent of people who
take family and medical leave is unacceptable, short-sighted, and would
very likely be detrimental to the income and retirement security of a
growing share of the population caring for aging and ill loved ones or
their own serious health issue. Parental-only leave would also lead to
stark inequities within the workplace, even for people with young
children: a parent of a newborn would have access to paid time away
from work for bonding, but a coworker whose six-month-old is critically
ill or whose spouse needs postpartum care would have no guarantee of
time or income support.
B. Wage Replacement Rates and Benefit Caps Are Too Low to Be Meaningful
for Most People
Second, although Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) rates
do provide very high wage replacement to the very lowest income
workers, its wage replacement rates drop sharply. The parental leave
benefit proposed by IWF would provide inadequate levels of wage
replacement to most workers (an estimated 45 percent of usual wages,
according to IWF, or 54 percent, according to the Urban Institute).
Moreover, the average SSDI monthly benefits (approximately $1,200 in
2018) are much lower than what State plans offer.\96\ As noted above,
researchers studying California's paid family leave program concluded
that its original 55-percent wage replacement rate was too low for many
workers to use, precipitating a change in California's law. Newer State
programs have responded as well, by creating progressive wage
replacement rates that provide more wage replacement to low-income
workers during their leaves and meaningful wage replacement for all
people who take leave. Researchers who have studied examples abroad
conclude that wage replacement should be at least 67 percent of a
worker's usual wages, and that an optimal wage replacement rate for
both affordability and gender equity is 80 percent.\97\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\96\ Social Security Administration. (2018). Annual Statistical
Supplement, 2018 (Table 5.E1). Retrieved 3 July 2018, from https://
www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/statcomps/supplement/2018/5e.html#table5.e2.
\97\ WORLD Policy Analysis Center. (2018, February). A Review of
the Evidence on Payment and Financing of Family and Medical Leave.
Retrieved 3 July 2018, from https://www.
worldpolicycenter.org/sites/default/files/WORLD%20Brief%20-
%20Payment%20and%20Fi
nancing%20of%20Paid%20Family%20and%20Medical%20Leave_0.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
C. The IWF Policy Design Could Promote Gender Bias and Reinforce
Gendered Caregiving Norms
The first and second problems together create a third: the risk of
exacerbating gender-based bias and reinforcing, rather than breaking
down, gender stereotypes. A program that only covers new parents and
offers low wage replacement rates will be used primarily by lower-wage
women who have given birth and have no other option and a significant
need. Indeed, one reason the FMLA was designed to cover family
caregiving leave and personal medical leave was to minimize the
potential for employment discrimination.\98\ While fathers increasingly
want to, and do, provide care for their families,\99\ norms and
stereotypes about gender, work, and caregiving mean that some employers
perceive mothers and young women as less committed workers. A paid
leave program that is only accessible to parents, especially one with
low wage replacement and low maximum benefits, could exacerbate
implicit bias and discrimination, undermining the potential of gender-
equal leave to help create workplace equity and foster women's
employment opportunities.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\98\ Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, Pub. L. No. 103-3,
Sec. 2, 107 Stat. 6, 6-7 (1993), available at https://www.dol.gov/whd/
fmla/fmlaAmended.htm#SEC_2_FINDINGS_AND_PURPOS
ES.
\99\ Harrington, B., Van Deusen, F., Sabatini Fraone, J., Eddy, S.,
and Haas, L. (2014). The New Dad: Take Your Leave. Perspectives on
paternity leave from fathers, leading organizations, and global
policies. Boston College Center for Work and Family publication.
Retrieved 2 July 2018, from http://www.thenewdad.org/yahoo_site_admin/
assets/docs/BCCWF_The_New_Dad_2014_
FINAL.157170735.pdf; Heilman, B., Cole, G., Matos, K., Hassink, A.,
Mincy, R., and Barker, G. (2016). State of America's Fathers. A MenCare
Advocacy Publication. Retrieved 2 July 2018, from http://men-care.org/
soaf/download/PRO16001_Americas_Father_web.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
D. Retirement Penalties Would Average Tens of Thousands of Dollars--
With Especially Harsh Effects in Retirement for Women, People
of Color, and Lower-Wage Workers
Fourth, and of intense concern, is the penalty at retirement that
workers who have used parental leave benefits will be forced to absorb.
The IWF paper incorrectly assumes that people can make an unconstrained
choice to work longer, and it also frames delayed retirement as a
trade-off between working longer and a benefit cut, when in fact,
delaying retirement itself means lower lifetime benefits. Urban
Institute researchers estimate that a 12-week leave would require a 20-
25 week increase in the age at which a retiree can receive full
benefits, which is equivalent to a 3-percent benefit cut.\100\ Two 12-
week leaves--the duration that a mother with two children might take--
would require a 6-percent benefit cut. The lifetime loss of benefits
would average more than $12,500 for a mother of two, whether she delays
her retirement date or retires on time with a reduced monthly benefit.
A family that has four children would see a 10 percent reduction in
Social Security benefits--essentially penalizing parents who choose to
have larger families.\101\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\100\ Favreault, M.M., and Johnson, R.W. (2018, April). Paying for
Parental Leave With Future Social Security Benefits. Urban Institute
publication. Retrieved 3 July 2018, from https://www.urban.org/sites/
default/files/publication/98101/paying_for_parental_leave_with_future_
social_security_benefits_0.pdf.
\101\ Ibid.
The IWF proposal would be particularly detrimental to women's
retirement security, as well as to people of color and low-wage
workers, who are less likely to have employer-provided paid parental
leave \102\ and therefore would be more likely to use parental leave
benefits that will cost them retirement income they will need later.
Social Security benefits comprise a larger total share of retirement
income for these workers in retirement,\103\ so the IWF proposal is
especially concerning. Women would be substantially harmed because they
spend more time out of the workforce or reduce their working hours to
care for children and older adults and also have lower average wages
for full-time, year-round work relative to men. These factors
contribute to a gender gap in Social Security retirement benefits,
which are an average of 20 percent lower for women--$1,244 for women
compared to $1,565 per month for men, as of December 2017.\104\ For
women of color, the double bind of the wage gap and the racial wealth
gap is even more punishing at retirement.\105\ The fundamental goal of
a national paid leave program should be to strengthen and support women
and working families; the IWF proposal instead promises to take the
most from those who can afford it the least.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\102\ See note 1, table 32; Analysis of demographic data from
several U.S. Government surveys conducted for the National Partnership
for Women and Families by E. Del Morone, E. Hamilton, E. Krevsky, A.
Sproveri, and C. Viall, The George Washington University Trachtenberg
School of Public Policy and Public Administration, May 2018 (on file
with the National Partnership for Women and Families).
\103\ Dushi, I., Iams, H.M., and Trenkamp, B. (2017, May). ``The
Importance of Social Security Benefits to the Income of the Aged
Population.'' Social Security Bulletin, 77(2), 1-12. Retrieved 3 July
2018, from https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v77n2/v77n2p1.html.
\104\ Social Security Administration. (2018). Annual Statistical
Supplement, 2018 (Table 5.A6). Retrieved 3 July 2018, from https://
www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/statcomps/supplement/2018/5a.html#table5.a6.
\105\ McCulloch, H. (2017, January). Closing the Women's Wealth
Gap: What it Is, Why it Matters, and What Can Be Done About it. Closing
the Women's Wealth Gap Initiative publication. Retrieved 3 July 2018,
from https://womenswealthgap.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Closing-
the-Womens-Wealth-Gap-Report-Jan2017.pdf; see also Richard, K. (2014,
October). The Wealth Gap for Women of Color. Center for Global Policy
Solutions publication. Retrieved 3 July 2018, from http://
www.globalpolicysolutions.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Wealth-Gap-
for-Women-of-Color.pdf; National Academy of Social Insurance. (n.d.).
Social Security and People of Color. Retrieved 3 July 2018, from
https://www.nasi.org/learn/socialsecurity/people-of-color.
E. The Social Security Administration Needs Enhanced Resources and Not
a Diversion of Existing Resources to Administer a New Benefit
Fifth, the IWF proposal does not contemplate any new resources for
the SSA to create or administer this new benefit. SSA is already
underfunded, has backlogs and is unable to provide the high-level of
customer service that people need.\106\ Congress should provide the SSA
more funds to help retirees and people with disabilities live with
greater financial security and to shore up SSA technology and
infrastructure--not repurpose limited resources and further stretch
already-overburdened SSA staff to implement a new program and add new
benefits from existing funds.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\106\ Romig, K. (2017, October 6). More Cuts to Social Security
Administration Funding Would Further Degrade Service. Center on Budget
and Policy Priorities publication. Retrieved 3 July 2018, from https://
www.cbpp.org/research/social-security/more-cuts-to-social-security-
administration-funding-would-further-degrade.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
F. Additional Concerns About Setting a Harmful Precedent
Beyond the four corners of the IWF proposal itself, the concept
creates a dangerous precedent of diverting existing, dedicated Social
Security funds for non-
retirement purposes and encouraging an individualized, pro-
privatization mindset about this bedrock social insurance program. The
president of the IWF has said as much.\107\ Social Security works
because everyone pays in; a national paid leave program would work
because everyone would pay in. This would keep costs low and benefits
meaningful and available when people need them.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\107\ Lukas, C. (2018, February 2). Why Running Parent Leave
Through Social Security Is The Smartest Live Option. The Federalist
publication. Retrieved 3 July 2018, from https://thefederalist.com/
2018/02/02/running-parent-leave-social-security-smartest-live-option/
(IWF president Carrie Lukas writes that ``encouraging people to think
about Social Security's assets as if those benefits are their property
for use now or at retirement could even encourage people to want to
move more in that direction [of privatization and individual control of
Social Security assets] and transform the current pay-as-you-go system
into one that pre-funds future benefits and with assets that belong to
individuals.'')
Finally, while the IWF proposal purports to be budget-neutral, the
Urban Institute analysis found that such a program would in fact run a
cash deficit every year of its operation because the costs of one
cohort's leave-taking would not be recouped until their retirement
benefit offsets had been fully realized--generally decades later.
Furthermore, it would raise the net costs of the Social Security
program by an estimated 1 percent per year and would slightly
accelerate the projected date at which Social Security would no longer
be able to pay full scheduled retirement benefits.\108\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\108\ See note 99.
We at the National Partnership for Women and Families are eager to
engage in a bipartisan process that results in a strong, comprehensive,
sustainable and affordable national paid family and medical leave
social insurance program. We look forward to working with you and your
colleagues to help ensure that people who work have the security and
stability they need to take time from their jobs to gaze into the eyes
of a new child and form a lifelong bond, hold the hand of a dying
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
parent, or recover from their own serious health issue.
Research and evidence show what a workable plan should include and
how it can be designed efficiently and effectively to provide baseline
paid leave coverage to every working person in the country, no matter
where they live or work or the job they hold. I urge you not to be
tempted by a half-measure that would do more harm than good. The FAMILY
Act is the paid leave plan the country needs to strengthen families,
businesses and our economy and promote many of the core values we
collectively hold most dear.
Thank you. I look forward to answering your questions.
State Paid Family and Medical Leave Insurance Laws--July 2018
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
District of
California New Jersey Rhode Island New York Columbia Washington Massachusetts
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Status Enacted 2002, Enacted 2008, Enacted 2013, Enacted 2016, Enacted 2017, Enacted 2017, Enacted 2018,
effective 2004; effective 2009 effective effective effective July effective effective July
expanded 2016, January 2014 January 2018 2020 January 2019 2019, January
effective 2018; (premiums) and 2020, January
expanded 2017, January 2020 2021
effective 2020 (benefits)
(A.B. 908, 2015- (N.J. Stat. Ann. (R.I. Gen. Laws (S. 6406C, Part (D.C. Law 21-264 (S.B. 5975, 65th (H. 4640 Sec.
2016 Leg., Reg. Sec. 43:21-38) Sec. Sec. 28-41- SS, 239th Leg., (D.C. 2016)) Leg., 3rd 29, 190th Gen.
Sess. (Cal. 2016) 35(h)) Reg. Sess. (N.Y. Special Sess. Court, Reg.
(enacted); S.B. 2016) (enacted)) (Wash. 2017) Sess. (Mass.
63, 2017-2018 (enacted)) 2018) (enacted))
Leg., Reg. Sess.
(Cal. 2017)
(enacted))
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reasons for paid 1. Bonding with 1. Care for new 1. Bonding with 1. Bonding with 1. Bonding with 1. Bonding with 1. Bonding with
leave new child (birth, child (birth, new child new child new child new child new child
adoption, foster) adoption, (birth, (birth, (birth, (birth, (birth,
foster) adoption, adoption, adoption, adoption, adoption,
foster) foster) foster) foster) foster)
2. Care for family 2. Care for 2. Care for 2. Care for 2. Care for 2. Care for 2. Care for
member with family member family member family member family member family member family member
serious health with serious with serious with serious with serious with serious with serious
condition health condition health condition health condition health condition health condition health condition
3. Care for own 3. Care for own 3. Care for own 3. Qualifying 3. Care for own 3. Care for own 3. Care for own
disability (must disability (must disability (must exigency arising serious health serious health serious health
be unable to be continuously be unable to out of spouse, condition condition condition
perform regular and totally perform regular domestic
or customary unable to or customary partner, child,
work), includes perform work; partially or parent being
pregnancy customary work), unemployed on active duty
includes workers may be (or having been
pregnancy able to claim notified of an
benefits) impending call
or order to
active duty)
(Cal. Unemp. Ins. (N.J. Stat. Ann. (R.I. Gen. Laws 4. Care for own (D.C. Law 21-264 4. Qualifying 4. Qualifying
Code Sec. Sec. Sec. Sec. 43:21 Sec. Sec. 28-39 disability (must Sec. Sec. 101(1 exigency arising exigency arising
2626, 3302(e)) -27(g), (o)) -2, 28-41-5(d)), be unable to 2)-(17), 104(a)- out of family out of family
28-41-35(a)) perform work) (b) (D.C. 2016)) member being on member being on
active duty (or active duty (or
having been having been
notified of an notified of an
impending call impending call
or order to or order to
active duty) active duty)
(N.Y. Workers' (S.B. 5975, 65th 5. Care for
Comp. Law Sec. Leg., 3rd family member
201(14) (as Special Sess. who is a covered
amended by S. (Wash. 2017) servicemember
6406C)) (enacted))
(H. 4640 Sec.
29(2)(a), 190th
Gen. Court, Reg.
Sess. (Mass.
2018) (enacted))
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Definition of Child, parent, Child, parent, Child, parent, Child, parent, Child, parent, Child, parent, Child, parent, or
family member spouse, domestic spouse, domestic spouse, domestic spouse, domestic spouse, domestic spouse, domestic parent of a
partner partner, civil partner, partner, partner, partner, spouse or
union partner grandparent grandparent, grandparent, grandchild, domestic
grandchild sibling grandparent, partner, spouse,
sibling domestic
partner,
grandchild,
grandparent,
sibling
Amended in 2013 (N.J. Stat. Ann. (R.I. Gen. Laws (N.Y. Workers' (D.C. Law 21-264 (S.B. 5975 Sec. (H. 4640 Sec.
(effective 2014) Sec. 43:21-27(n Sec. 28-41-35(a Comp. Law Sec. Sec. 101(7) 2, 65th Leg., 29(1), 190th
to add )) )) 201(16), (17), (D.C. 2016)) 3rd Special Gen. Court, Reg.
grandparent, (19)-(21) (as Sess. (Wash. Sess. (Mass.
grandchild, amended by S. 2017) (enacted)) 2018) (enacted))
sibling, and 6406C))
parent-in-law
(Cal. Stat. Sec.
Sec. 3302(f)-(j)
)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maximum length of 6 weeks for family 6 weeks for 4 weeks for For family leave, 8 weeks for 12 weeks for 12 weeks for
paid leave leave family leave family leave 8 weeks in 2018; parental leave, family leave family leave
increasing to 10 6 weeks for
weeks in 2019 family care, 2
and to 12 weeks weeks for own
in 2021 serious health
(increases condition
subject to
delay)
(Cal. Unemp. Ins. 26 weeks for own (R.I. Gen. Laws 26 weeks for own No more than 8 12 weeks for own 26 weeks for
Code Sec. disability Sec. 28-41-35(d disability weeks total/year serious health caring for a
3301(c)) )(1)) for combined condition (14 if covered service
family and employee member
medical leave experiences
pregnancy-
related serious
health condition
that results in
incapacity); no
more than 16
weeks total/year
for combined own
serious health
condition and
family leave (18
if employee
experiences
pregnancy-
related serious
health condition
that results in
incapacity)
52 weeks for own (N.J. Stat. Ann. 30 weeks for own (N.Y. Workers' (D.C. Law 21-264 (S.B. 5975 Sec. 20 weeks for own
disability Sec. 43:21-38) disability; no Comp. Law Sec. Sec. Sec. 101(1 6, 65th Leg., serious health
more than 30 Sec. 204(2)(A), 2)-(17), 104(d) 3rd Special condition
weeks total/year 205(1)(A) (as (D.C. 2016)) Sess. (Wash.
for combined own amended by S. 2017) (enacted))
disability and 6406C))
family care
(Cal. Unemp. Ins. (R.I. Gen. Laws No more than 26
Code Sec. 2653) Sec. Sec. 28-41 weeks total/year
-7, 28-41-35(e)) for combined
family and
medical leave
(H. 4640 Sec.
29(2)(c), 190th
Gen. Court, Reg.
Sess. (Mass.
2018) (enacted))
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Minimum increment Statute does not Statute does not No minimum For family care, Leave can be 8 consecutive Statute does not
of leave time for mention the mention the increment of benefits can be taken in one-day hours mention the
which benefits minimum length of minimum length leave time; paid in increments minimum length
are payable leave time, just of leave time, claimants must increments of 1 of leave time,
benefits for just benefits initially be out full day or one- just benefits
intermittent for intermittent of work for at fifth of the for intermittent
leave leave least 7 weekly benefit leave
consecutive days
to be eligible
for benefits
(Cal. Unemp. Ins. (N.J. Stat. Ann. (11-000-002 R.I. (N.Y. Workers' (D.C. Law 21-264 (S.B. 5975 Sec. (H. 4640 Sec.
Code Sec. 3303) Sec. 43:21-39) Code R. Sec. Comp. Law Sec. Sec. 101(9) 6, 65th Leg., 29(2)(c), 190th
\1\ Sec. 16(G), 204(2)(A) (as (D.C. 2016)) 3rd Special Gen. Court, Reg.
37(D)) amended by S. Sess. (Wash. Sess. (Mass.
6406C)) 2017) (enacted)) 2018) (enacted))
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Employee Employee must have Employee must Employee must For family care, Employee must Must have worked Must meet the
eligibility been paid $300 in have had at have been paid employee must be spend more than for at least 820 financial
requirements wages during the least 20 wages in Rhode currently 50 percent of hours in 4 out eligibility
base period \2\ calendar weeks Island and paid employed by a work time in the of the 5 requirements of
of covered New into the TDI/TCI covered employer District of quarters prior the state
Jersey fund and must and must have Columbia for a to leave unemployment
employment, have been paid been employed by covered employer application insurance law
earning $168 or at least $12,120 a covered or be based in (currently, one
more each week, in the base employer for 26 the District of must have earned
or must have period or more Columbia and at least $4,700
been paid $8,400 consecutive regularly spend in the last 4
or more in such weeks (or 175 a substantial completed
employment days of amount of work calendar
during the base employment for time for the quarters and at
period \3\ part-time covered employer least 30 times
employees) in the District the weekly
of Columbia and unemployment
not more than 50 benefit amount
percent of work that person
time for that would be
covered employer eligible to
in another collect)
jurisdiction;
and must have
been a covered
employee for
some or all of
the 52 calendar
weeks preceding
the covered
event
Alternately, For own Self-employed (S.B. 5975 Sec. (H. 4640 Sec.
employees disability, individual must Sec. 2-3, 65th 29(1), 190th
qualify if they employee must have earned self- Leg., 3rd Gen. Court, Reg.
earned at least have been employment Special Sess. Sess. (Mass.
$2,020 in a employed by a income for work (Wash. 2017) 2018) (enacted))
quarter of their covered employer performed more (enacted)) \5\
base period, for 4 or more than 50 percent
their total base consecutive of the time in
period taxable weeks (or 25 the District of
wages were at days of Columbia during
least 150 employment for some or all of
percent of their part-time the 52 calendar
highest quarter employees) weeks preceding
of earnings, and the covered
their taxable event, and must
wages during have opted into
their base the paid leave
period are program
$4,040 or more
\4\
(N.Y. Workers' (D.C. Law 21-264
Comp. Law Sec. Sec. Sec. 101(3
203 (as amended )-(4), (6) (D.C.
by S. 6406C)) 2016))
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Discrimination Not more than Not more than Not more than Yes Yes Yes Yes
prohibited Federal Family Federal FMLA and Federal FMLA and
and Medical Leave New Jersey RI Parental and
Act (FMLA) and Family Leave Act Family Medical
California Family (NJ FLA) Leave Act
Rights Act (CFRA) (PFMLA)
(N.Y. Workers' (D.C. Law 21-264 (S.B. 5975 Sec. (H. 4640 Sec.
Comp. Law Sec. Sec. Sec. 101(1 72, 65th Leg., 29(9), 190th
120 (as amended 8), 110 (D.C. 3rd Special Gen. Court, Reg.
by S. 6406C)) 2016)) Sess. (Wash. Sess. (Mass.
2017) (enacted)) 2018) (enacted))
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Method to fund Own disability and State's temporary Own disability Own disability is Funded by For the program's For the program's
insurance system family care are disability and family care funded jointly employer only. first year, the first year, the
funded by the insurance are funded by by employee and The current rate total premium total premium
employee only program is the employee employer payroll is 0.62 percent rate is 0.4 rate is 0.63
(currently at 1 financed jointly only. The contributions. of wages or of percent of an percent of an
percent of by employee and current Each worker annual self- individual's employee's
worker's first employer payroll withholding rate contributes one employment taxable wage wages; employers
$114,967 in contributions. is 1.1 percent half of 1 income. base; employers can deduct from
wages) \6\ As of January 1, of worker's percent of the can deduct from the employee's
2018, each first $69,300 in worker's wages, the wages of wages the full
worker wages.\8\ up to 60 cents each employee amount of the
contributes 0.19 per week. The the full amount premium for
percent of the employer of the premium family leave and
taxable wage contributes the for family leave 40 percent of
base (the first balance of the and 45 percent the premium for
$33,700 in plan costs not of the premium medical leave.
covered wages covered by the for medical
paid during the employee.\9\ leave.
calendar year),
up to $64.03 per
year. The
contribution
rate for
employers varies
from 0.10 to
0.75 percent.
For 2018,
employers
contribute
between $33.70
and $252.75 on
the first
$33,700 paid to
each employee
during the
calendar
year.\7\
(D.C. Law 21-264 For each For each
Sec. 103 (D.C. following year, following year,
2016)) the premium rate the premium rate
is adjusted is adjusted
annually based based on the
on the solvency fund's
of the fund. expenditures.
Family care is Family care is Employers with Employers with
funded entirely funded by the fewer than 50 fewer than 25
by the employee. employee only. employees are employees are
Currently, each The current rate not required to not required to
worker is 0.126 percent pay their pay their
contributes 0.09 of the worker's portion; if they portion
percent of the first $67,907.84 do pay, they are
taxable wage in wages, up to eligible for
base (first $85.56 per year State
$33,700 in \11\ assistance.
covered wages Employers with
paid during the 150 or fewer
calendar year), employees are
and the maximum also eligible
yearly deduction for State
for family leave assistance with
insurance is premiums
$30.33 \10\
................. (S.B. 5975, 65th (H. 4640 Sec.
Leg., 3rd Sec. 29(6)-(7),
Special Sess. 30, 190th Gen.
(Wash. 2017) Court, Reg.
(enacted)) Sess. (Mass.
2018) (enacted))
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Size of employer All private sector Private and All private Most private Private sector All employers are Private sector
covered employers are public sector sector employers sector employers employers covered employers and
covered employers are covered are covered covered by the the state
covered by the D.C. government are
New Jersey Unemployment covered
Unemployment Compensation Act
Compensation Law are covered
must provide
paid leave for
family care and
temporary
disability, with
some exceptions
for government
employers \13\
(Cal. Unemp. Ins. Only some public Self-employed Self-employed (S.B. 5975, 65th Self-employed
Code Sec. Sec. employees are individuals can individuals can Leg., 3rd individuals* and
3302, 2606, 675, covered opt in opt in Special Sess. local
135) (Wash. 2017) governments can
(enacted)) opt in
Self-employed (R.I. Gen. Laws Certain public Employees of the Self-employed *Some self-
individuals can Sec. Sec. 28-39 employers (other D.C. city individuals and employed
opt in -2, -3) than the State government and independent individuals may
government) can the United contractors can be automatically
opt in to family States opt in covered
care or own Government, or
disability; the of any employer
State the District is
government, not authorized
certain public to tax under
employers, and Federal law or
public employees treaty, are not
represented by covered
an employee
organization can
only opt in to
family care
Only some public (N.Y. Workers' (D.C. Law 21-264 (S.B. 5975, 65th (H. 4640 Sec.
employees are Comp. Law Sec. Sec. 101(4) Leg., 3rd Sec. 29(1),
covered \12\ Sec. 201(4), (D.C. 2016)) Special Sess. (6)(e), 190th
212(2), (4)(B), (Wash. 2017) Gen. Court, Reg.
212-A, 212-B (as (enacted)) Sess. (Mass.
amended by S. 2018) (enacted))
6406C))
..................
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Benefit amount Beginning on The weekly The average For family care, For workers paid For workers paid For workers paid
January 1, 2018, benefit rate is weekly benefit in 2018, the wages less than 50 percent or 50 percent or
for a 4-year 66 percent of a rate is 4.62 weekly benefit or equal to 150 less of the less of the
period: worker's average percent of wages rate is 50 percent of the Statewide Statewide
weekly wage, paid during the percent of a D.C. minimum average weekly average weekly
with a maximum highest quarter worker's average wage multiplied wage (AWW), the wage (AWW), the
benefit of $637 of worker's base weekly wage by 40, the weekly benefit weekly benefit
in 2018 (maximum period, up to (AWW), not to weekly benefit rate is 90 rate is 80
adjusted $831 per week exceed 50 rate is 90 percent of the percent of the
annually based for claims percent of the percent of the worker's AWW. worker's AWW.
on Statewide effective State AWW; worker's average
average weekly January 1, 2018 benefit amounts weekly wage
wage) \14\ or later increase in 2019 rate.
(maximum to 55 percent of
adjusted the worker's
annually based weekly wage up
on Statewide to 55 percent of
average weekly the State AWW;
wage) \15\ in 2020 to 60
percent of the
worker's weekly
wage up to 60
percent of the
State AWW; and
in 2021, to 67
percent of the
worker's weekly
wage up to 67
percent of the
State AWW
(increases
subject to
delay)
(A) For workers For own For workers paid For workers paid For workers paid
whose quarterly disability, the more than 150 more than 50 more than 50
earnings are at weekly benefit percent of the percent of the percent of the
least $929 but rate is 50 D.C. minimum Statewide AWW, Statewide AWW,
less than \1/3\ percent of the wage multiplied the weekly the weekly
of the State employee's by 40, the benefit rate is benefit rate is
average quarterly weekly wage, weekly benefit 90 percent of 80 percent of
wage, the weekly with a maximum rate is 90 the employee's the employee's
benefit will be benefit of $170; percent of 150 AWW up to 50 AWW up to 50
70 percent of the however, if the percent of the percent of the percent of the
worker's weekly employee earns D.C. minimum Statewide AWW, Statewide AWW,
wage; less than $20 wage multiplied plus 50 percent plus 50 percent
per week, the by 40 plus 50 of the of the
benefit will be percent of the employee's AWW employee's AWW
their full amount by which that is more that is more
average weekly the worker's than 50 percent than 50 percent
wage average weekly of the Statewide of the Statewide
wage exceeds 150 AWW. AWW.
percent of the
D.C. minimum
wage multiplied
by 40, up to a
maximum of
$1,000 per week
(beginning in
2021, maximum
will be
increased
annually to
account for
inflation)
(B) For workers The average In December 2017, (N.Y. Workers' (D.C. Law 21-264 The maximum The maximum
whose quarterly weekly benefit the average Comp. Law Sec. Sec. 104(g) weekly benefit weekly benefit
earnings are at for family care weekly benefit Sec. 204(2)(A), (D.C. 2016)) is $1,000 in the is $850 in the
least \1/3\ of was $524 in was $542 for (B) (as amended program's first program's first
the State average 2016; benefit family care and by S. 6406C)) year, and will year, and will
quarterly wage, for own the average for be adjusted be adjusted
the weekly disability is own disability annually to an annually to an
benefit rate will not publicly was $492 \19\ amount equaling amount equaling
be 23.3 percent available \18\ 90 percent of 64 percent of
of the State the State AWW. the State AWW.
average weekly
wage OR 60
percent of the
worker's weekly
wage, whichever
is greater.
The maximum weekly (S.B. 5975, 65th (H. 4640 Sec.
benefit is $1,216 Leg., 3rd 29(3(b)), 30,
in 2018 (maximum Special Sess. 190th Gen.
adjusted annually (Wash. 2017) Court, Reg.
based on (enacted)) Sess. (Mass.
Statewide average 2018) (enacted)
weekly wage).
Workers with
quarterly
earnings less
than $929 will
receive a weekly
benefit of $50
\16\
(A.B. 908, 2015-
2016 Leg., Reg.
Sess. (Cal. 2016)
(enacted))
Note: The San
Francisco Board
of Supervisors
passed an
ordinance
requiring covered
employers to
provide
supplemental
compensation to
covered employees
taking leave to
care for a new
child for up to 6
weeks such that
the combined
weekly benefit
equals 100
percent of the
employee's weekly
wage. This
requirement
applies to
employers with 50
or more employees
starting in
January 2017,
expands to
employers with 35
or more employees
in July 2017 and
to employers with
20 or more
employees in
January 2018.
(San Francisco,
Cal. Ordinance
160065)
As of December
2017, the average
weekly benefit in
the State for
family care was
$601 and the
average for own
disability was
$550 \17\
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Job protection Not more than FMLA Not more than Leave for family Leave for family Not more than Not more than Yes
while on leave and CFRA FMLA and NJ FLA care is job- care is job- FMLA and D.C. FMLA and WA FMLA
protected but protected but FMLA
leave for own leave for own
disability is no disability is no
more protected more protected
than under FMLA than under FMLA
or RI PFMLA or NY PFMLA
(R.I. Gen. Laws (N.Y. Workers' (S.B. 5975, 65th (H. 4640 Sec.
Sec. 28-41-35(f Comp. Law Sec. Leg., 3rd Sec. 29(2(e)),
)) 203-b (as Special Sess. 30, 190th Gen.
amended by S. (Wash. 2017) Court, Reg.
6406C)) (enacted)) Sess. (Mass.
2018) (enacted))
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Waiting period Beginning on 7 days, but if Due to a For family care, 1 week without For family care 7 calendar days;
January 1, 2018, disability lasts legislative none pay from the and own serious waiting period
none 3 weeks, the approved change, insurance health is not required
worker gets paid claims filed system; only one condition, 7 for family leave
for those 7 effective July waiting period calendar days taken
days; must be 1, 2012, or per year immediately
consecutive later no longer regardless of after a period
need to serve a the number of of medical leave
non-paid waiting qualifying for pregnancy or
period events for which childbirth
a worker takes recovery
leave
(Cal. Unemp. Ins. (N.J. Stat. Ann. Caregiver/bonding For own (D.C. Law 21-264 For bonding (H. 4640 Sec.
Code Sec. Sec. 43:21-38) and own disability, 7 Sec. 104(b) leave, none Sec. 29(3(a)),
3303(b) (as disability days (D.C. 2016)) 30, 190th Gen.
amended by A.B. claims must be Court, Reg.
908)) out of work for Sess. (Mass.
7 consecutive 2018) (enacted))
days as one of
the eligibility
requirements
(11-000-002 R.I. (N.Y. Workers' (S.B. 5975, 65th
Code R. Sec. Comp. Law Sec. Leg., 3rd
Sec. 16(G), 204(1) (as Special Sess.
37(D)) amended by S. (Wash. 2017)
6406C)) (enacted))
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The National Partnership for Women & Families is a nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy group dedicated to promoting fairness in the workplace, access to
quality health care and policies that help women and men meet the dual demands of work and family. More information is available at
NationalPartnership.org.
2018 National Partnership for Women and Families. All rights reserved.
\1\ http://www.edd.ca.gov/disability/Part-time_Intermittent_Reduced_Work_Schedule.htm.
\2\ http://www.edd.ca.gov/Disability/Am_I_Eligible_for_PFL_Benefits.htm.
\3\ http://lwd.state.nj.us/labor/fli/content/fli_faq.html#21.
\4\ http://www.dlt.ri.gov/tdi/tdifaqs.htm.
\5\ https://www.mass.gov/service-details/check-eligibility-for-unemployment-benefits.
\6\ http://www.edd.ca.gov/Payroll_Taxes/Rates_and_Withholding.htm.
\7\ http://lwd.dol.state.nj.us/labor/tdi/state/sp_cost.html.
\8\ http://www.dlt.ri.gov/lmi/news/quickref.htm.
\9\ http://www.wcb.ny.gov/content/main/DisabilityBenefits/Employer/complyWithLaw.jsp.
\10\ http://lwd.dol.state.nj.us/labor/fli/content/cost.html.
\11\ https://paidfamilyleave.ny.gov/paid-family-leave-information-employers.
\12\ http://www.edd.ca.gov/disability/FAQ_PFL_Eligibility.htm.
\13\ http://lwd.state.nj.us/labor/fli/content/fli_faq.html; http://lwd.state.nj.us/labor/tdi/employer/state/sp_emp_coverage.html.
\14\ http://lwd.dol.state.nj.us/labor/fli/worker/state/FL_SP_calculating_benefits.html; http://lwd.dol.state.nj.us/labor/tdi/state/
sp_calculating_bene_amounts.html.
\15\ http://www.dlt.ri.gov/tdi/tdifaqs.htm; http://www.dlt.ri.gov/lmi/news/quickref.htm).
\16\ http://www.edd.ca.gov/Disability/About_PFL.htm.
\17\ http://www.edd.ca.gov/about_edd/Quick_Statistics.htm).
\18\ http://lwd.dol.state.nj.us/labor/forms_pdfs/tdi/FLI%20Summary%20Report%20for%202016.pdf.
\19\ (http://www.dlt.ri.gov/lmi/uiadmin.htm).
fact sheet: paid leave works in california, new jersey, and rhode
island
January 2018
Five U.S. States and the District of Columbia have laws
guaranteeing paid family and medical leave. Evidence from the first
three States to enact paid leave demonstrates how well these policies
work--and this body of evidence will continue to grow as new programs
take effect in New York, Washington State, and the District of
Columbia. These programs provide workers with a share of their wages
when they need time to care for a family member with a serious health
condition, bond with a new child, or deal with their own serious
medical issue.
Paid Leave Policies Have Helped Millions of Families
California workers filed nearly 2.8 million paid family
leave claims between the implementation of the State's paid
family leave program in 2004 and November 2017. More than 2.4
million of these claims were by parents seeking time to care
for new children.\1\ In that same period (July 2004--November
2017), more than 9.5 million claims were filed by workers for
their own disability.\2\ California families have experienced
positive economic and health effects due to the program, and
the vast majority of California employers perceive a positive
effect on employee productivity, profitability and performance,
or no effect, which means the fears some employers articulated
when the policy was being considered never materialized.\3\ The
California program has been expanded multiple times since its
adoption--to broaden the range of family members for whom
caregiving leave can be taken, to increase benefit levels for
lower- and middle-wage workers, and to make more workers
eligible for job protection when they take parental leave.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ State of California Employment Development Department. (2018).
Paid Family Leave (PFL)--Monthly Data. Retrieved 25 January 2018, from
https://data.edd.ca.gov/Disability-Insurance/Paid-Family-Leave-PFL-
Monthly-Data/r95e-fvkm/data.
\2\ State of California Employment Development Department. (2018).
Disability Insurance (DI)--Monthly Data. Retrieved 26 January 2018,
from https://data.edd.ca.gov/Disability-Insurance/Disability-Insurance-
DI-Monthly-Data/29jg-ip7e/data.
\3\ Appelbaum, E., and Milkman, R. (2013). Unfinished Business:
Paid Family Leave in California and the Future of U.S. Work-Family
Policy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press; see also Bartel, A.,
Baum, C., Rossin-Slater, M., Ruhm, C., and Waldfogel, J. (2014, June
23). California's Paid Family Leave Law: Lessons From the First Decade.
U.S. Department of Labor Publication. Retrieved 26 January 2018, from
http://www.dol.gov/asp/evaluation/reports/PaidLeaveDeliverable.pdf.
\4\ 2013 Cal. Stat. ch. 350; 2016 Cal. Stat. ch. 5; 2017 Cal. Stat.
ch. 686.
In New Jersey, workers filed more than 255,000 leave claims
between the family leave insurance program's implementation in
2009 and December 2016--more than 205,000 filed by parents
seeking time to bond with a new child.\5\ Three out of four
workers (76.4 percent) say they view the program favorably, and
support crosses gender, race/ethnicity, age, marital status,
union affiliation, employment status and income.\6\ The
majority of both small and large businesses say they have
adjusted easily.\7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ State of New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce
Development. (2010-2017). Family Leave Program Statistics (2010-2016).
Retrieved 26 January 2018, from http://lwd.dol.state.nj.us/labor/fli/
content/fli_program_stats.html; State of New Jersey Department of Labor
and Workforce Development. (2010). 2009 Monthly Statistics. Retrieved
26 January 2018, from http://lwd.dol.state.nj.us/labor/fli/content/
2009_monthly_report_fli.html (unpublished calculation; data are through
December 2016).
\6\ Houser, L., and White, K. (2012). Awareness of New Jersey's
Family Leave Insurance Program Is Low, Even as Public Support Remains
High and Need Persists. Center for Women and Work at Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey publication. Retrieved 26 January 2018, from
http://njtimetocare.com/sites/default/files/
03_New%20Jersey%20Family%20Leave%20In
surance-%20A%20CWW%20Issue%20Brief.pdf.
\7\ Ramirez, M. (2012). The Impact of Paid Family Leave on New
Jersey Businesses. New Jersey Business and Industry Association and
Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey presentation. Retrieved 26 January 2018, from
http://bloustein.rutgers.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Ramirez.pdf.
In Rhode Island, workers filed nearly 34,000 claims between
the State's implementation of its paid family leave program in
2014 and the end of 2017--more than three-quarters of approved
claims were to bond with a new child.\8\ Research among new
parents, family caregivers and businesses suggests the law is
working well.\9\ Rhode Island's program improved upon the
programs in California and New Jersey by guaranteeing workers
reinstatement to their jobs and offering protection from
workplace retaliation for taking paid leave.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training. Monthly TDI/TCI
Claims Summary. Retrieved 26 January 2018, from http://www.dlt.ri.gov/
lmi/uiadmin.htm (Unpublished calculation; data are through December
2017).
\9\ Bartel, A., Rossin-Slater, M., Ruhm, C., and Waldfogel, J.
(2016, January). Assessing Rhode Island's Temporary Caregiver Insurance
Act: Insights From a Survey of Employers. U.S. Department of Labor
publication. Retrieved 26 January 2018, from https://www.dol.gov/asp/
evaluation/completed-studies/
AssessingRhodeIslandTemporaryCaregiverInsuranceAct_InsightsFromSu
rveyOfEmployers.pdf.
In New York, legislators adopted a new paid family leave
program with nearly unanimous bipartisan support.\10\ The
program took effect in 2018 and will be fully phased in by
2021.\11\ Eighty percent of New York voters said they supported
the proposal prior to enactment.\12\ When fully implemented,
New York will provide 12 weeks of job-protected paid family
leave.\13\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ 2016 N.Y. Laws ch. 54, Sec. 9, available at https://
www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2015/s6406/amendment/c.
\11\ National Partnership for Women and Families. (2017, July).
State Paid Family Leave Insurance Laws. Retrieved 26 January 2018, from
http://www.nationalpartnership.org/research-library/work-family/paid-
leave/state-paid-family-leave-laws.pdf.
\12\ Siena College telephone survey of 805 registered voters in New
York, conducted January 24-28, 2016, by Siena College Research
Institute. Retrieved 26 January 2018, from https://www.siena.edu/news-
events/article/albany-corruption-is-serious-problem-89-of-nyers-say.
\13\ See note 11.
In the District of Columbia, a new paid family and medical
leave law is scheduled to take effect in 2020. The program will
provide up to 8 weeks of leave for new parents, 6 weeks to care
for a seriously ill family member and two weeks to care for
one's own serious health condition. The program was the first
paid leave program in the country to be enacted without an
existing temporary disability insurance law.\14\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\14\ See note 11.
Most recently, Washington State lawmakers enacted a paid
family and medical leave law with strong bipartisan support. It
will take effect in 2019 and 2020 and provide between 12 and 18
weeks of leave for workers to care for a new child, care for a
family member's serious health condition or deal with their own
serious health condition.\15\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\15\ See note 11.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
proven results for workers and families
Paid leave improves child health outcomes. Paid leave gives
parents time to establish a strong bond with a new child during
the first months of life, which results in long-term health
benefits for both children and parents. Breastfeeding duration
increased substantially among California women who took paid
leave, with significant increases in breastfeeding initiation
among mothers in lower quality jobs.\16\ For low-income
families in New Jersey, researchers found that new mothers who
use the paid leave program breastfeed, on average, one month
longer than new mothers who do not use the program.\17\
Preliminary research in California suggests that paid leave may
also help prevent child maltreatment by reducing risk factors,
such as family and maternal stress and depression.\18\ A
longitudinal study in California indicates many positive health
outcomes for elementary school aged children following the
implementation of paid leave, including lower probabilities of
having ADHD, hearing problems or recurrent ear infections or
being overweight--especially among children with lower
socioeconomic status and with mothers who have lower
educational attainment.\19\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\16\ Appelbaum, E., and Milkman, R. (2013). Unfinished Business:
Paid Family Leave in California and the Future of U.S. Work-Family
Policy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
\17\ Setty, S., Skinner, C., and Wilson-Simmons, R. (2016, March).
Protecting Workers, Nurturing Families: Building an Inclusive Family
Leave Insurance Program, Findings and Recommendations From the New
Jersey Parenting Project. National Center for Children in Poverty
publication. Retrieved 26 January 2018, from http://nccp.org/projects/
paid_leave_
publications.html.
\18\ Klevens, J., Luo, F., Xu, L., et al. (2015, November 28).
``Paid family leave's effect on hospital admissions for pediatric
abusive head trauma.'' Injury Prevention. Retrieved 6 May 2016, from
http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/early/2016/01/05/injuryprev-
2015-041702.
\19\ Lichtman-Sadot, S., and Pillay Bell, N. (2017, July). ``Child
Health in Elementary School Following California's Paid Family Leave
Program.'' Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. Retrieved 25
January 2018, from http://www.nationalpartnership.org/research-library/
work-family/paid-leave/paid-leave-works-in-california-new-jersey-and-
rhode-island.pdf.
Fathers and children benefit from paid leave. Access to paid
family leave encourages fathers to use leave for bonding and
caregiving. And when fathers take leave after a child's birth,
they are more likely to be involved in the direct care of their
children long-term.\20\ In California, the number of fathers
filing leave claims increased by more than 400 percent between
2005 and 2013, as the State's program became better
established.\21\ In the first year of Rhode Island's program, a
greater proportion of new dads took leave to bond with a
newborn or adopted child than did new dads in the first year of
the California or New Jersey programs.\22\ As a much newer
program, this suggests a broader cultural shift around fathers
taking leave and, potentially, greater knowledge of its
benefits.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\20\ Nepomnyaschy, L., and Waldfogel, J. (2007). ``Paternity Leave
and Fathers' Involvement With Their Young Children: Evidence From the
American Ecls-B.'' Community, Work, and Family, 10(4), 427-453.
\21\ State of California Employment Development Department. (2014,
July). Paid Family Leave: Ten Years of Assisting Californians in Need.
Retrieved 26 January 2018, from http://www.
edd.ca.gov/Disability/pdf/
Paid_Family_Leave_10_Year_Anniversary_Report.pdf.
\22\ National Partnership for Women and Families. (2015, February).
First Impressions: Comparing State Paid Family Leave Programs in Their
First Years. Retrieved 26 January 2018, from http://
www.nationalpartnership.org/research-library/work-family/paid-leave/
first-impressions-comparing-state-paid-family-leave-programs-in-their-
first-years.pdf.
Paid leave helps caregivers arrange care for their families.
Studies in California and Rhode Island found that parents who
use those States' paid family leave programs are much more
likely than those who do not to report that leave has a
positive effect on their ability to care for their new children
and arrange child care.\23\ Paid leave also helps people who
care for older adults: a California study found that the
implementation of the State's paid leave program accounted for
an 11-percent relative decline in elderly nursing home
usage.\24\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\23\ See note 16; Silver, B., Mederer, H., and Djurdjevic, E.
(2015, November 16). Launching the Rhode Island Temporary Caregiver
Insurance Program (TCI): Employee Experiences One Year Later. Rhode
Island Department of Labor and Training and University of Rhode Island
publication. Retrieved 26 January 2018, from http://www.dlt.ri.gov/TDI/
pdf/RIPaidLeave2015DOL.
pdf.
\24\ Arora, K., and Wolf, D.A. (2017, November 3). ``Does Paid
Family Leave Reduce Nursing Home Use? The California Experience.''
Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 37(1), 38-62. Retrieved 26
January 2018, from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/
pam.22038/full.
Paid leave helps workers provide for their families. An
analysis of California's paid leave program found that the
program increases the short-term and long-term labor force
participation rates of family caregivers with an 8-percent
increase in the short run and a 14-percent increase in the long
run. The long-term increase in labor force participation was
higher among workers in lower-income households.\25\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\25\ Saad-Lessler, J., and Bahn, K. (2017, September 27). The
Importance of Paid Leave for Caregivers. Center for American Progress
publication. Retrieved 26 January 2018, from https://
www.americanprogress.org/issues/women/reports/2017/09/27/439684/
importance-paid-leave-caregivers/.
Paid leave means families are less likely to use public
assistance. An analysis of States with paid family leave or
temporary disability insurance programs found that new mothers
in those States are less likely than new mothers in other
States to receive public assistance or food stamp income (now
known as SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program)
following a child's birth, particularly when they use the paid
leave programs.\26\ New mothers in States without paid leave
programs report participating in some type of public assistance
program more than twice as often as those living in States with
paid leave programs. And in the year following a child's birth,
new mothers living in States with temporary disability
insurance programs are 53 percent less likely than women in
other States to report using SNAP.\27\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\26\ Houser, L., and Vartanian, T. (2012, April). Policy Matters:
Public Policy, Paid Leave for New Parents, and Economic Security for
U.S. Workers. Center for Women and Work at Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey publication. Retrieved 26 January 2018, from
http://go.nationalpartnership.org/site/DocServer/
RutgersCWW_Policy_Matters_April2012.pdf.
\27\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
demonstrated benefits for businesses
Paid leave improves businesses' bottom lines. Paid leave
insurance programs are an affordable, sustainable way for
businesses of all size to support their employees when serious
family and medical needs arise. A recent survey conducted by
the professional services firm EY found that the majority of
large companies support the creation of paid family and medical
leave programs on the State or Federal level that are funded
through tax contributions.\28\ In New Jersey, about six in 10
medium- and large-sized businesses report no increased
administrative costs as a result of the State's paid family
leave program.\29\ A survey of California employers revealed
that 87 percent confirmed that the State program had not
resulted in any increased costs, and 60 percent report
coordinating their benefits with the State's paid family leave
insurance system--which likely results in ongoing cost
savings.\30\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\28\ EY. (2017, March). ``Viewpoints on paid family and medical
leave: Findings from a survey of U.S. employers and employees'' (Fig.
26). Retrieved 26 January 2018, from http://www.ey.com/Publication/
vwLUAssets/EY-viewpoints-on-paid-family-and-medical-leave/$FILE/EY-
viewpoints-on-paid-family-and-medical-leave.pdf.
\29\ See note 7.
\30\ See note 16.
Paid leave is good for small businesses. Multiple surveys
have found that the majority of small business owners support
the creation of family and medical leave insurance programs at
the State and Federal levels, as these programs make the
benefit affordable, reduce business costs, protect small
business owners themselves and increase their
competitiveness.\31\ In California, although all employers
report positive outcomes associated with paid leave, small
businesses (those with fewer than 50 employees) report more
positive or neutral outcomes than large businesses (500+
employees) in profitability, productivity, retention and
employee morale.\32\ A survey conducted for the New Jersey
Business and Industry Association found that, regardless of
size, New Jersey businesses say they have had little trouble
adjusting to the State's law.\33\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\31\ Rouzer, S. (2017, February 7). New Report: Small Business
Owners Support Paid Family Leave, FAMILY Act. Main Street Alliance
publication. Retrieved 26 January 2018, from http://
www.mainstreetalliance.org/small_business_owners_support_family_act;
Small Business Majority and Center for American Progress. (2017, March
30). Small Businesses Support Paid Family Leave Programs. Retrieved 26
January 2018, from http://www.smallbusinessmajority.org/our-research/
workforce/small-businesses-support-paid-family-leave-programs.
\32\ See note 16.
\33\ See note 5
Employee retention can also improve significantly with paid
leave, especially among lower-wage workers. A report from
Rutgers' Center for Women and Work found that women who take
paid leave are 93 percent more likely to be in the workforce
nine to 12 months after a child's birth than women who take no
leave.\34\ In California, workers in lower-quality jobs who
used the State paid leave program reported returning to work
nearly 10 percent more than workers who did not use the
program.\35\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\34\ Houser, L., and Vartanian, T.P. (2012, January). Pay Matters:
The Positive Economic Impacts of Paid Family Leave for Families,
Businesses and the Public. Center for Women and Work at Rutgers, The
State University of New Jersey publication. Retrieved 26 January 2018,
from http://www.nationalpartnership.org/research-library/work-family/
other/pay-matters.pdf.
\35\ See note 16.
Paid leave improves employee morale. A recent EY survey
found that more than 80 percent of businesses that offer paid
family leave report a positive impact on employee morale, and
more than 70 percent report an increase in employee
productivity.\36\ In California, virtually all employers (99
percent) report that the State's program has positive or
neutral effects on employee morale.\37\ Several New Jersey
employers interviewed as part of a small study note that the
State's paid leave program helps reduce stress among employees
and helps improve morale among employees who took leave and
their co-workers.\38\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\36\ See note 28.
\37\ See note 16.
\38\ Lerner, S., and Appelbaum, E. (2014, June). Business as Usual:
New Jersey Employers' Experiences With Family Leave Insurance. Center
for Economic and Policy Research publication. Retrieved 26 January
2018, from http://www.cepr.net/documents/nj-fli-2014-06.pdf.
Paid leave programs are used as intended by workers without
burdening employers. The California Society for Human Resource
Management, a group of human resources professionals that
opposed California's paid family leave law, declared that the
law is less onerous than expected,\39\ and few businesses in
their research reported challenges resulting from workers
taking leave. In Rhode Island, a study of small and medium-
sized employers conducted after the State's program came into
effect found no negative effects on employee workflow,
productivity or attendance; the majority of employers surveyed
said they were in favor of the new program.\40\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\39\ Redmond, J., and Fkiaras, E. (2010, January). California's
Paid Family Leave Act Is Less Onerous Than Predicted. Society for Human
Resources Management publication. Retrieved 26 January 2018, from
https://www.sheppardmullin.com/media/article/809_CA%20Paid%20
Family%20Leave%20Act%20Is%20Less%20Onerous%20Than%20Predicted.pdf.
\40\ See note 9.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
a clear case for a national solution
All workers in the United States need to be able to take time away
from their jobs when serious family and medical needs arise, without
jeopardizing their financial stability. The success of the programs in
California, New Jersey, and Rhode Island demonstrates that progress is
possible--and that there is an effective, affordable and proven model
that works for families, businesses and economies.
People's access to paid leave shouldn't depend on where they live,
whom they work for, or what job they hold. It is past time for a
national solution. Gone should be the days when only 15 percent of
workers in the United States have access to paid family leave, and
fewer than 40 percent have paid medical leave.\41\ Everyone needs and
deserves time to care for their health and their families. Learn more
at NationalPartnership.org/PaidLeave.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\41\ U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2017,
September). Employee Benefits in the United State National Compensation
Survey, March 2017 (Tables 16 and 32). Retrieved 26 January 2018, from
https://www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/benefits/2017/ebbl0061.pdf.
The National Partnership for Women and Families is a nonprofit,
nonpartisan advocacy group dedicated to promoting fairness in the
workplace, access to quality health care and policies that help women
and men meet the dual demands of work and family. More information is
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
available at NationalPartnership.org.
______
Questions Submitted for the Record to Vicki Shabo
Questions Submitted by Hon. Michael B. Enzi
Question. As a former small business owner, I am concerned that any
well-
intentioned policies could have unintended consequences. For example,
if a small company finds a temporary worker for the position for an
employee on medical leave, would that temporary worker, after the
employee returns to work, then be able to claim unemployment insurance?
If so, would such a claim increase the company's unemployment taxes due
to an increase in claims?
Answer. This is an excellent question. For context, it may be
helpful to look at the behavior of employers who navigate work coverage
during employees' leaves--in general, few employers hire temporary
workers, although I understand that in small businesses and in certain
sectors, hiring replacement workers may be required. Overall, however,
recent survey data shows that, among companies with 100 or fewer
employees, just 14 percent hire an outside temporary replacement worker
when employees take a family or medical leave (Small Business Majority
and Center for American Progress (2017, March), Small Businesses
Support Paid Family Leave Programs, retrieved 6 August 2018, from
http://www.smallbusinessmajority.
org/our-research/workforce/small-businesses-support-paid-family-leave-
programs). This is consistent with research on the lived experiences of
employers in California and New Jersey after the adoption of those
States' paid family leave programs, who most often cover work by
assigning other employees to cover the work temporarily or covering the
work themselves (Milkman, R., and Appelbaum, E. (2013), Unfinished
Business: Paid Family Leave in California and the Future of U.S. Work-
Family Policy, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press; see also Lerner,
S., and Appelbaum, E. (2014, June), Business as Usual: New Jersey
Employers' Experiences With Family Leave Insurance, Center for Economic
and Policy Research publication, retrieved 6 August 2018, from http://
cepr.net/documents/nj-fli-2014-06.pdf).
As Congress proceeds with considering paid leave legislation,
legislative language should address and eliminate employer experience-
rating penalties so as not to affect employers' permanent or temporary
employee hiring decisions (for example, unlawfully avoiding hiring
women of reproductive age or those likely to have family caregiving
responsibilities or illnesses or disabilities of their own), but
certainly, temporary employees with requisite work history from a
temporary assignment and any prior employment history should be
eligible for unemployment insurance if they are out of work after a
temporary assignment ends. I would urge that any language serve three
policy goals: (1) reduce barriers to smooth business operations during
an employee's absence, whether by hiring a replacement or cross-
training existing employees; (2) minimize the risk of discrimination or
implicit bias against the workers or applicants who an employer assumes
will be more likely than others to take a family or medical leave; and
(3) ensure that temporary workers are eligible for unemployment
insurance if they have filled in to cover for an employee on leave and
are subsequently searching for future employment.
All of the above assumes that a temporary worker was hired directly
by an individual employer. Employees who are placed in a temporary
position through a temp agency may be eligible for unemployment through
the agency rather than the through the business establishment in which
he or she was placed.
Question. Under the proposed legislation and concepts being
considered for paid family leave, would the temporary workers also be
eligible for such leave if they have a medical or family issue occur
during their temporary employment? If yes, are there any safeguards to
prevent abuse or fraudulent claims, such a making a claim in the last
week of one's employment?
Answer. Paid leave policies should make paid family and medical
leave available to every person with recent work history and requisite
earnings; best practice is to make the benefit portable so that
temporary and contract workers and those who work for multiple
employers are eligible without putting the full burden of paying for
leave on an employer or on the worker and their family. Paid leave
provides income security during periods of serious family and medical
leave; eligibility criteria require a medical certification that
demonstrates the workers' legitimate need for leave, and State evidence
shows miniscule rates of misuse, fraud or abuse. Paid family and
medical leave is not intended as a substitute for unemployment
insurance or any other program and penalties would apply to anyone who
misuses the program.
Under the FAMILY Act, S. 337, an individual must meet multiple
criteria to be eligible for benefits: (1) enough work and earnings
history to be insured for disability benefits under the Social Security
Act when his or her application is filed; (2) earned income from
employment during the 12 months prior to filing an application for
family or medical leave; and (3) engaged in ``qualified caregiving,''
which requires submitting FMLA-type certification from a medical
provider (section 5(a)). In addition, an individual applying for
benefits is subject to a 5-day waiting period (1 work week) during
which benefits will not be paid (section 5(b)(3)(A)). The benefit
amount an individual receives is offset by the receipt of other public
benefits (section 5(b)(4)) and an applicant is ineligible if he or she
receives certain other benefits through the Social Security program
(section 5(e)(1)). Under the FAMILY Act, applicants who file false
claims are barred from using the program for 1 year (section 5(e)(2)).
Senator Rubio's proposal, now introduced as S. 3345, would also
appear to cover temporary workers with requisite Social Security
earnings credits. This legislation, like the FAMILY Act, serves as a
social insurance model that insures all eligible working people
independent of the nature of their employment. S. 3345 is only limited
to leave to care for a newborn or newly adopted child, however, which
excludes about 75 percent of people who need leave in a year.
Question. Under the proposed legislation and concepts being
considered for paid family leave, for States that already have paid
family leave, what would happen to the funds collected should a Federal
plan be put into place?
Answer. Neither S. 337 (the FAMILY Act) nor S. 3345, Senator
Rubio's bill, preempt or supersede State or local laws that provide
similar paid family and medical leave benefits. The FAMILY Act
establishes that State paid family leave insurance and temporary
disability leave insurance benefits would be coordinated with Federal
family and medical leave benefits in a manner determined by
regulations.
______
Questions Submitted by Hon. Michael F. Bennet
Question. The three newest State programs have all done progressive
wage replacement, so that lower-wage workers receive a higher share of
their wages.
Ms. Shabo, could you speak about the trade-offs around flat or
progressive wage replacement rates, and how Congress should be thinking
about the right level of wage replacement for each income group?
Answer. A meaningful paid family and medical leave program should
provide adequate, equitable wage replacement to any eligible worker
with a covered serious family or medical need. State programs have
taken two general approaches to wage replacement. Older State programs
provide one replacement rate up to a cap, so that all low- and middle-
wage workers have a consistent share of their wages, while the benefit
cap functions to limit wage replacement rates for higher-income
workers. Newer State programs (Washington State, the District of
Columbia and Massachusetts) and California's updated program have more
finely tailored wage replacement rates, with a higher share of wage
replacement available to lower-income workers and a lower wage
replacement rate available for middle-income workers (again, for
higher-wage workers, the maximum benefit functions to limit wage
replacement to a declining share of their wages). The cut-point is
based on a fraction or multiple of the State average weekly wage or
minimum wage. Our chart, available at http://
www.nationalpartnership.org/research-library/work-family/paid-leave/
state-paid-family-leave-laws.pdf, provides details on each State
program.
Research shows the importance of higher wage replacement rates for
lower-
income workers, who are the least likely to have any supplementary
wages or paid time off from their employers and also the least likely
to be able to meet their basic expenses on a lower fraction of their
typical income. Low wage replacement rates may be a barrier to program
utilization. For example, research on California's paid family leave
insurance program--the first in the country--indicated that the
program's original wage replacement rate of 55 percent was too low for
many eligible low-wage workers to be able to make use of leave, even as
its weekly cap of just above $1,000 per week was high enough for
middle-income workers to use the program (Bana, S., Bedard, K., and
Rossin-Slater, M. (2018, May), Trends and Disparities in Leave Use
Under California's Paid Family Leave Program: New Evidence From
Administrative Data, AEA Papers and Proceedings, 108, 388-391,
retrieved 3 July 2018, from https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/
pandp.20181113; State of California Employment Development Department
(2015, December 14), Paid Family Leave Market Research, retrieved 30
July 2018, from https://www.edd.ca.gov/Disability/pdf/
Paid_Family_Leave_Market_Research_Report_2015.
pdf; Milkman, R., and Appelbaum, E. (2013), Unfinished Business: Paid
Family Leave in California and the Future of U.S. Work-Family Policy
(pp. 67-68), Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press). Modeling based on
evidence from California suggests that a higher wage replacement rate
will help promote labor force attachment for women: researchers predict
that a 10-percent bump in wage replacement will increase the likelihood
that a new mother will be working within the 1 to 2 years following
birth, beyond the increases already observed from the State's existing
program (Bana, S., Bedard, K., and Rossin-Slater, M. (2018, March), The
Impacts of Paid Family Leave Benefits: Regression Kink Evidence From
California Administrative Data, Working Paper 24438, National Bureau of
Economic Research, retrieved 30 July 2018, from http://www.nber.org/
papers/w24438.pdf). Research also indicates that men's likelihood of
taking leave is particularly sensitive to wage replacement rates,
meaning that too-low wage replacement poses a barrier to gender equity
and men's caregiving (World Policy Analysis Center (2018, February), A
Review of the Evidence on Payment and Financing of Family and Medical
Leave, retrieved 6 August 2018, from https://www.worldpolicycenter.org/
sites/default/files/WORLD%20Brief%20-
%20Payment%20and%20Financing%20of%20Paid%20Family
%20and%20Medical%20Leave_0.pdf).
Based on research conducted into California's lower-than-expected
paid leave utilization which showed the importance of higher wage
replacement, the California legislature updated the State's paid family
leave program in 2016 to increase the wage replacement rate to 70
percent for lower-wage workers and 60 percent for middle-wage workers,
with the $1,216 weekly benefit cap. Newer paid leave programs in
Washington State and the District of Columbia will provide 90-percent
wage replacement to the lowest-wage workers, while Massachusetts will
provide 80 percent to the lowest-wage workers. In these newer programs
with tiered wage replacement, middle-wage workers typically receive
about two thirds of their wages, while higher-wage workers receive 50
percent or less.
In our view, Congress should ensure that any Federal plan replaces
at least 66 percent of a worker's typical wages, as the Family And
Medical Insurance Leave (FAMILY) Act (S. 337) would do, and offers a
meaningful capped benefit so that middle-wage workers can afford to
take leave and so that the program facilitates gender equity in leave-
taking and workforce participation. As Congress considers paid leave
policy options, it could also consider higher wage replacement rates
for lower-wage workers, while retaining approximately two-thirds wage
replacement for middle-wage workers, as the three newest State programs
will do. For context, New York's program will offer a two-thirds wage
replacement rate, with a maximum weekly benefit cap of $1,000, when the
program is fully phased in in 2021. As noted above, programs passed in
Washington State, the District of Columbia and Massachusetts have
included progressive wage replacement rates that amount to 80 to 90
percent for lower-wage workers and around two-thirds for middle-wage
workers, with weekly caps of $850 to 1,000 per week.
Question. Six States and the District of Columbia now have either
active programs or are implementing programs to provide paid family
leave.
Why is it important that we provide paid family leave at a national
level? What benefits would this provide over a patchwork of State
programs?
Answer. Every working person in the United States should have
access to paid family and medical leave, no matter where they live,
their employer or their job. A national paid leave plan would promote
higher rates of labor force participation and higher earnings
(especially among women), improved child and maternal health, greater
income and retirement security for family caregivers, certainty for
employers, and growth in the Nation's GDP. A national program, which
sets a nationwide baseline, is the surest way to achieve these
outcomes. A State patchwork will not ever ensure that every working
person has access to paid leave, and might serve to magnify rather than
shrink disparities: As the National Partnership found in a report we
issued nearly 3 years ago, A National Imperative: State Disparities
Demonstrate Urgent Need for Federal Paid Family and Medical Leave Law,
the States whose populations have the most to gain from paid leave in
terms of labor force participation, poverty reduction and population
health improvements, are those without a history of innovating in the
area of work-family supports.
There are also practical reasons for adopting a program at the
national level:
A national program would provide portable coverage for
working people who move across State lines or work for
employers in multiple States. This will help ensure highly
mobile populations, such as military spouses, have equitable
access to paid leave. It is also a way to help support people
pursuing the American Dream by enhancing their ability to seek
better opportunities and upward mobility without regard to a
paid leave policy landscape that changes from State to State.
A national program would ensure that a child who lives and
works in one State is able to care for an ailing parent who
lives in another. The rapid aging of the United States'
population and the workforce, and the larger size of the Baby
Boom population (in need of care) relative to the smaller size
of the Generation X (caregivers to aging Boomers), necessitates
solutions to maximize the younger generations' ability to
provide care. This is especially true for aging populations in
rural and Rust Belt communities, whose children may have moved
away to pursue better opportunities in other States.
A national paid leave program would create a uniform
national baseline for multi-State employers, ensuring that all
employees in multi-State companies have consistent benefits. It
would also help to smooth out and offer more certainty to
employers in a rapidly changing policy landscape, where States
are filling the gaps by adopting their own, varied State paid
leave programs.
A national paid leave program would assist small businesses
in competing for talent with larger ones that are better able
to offer paid leave benefit on their own. Small business'
desire to offer leave but concerns about bearing the full cost
on an as-needed, unpredictable basis is one reason that 70
percent of smaller businesses nationwide told researchers they
support a national paid leave plan funded through shared
payroll deductions (Small Business Majority and Center for
American Progress (2017, March), Small Businesses Support Paid
Family Leave Programs, retrieved 6 August 2018, from http://
www.smallbusinessmajority.org/our-research/workforce/small-
businesses-support-paid-family-leave-programs). It would also
create consistency across States for multi-State small
businesses.
A national program would be more efficient to set up and
administer. The first four States to adopt paid family leave
programs were those that had long-standing State temporary
disability insurance programs; it was relatively easy and
inexpensive to build paid family leave benefits into these
existing administrative infrastructures. Those four States were
the exception, however. In order to create State paid leave
programs going forward, States will need to build whole new
systems from scratch or seek Federal permission to use
unemployment insurance systems (which themselves require
technology and data upgrades in many States (Dixon, R. (2013,
November), Federal Neglect Leaves State Unemployment Systems in
a State of Disrepair, National Employment Law Project
publication, retrieved 6 August 2018, from https://
www.nelp.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/NELP-Report-State-of-
Disrepair-Federal-Neglect-Unemployment-Systems.pdf)), at a cost
of tens of millions of dollars per State. And even after they
do, people who move from State to State and multi-State
businesses will have to manage dealing with different rules and
procedures across State lines--and State governments will have
to build and maintain their own systems. It is much better,
clearer, cheaper, and simpler to create a national program.
States have always been proving grounds for policy ideas, and State
paid leave programs have been no exception. Now, however, it is time
for a nationwide program that sets a floor for the country upon which
States can improve.
Question. In the recent tax legislation, we created a 2-year pilot
program that provides tax incentives to employers that provide paid
family leave, provided they meet certain requirements.
Will you speak a little about what's lost when we allow paid family
leave to be determined on a company-by-company basis? What are the
benefits or limitations of the tax credit approach?
Answer. It is admirable that employers and business leaders are
increasingly recognizing the benefits of offering paid leave (Stroman,
T., Woods, W., Fitzgerald, G., Unnikrishnan, S., Bird, L. (2017,
February), Why Paid Family Leave is Good Business, BCG publication,
retrieved 6 August 2018, from https://www.bcg.com/publications/2017/
human-resources-people-organization-why-paid-family-leave-is-good-
business.aspx), and we applaud the forward-thinking companies that have
created or expanded leave offerings for their employees (National
Partnership for Women and Families (2018, April), Leading on Leave:
Companies With New or Expanded Paid Leave Policies (2015-2018),
retrieved 6 August 2018, from http://www.
nationalpartnership.org/research-library/work-family/paid-leave/new-
and-expanded-employer-paid-family-leave-policies.pdf). But private-
sector action is the exception and not the rule: just 13 percent of
private-sector workers have access to paid family leave through their
employers, and fewer than 40 percent have access to paid personal
medical leave through an employer's short-term disability program (U.S.
Bureau of Labor Statistics (2017, September), National Compensation
Survey: Employee Benefits in the United States, March 2017 (Table 16
and Table 32 for private industry workers), retrieved 30 July 2018,
from https://www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/benefits/2017/ebbl0061.pdf). Access to
employer-provided paid family leave is about six times more common for
the highest-wage workers (24 percent) than for the lowest-wage workers
(4 percent) (Ibid.). Even within worksites, there are huge disparities:
only 22 percent of employees work at worksites that offer paid
maternity leave and 9 percent work at worksites that offer paid
paternity leave to ``all'' workers, and about one-fifth are employed at
worksites that offer paid maternity and paternity leave to ``some,''
but not ``most'' or ``all,'' employees within the same worksite
(Klerman, J.A., Daley, K., and Pozniak, A. (2012, September), Family
and Medical Leave in 2012: Technical Report (Exhibit 7.2.1), Abt
Associates publication, retrieved 6 August 2018, from https://
www.dol.gov/asp/evaluation/fmla/FMLA-2012-Technical-Report.pdf).
Despite headlines touting the benefits of leading employers, paid
leave access rates have hardly budged in recent years, rising from 10
percent of private industry workers with paid family leave in 2010 to
13 percent in 2017--and almost all of the increase has been among the
highest income workers (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2010,
September), National Compensation Survey: Employee Benefits in the
United States, March 2010 (Table 32 for private industry workers),
retrieved 6 August 2018, from https://www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/benefits/
2010/ownership/prvt_all
.pdf; see note 8). It is little wonder that lawmakers and policymakers
across the ideological spectrum increasingly agree that a public policy
solution is needed to solve the United States' paid leave crisis. But
the details matter tremendously.
There is little reason to expect that the temporary tax credit
included in the tax legislation passed last year will significantly
move the needle. As far as I know, only one company has publicly said
it will use the tax credit provision to pay for part of an expanded
leave policy; that company--Rolls Royce--also said its policy change
was ``2 years in the making'' suggesting that it was not the credit
itself that sparked the policy change (Cebul, D. (2018, May), Rolls-
Royce uses Trump-era tax cuts to improve employee benefits, retrieved 6
August 2018, from https://www.defense
news.com/industry/2018/05/03/rolls-royce-uses-trump-era-tax-cuts-to-
improve-employee-benefits/; see also Marone, A. (2018, August 2),
Thanks to GOP Tax Cuts, Companies Are Providing New Benefits to
Employees and Their Families, retrieved 6 August 2018, from https://
www.atr.org/family). This demonstrates a challenge with tax credits:
they simply subsidize employers who already have policies or are
already planning to take action rather than incentivizing changes in
companies more broadly. This only exacerbates sharp divisions among
companies and employees' experiences.
From an employee's perspective, the tax credit continues to
perpetuate the ``boss lottery'': whether leave is available or not
still depends entirely on their employer's decisions.
Moreover, the parameters of the tax credit itself mean that
employers who take the tax credit may still fail to guarantee access to
paid leave of a meaningful duration, at a wage replacement rate that
makes it affordable to use, or for all of the reasons people need paid
Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) leave. Employer participation is
voluntary, and employers could offer leave for as little as two weeks,
at as little as 50 percent wage replacement, for as few as just one of
the reasons people need leave (26 U.S. Code Sec. 45S--Employer credit
for paid family and medical leave, retrieved 6 August 2018, from
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/45). And leave would only
need to be provided to employees under a certain salary threshold,
potentially creating new inequities in a worksite.
From an employer's perspective, the take-up rate may be low because
the tax credit does little to make providing leave affordable,
particularly for small companies or low-margin businesses. Employers
who offer leave in order to receive the tax credit are required to make
substantial and often unpredictable out-of-pocket expenditures to
provide paid leave when employees need it, in exchange for a small tax
credit that is not available until year-end tax filings. For example
(assuming an employer with a generous policy), for an employee with a
salary of $36,000 per year who takes 12 weeks of leave at 66 percent
pay, an employer would have to pay $5,483 out-of-pocket for the
employee's salary during the leave period, and eventually receive a
$905 tax credit, for a total net annual cost of $4,578. Ensuring paid
leave coverage for the same employee under the FAMILY Act would cost
just $72 for the entire year; during a period of leave, the employee's
wage replacement would be covered by the FAMILY Act's trust fund
(National Partnership for Women and Families (2017, November), Tax
Credits Do Little to Make Paid Leave Affordable for Employers,
retrieved 6 August 2018, from http://www.nationalpartnership.org/
research-library/work-family/paid-leave/tax-credits-do-little-to-make-
paid-leave-affordable-for-employers.pdf).
Question. The FAMILY Act would offer anti-retaliation protections
for all workers. When the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 was
passed, it excluded employers with under 50 employees. That, along with
other eligibility requirements, meant that it now only covers roughly
60 percent of all employees. However, while it may be easier for a
large corporation like Deloitte to move personnel around and provide
temporary replacement for workers with little cost, small businesses
may have a harder time.
How do the employment protections of the FAMILY Act take small
businesses into account?
Answer. The FAMILY Act would offer anti-retaliation protections to
the 41 percent of workers who are not covered by the Federal FMLA
(Klerman, J.A., Daley, K., and Pozniak, A. (2012, September), Family
and Medical Leave in 2012: Technical Report (Exhibit 7.2.1), Abt
Associates publication, retrieved 6 August 2018, from https://
www.dol.gov/asp/evaluation/fmla/FMLA-2012-Technical-Report.pdf). This
is critical because research on the paid leave insurance programs in
California and New Jersey has shown that workers without FMLA job
protection, particularly low-income workers, often fear repercussions
for taking leave and therefore forgo the paid leave that the State plan
makes available (State of California Employment Development Department
(2015, December 14), Paid Family Leave Market Research, retrieved 30
July 2018, from https://www.edd.ca.gov/Disability/pdf/Paid_
Family_Leave_Market_Research_Report_2015.pdf; see also Setty, S.,
Skinner, C., and Wilson-Simmons, R. (2016, March), Protecting Workers,
Nurturing Families: Building an Inclusive Family Leave Insurance
Program Findings and Recommendations From the New Jersey Parenting
Project, National Center for Children in Poverty publication, retrieved
30 July 2018, from http://www.nccp.org/publications/pub_1152.html).
Especially when paid leave plans are funded through employee payroll
deductions, it's essential to ensure that workers can actually use the
program.
Newer State laws go beyond the baseline proposed under the FAMILY
Act in addressing this critical need for employment security.
Massachusetts will offer full job protection--reinstatement to the same
or an equivalent job after returning from leave--for family and medical
leave to all workers, including those in smaller businesses or with
less job tenure. New York and Rhode Island offer job protection for
family care and parental leave to all workers, including those who fall
outside the State or Federal FMLA laws. The State FMLA law in
California was just amended to offer job protection to new parents in
smaller businesses so that these paid leave-takers are protected; FMLA
and antidiscrimination laws are also more expansive in Washington, DC
and Washington State and will protect some paid leave-takers who are
not covered by the Federal FMLA.
______
Question Submitted by Hon. Tim Scott
Question. There is a growing consensus on Capitol Hill that
recognizes the need to promote a Federal paid leave policy that
empowers employees who are also new parents, caregivers, and even
chronically ill. There is also an increasingly large number of
employers who have instituted their own paid leave policies, indicating
that job creators are recognizing the need and desire for such a
benefit. Just like individuals confront a host of life events that are
unique to themselves and their families, not all employers or
industries are the same. A mandatory Federal paid leave policy applied
to all industries may be detrimental to definite-term, project-specific
industries due to their different work conditions and performance
demands. Construction job sites, for example, employ multiple
contractors who work consecutively on time-sensitive projects where
both employers and employees have agreed to contracts that cover pay
and benefits, including family leave.
As we continue to consider various national paid leave program
proposals, what considerations should be made to accommodate and
complement the unique needs of various and distinct industries?
Specifically, could you provide a more detailed description of the
provisions for effective, productive coverage for workers and employers
in definite-term, multi-employer performance settings?
Answer. It's encouraging to see a growing consensus on Capitol Hill
that paid leave is an issue that Congress must address, and you
correctly note the importance of addressing leave not just for new
parents but also for caregivers and people who themselves may have
chronic health issues. Although it is true that some companies, like
Deloitte, are establishing programs for their own workers, most are
not. The gaps left by the private sector are enormous--whether measured
in the costs to workers and families, the costs to businesses
themselves in turnover and lost productivity, or to the costs and lost
value to the Nation's economy. This is why public policy must set a
cost-effective and efficient baseline that individual companies and
industries can use as a platform for further augmentation and
innovation.
A social insurance approach like the FAMILY Act can be especially
beneficial for the definite-term and multi-employer performance
settings raised in this question. Contract workers who need paid leave
would be able to access it through the FAMILY Act fund while allowing
the employer or multiple employers to hire replacement workers for
those that must be out. This is likely much more beneficial than the
status quo, which would either have those workers be off the job with
no pay--possibly jeopardizing the economic security of themselves and
their households, requiring dipping into savings, turning to public
assistance programs or even filing for bankruptcy--or put the full cost
of paying for leave on their employer, leaving the employer fewer
resources to hire a replacement. The FAMILY Act model insures both
workers and employers against these types of losses. Program integrity
measures would help ensure appropriate use, as has worked in the
States.
______
Communications
----------
American Benefits Council
1501 M Street, NW, Suite 600
Washington, DC 20005
202-289-6700
Facsimile 202-289-4582
www.americanbenefitscouncil.org
Submitted by Ilyse Schuman, Senior Vice President, Health Policy
The American Benefits Council (``the Council'') commends the Senate
Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions, and Family Policy for
holding a hearing focusing on the importance of paid family leave for
working families.
The Council is a public policy organization representing
principally Fortune 500 companies and other organizations that assist
employers in providing benefits to employees. The American Benefits
Council's members are primarily very large companies with operations
across the country--often in all 50 states and numerous localities. The
vast majority of large employers already sponsor excellent paid leave
programs that enable employees to address their own, and their family
members' health needs, as well as to have personal, holiday or vacation
time. These programs foster greater productivity and contribute to the
success of the business.
As more states and political subdivisions enact paid leave laws, it
has become increasingly difficult for large, multistate employers to
consistently offer and administer paid leave. Many state and local
mandates use completely different definitions of terms and have
inconsistent recordkeeping requirements and thresholds that trigger
coverage or accrual of benefits. As a result, employers have had to
design their leave programs to meet administrative and other
requirements, rather than meet employer and employee objectives.
As the Subcommittee discusses paid family leave, we ask you to
recognize the challenge presenting by the increasingly complex myriad
of state and local paid leave laws. We urge you to consider an approach
to paid leave that provides a federal, uniform and voluntary paid leave
option that will benefit employers and employees alike. Such an
approach would enable companies to design uniform programs that benefit
their employees and their families wherever they may live or work.
Uniform, voluntary federal standards would be both efficient and
equitable. Multistate employers need the predictability and uniformity
of a national paid leave solution, so they can maintain consistent
policies for their entire workforce across different states and local
jurisdictions. By having the option of a single, national standard for
paid leave they can treat all their employees equally, rather than on a
fragmented, jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction basis. Companies need programs
that fit what have become increasingly mobile workforces. A voluntary
national standard could make it easier to communicate available
programs so that employees get full value and would limit complexity of
administration for employers.
We urge policymakers to craft a federal solution that addresses the
challenge faced by working families and also the complexity of often
conflicting state and local leave laws. Accordingly, a national paid
leave policy must be:
Practical: Paid time off is a practical workforce issue and
should be a nonpartisan issue. This benefit is already provided
by employers across the United States. Any policy adopted
should promote ease of communication and use for employees as
well as ease of administration by the employer.
Voluntary: A national paid leave policy needs to be
voluntary on the part of the employer. Any regulation of paid
leave should allow large companies to maintain uniform paid
leave practices across the country by conforming to a single
set of rules so long as they provide a specified level of paid
leave to their workforce.
Uniform: As noted, it is critical that companies have the
ability, if desired, to design uniform paid leave policies that
do not vary based on the state or local jurisdiction in which
they operate. Uniformity allows for consistent treatment of
employees and ease of mobility for workers. State and local
mandates can still apply to businesses that do not provide paid
leave, but those companies that choose to adopt a federal
minimum standard should be deemed to satisfy all paid leave
mandates.
Flexible: Paid leave is distinct from the evolving world of
flexible work practices whereby, for example, employees may be
able to telecommute, share jobs, or work more during certain
days or weeks and less during other days or weeks. A national
policy on paid leave should not disrupt the evolution of
flexible workplace practices.
Thank you for your consideration of our comments. Please let us
know how the Council can further assist in your efforts.
______
American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI)
101 Constitution Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20001-2133
www.acli.com
The American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI) appreciates the
opportunity to submit the following statement for the record for the
Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions, and Family Policy's hearing
``Examining the Importance of Paid Family Leave for American Working
Families'' held July 11, 2018. We appreciate the Subcommittee raising
the level of awareness regarding this public policy issue.
ACLI advocates on behalf of approximately 290 member companies
dedicated to providing products and services that contribute to
consumers' financial and retirement security. ACLI members represent 95
percent of industry assets, 93 percent of life insurance premiums, and
98 percent of annuity considerations in the United States. Seventy-five
million families depend on our members' life insurance, annuities,
retirement plans, long-term care insurance, disability income insurance
and reinsurance products. Taking into account additional products
including dental, vision and other supplemental benefits, ACLI members
provide financial protection to 90 million American families.
The hearing comes at an opportune time. As referenced at the hearing,
there has been a dramatic increase in the filing of proposed state
legislation over the last several years that creates rights for
employees for paid leave to (1) bond with new children, (2) care for
family members with serious health conditions, (3) attend to a
qualifying exigency created by a family member being called to active
military duty and/or (4) for the employee's own medical condition. Some
of the proposed legislation permits self-funded and/or insured
solutions while other legislation contemplates the creation of new
governmental departments that will have the exclusive responsibility
for the administration of these leave programs and associated premiums.
Many private insurers are equipped to provide the aforementioned
employee benefits as they have the capital, organizational structure,
and professional staff with expertise to handle benefits including paid
family and medical leave. Insurers have a deep reservoir of customer
service, claims and administrative staff who are skilled at
administering these benefits. Many insurers currently offer ``absence
management'' services for employers that include tracking and
administration of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and hundreds
of state and local unpaid leave laws. Insurers also provide insured
solutions to employers who offer both short- and long-term disability
benefits to their employees and also assist employers with self-
insured benefits on an administrative services only (ASO) basis. There
are a number of states that currently require employers to provide
statutory disability and/or family leave benefits to their employees,
and almost all of these states permit and encourage private insurer
involvement in providing these benefits.
On January 1, 2018, New York became one of four states (the others are
California, New Jersey and Rhode Island) to now offer paid family leave
benefits so that employees may take paid leave to bond with a new
child, to care for a family member with a serious health condition or
for a qualifying military exigency caused by a covered family member
being called to military duty (PFML). These leave programs, in essence,
mirror rights under the FMLA but enhance those rights by providing paid
benefits. The District of Columbia, Massachusetts and Washington have
also passed paid family and medical leave legislation; however, those
laws do not go into effect until at least 2020.
In addition to these state efforts, federal proposals are being
considered as referenced by Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Joni
Ernst (R-IO) at the hearing. As Congress continues discussions and
drafts legislation to provide for paid leave, we would recommend that
it leverage the private insurance industry as you move forward.
Chairman Bill Cassidy (R-LA) applauded the steps many private employers
are already taking to provide these benefits to their employees. We
respectfully request that you consider the role of the private
insurance industry (in particular the private disability insurance
carriers) providing these benefits, especially the employee medical
leave portion. Currently more than 30 insurers provide disability
insurance benefits that businesses and employers can voluntarily offer
to their employees.
It makes sense from a number of policy perspectives for other
jurisdictions that are contemplating PFML legislation to also draft the
legislation in a way that permits private insurer involvement and
leverages the established private market. Having insurers participate
in programs to provide and to administer these benefits makes sense for
the following three key reasons:
It will reduce the financial and administrative burden on
government agencies.
Insurers already have the expertise, systems, and staff in
providing and administering like benefits.
It provides employers with a way to manage a number of leave
programs and benefits in one consolidated platform thereby increasing
ease of use and compliance.
ACLI believes that the following are key features that should be
considered and included in PFML legislation to effectively accomplish
the goal of permitting private insurer involvement:
Flexibility of design. Set minimum standards but allow insurers and
employers the flexibility to design and offer coverage that provides
equal or better benefits than any designated state benefits.
Flexibility in rates. To maintain a healthy and competitive market,
insurers should be allowed to establish appropriate rates based on
market forces as is currently the case with other employee benefit
coverages. To protect employees, the legislation could require that the
benefit be funded equally by both the employer and employee and/or
could set maximum rates that can be charged to employees. If insurers
and employers have the ability to negotiate rates, it will be more
likely that fair market prices will be established that accurately
reflect claim incidence.
Leaves run concurrently with FMLA. Insurers recommend that any proposed
legislation be clear that the paid family and/or medical leave run
concurrently with unpaid FMLA leave so that employees cannot ``stack''
their leaves and end up with double or more the amount of leave
contemplated by the statutes. For example, if the paid family/medical
leave permits 12 weeks of leave; employees should be required to have
those paid family/medical leave benefits run concurrently with the 12
weeks of unpaid leave under the FMLA to the extent the leave qualifies
under both statutes.
Alternative approach: tax credits. Legislation has been enacted at the
federal level and proposed at the state level which takes the approach
of offering tax benefits to employers who adopt paid family and medical
leave that meets certain minimum criteria. The benefit of this
legislative approach is that it provides the greatest flexibility to
employers and might be the simplest legislation to draft and
administer. Insurers recommend that legislators consider this efficient
and more flexible approach in any future discussions and bill drafting.
Thank you for the opportunity to submit our comments.
______
American Sustainable Business Council
1001 G Street, NW, Suite 400E
Washington, DC 20001
July 11, 2018
The Honorable Bill Cassidy
Chairman
Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions, and Family Policy
Committee on Finance
U.S. Senate
219 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
The Honorable Sherrod Brown
Ranking Member
Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions, and Family Policy
Committee on Finance
United States Senate
219 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
RE: Subcommittee hearing, ``Examining the Importance of Paid Family
Leave for American Working Families,'' July 11, 2018
Dear Chairman Cassidy and Ranking Member Brown:
The American Sustainable Business Council (ASBC), on behalf of the
250,000 businesses we represent, is writing to you today to express our
support for the Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act, better known as
the FAMILY Act. ASBC is fully supportive of a national paid leave
program that is comprehensive and sustainable, and the FAMILY Act is
the bill that would accomplish this goal.
the united states is falling behind the rest of the developed world
Paid family and medical leave can and should ensure an employee income
during a work absence for a range of reasons. The right program will
allow employees to meet the needs of a new family or take proper care
of a seriously ill loved one (or themselves) without financial penalty.
Because these are inherently stressful life situations, practical
support, such as paid leave, makes a profound and lasting difference to
employees and their loved ones.
Currently, the United States is the only developed nation that does not
have a national paid family and medical leave law. The current national
law, the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), is woefully inadequate.
It only provides up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to roughly half of
American workers. Since the law does not apply to companies with fewer
than 50 employees, millions of hard-working employees are unable to
even benefit from this law because they are either self-employed or
work for a small business. Even workers that are covered by the FMLA
may find themselves unable to actually take leave because they work in
a low-wage job and do not have the economic security to even benefit
from the leave that is allowed under the law.
the family act is the high-value low-cost path forward
The FAMILY Act would create an affordable, inclusive, and comprehensive
leave policy that would provide all workers with up to 12 weeks of paid
leave. This bill would be paid for by matching contributions from
employees and employers, which is both responsible and sustainable. The
actual costs to both workers and employers would be less than two-one
hundredths of a percent per paycheck or roughly $1.50 per week. The
minimal costs of the FAMILY Act would have a tremendous value for
workers; they would be able to receive sixty-six percent of their
normal wages.
Other legislative proposals for family leave would require workers to
draw from their Social Security retirement funds or only cover parental
leave. The FAMILY Act would not force workers to make choices that
would harm the long-term financial stability of their families. Workers
should not be forced to choose whether to delay their retirement
because they have to care for a new child or other family member.
Further, the government should not be mandating workers to drain their
Social Security retirement during a time when many workers are already
struggling to save enough for their retirement. American workers need a
paid leave plan that helps them remain financially secure without
jeopardizing the long-term health of their families.
the business case for paid family and medical leave
Polls have shown that nearly seventy percent of small businesses
support the implementation of a national paid leave policy like the
FAMILY Act. Businesses that have already implemented paid leave
policies have seen both employee productivity and profits rise. A
common-sense program like the FAMILY Act will help the many American
businesses who struggle with employee turnover and the resulting lost
productivity as some of their biggest costs, which often amount to
thousands of dollars per employee. Additionally, eighty percent of
businesses with paid leave programs have found that their employees
demonstrated higher levels of satisfaction at work and, in many
instances, this increase in worker morale has led to more reliably
productive workplaces. A more reliably productive workplace leads to a
more profitable business.
In states like California and New Jersey that have already implemented
paid family and medical leave, the programs are popular with businesses
and employees alike. Businesses are able to utilize existing state
resources to assist in creating the necessary infrastructure to
implement and sustain paid leave programs. Approximately sixty percent
of California businesses reported cost savings by coordinating their
benefits with the state program. Meanwhile, a poll in New Jersey found
that, three years after the state' s paid family leave program took
effect, more than seventy-five percent of voters viewed it favorably.
Additionally, in California, the paid leave law reduced disparities in
amount of leave time taken between employees in lower-income and
higher-income jobs. According to polls and other studies, the employees
in the lower-income positions started to use more of their leave
following the implementation of this policy. California is also doing
more to address lingering disparities by continually increasing the
percentage of take-home wages for most of the recipients.
By 2020, six states and the District of Columbia will have passed and
implemented paid leave policies for all workers in their states. This
doesn't even include the growing number of state and local governments
providing their employees with varying levels of paid family and
medical leave. What is abundantly clear, more and more Americans--as
well as their elected leaders--know that these programs are not only
smart public policy, they are smart business policy.
Paid leave is a central component of the High-road workplace
principles, of which ASBC and its members believe in and abide by.
High-road companies consider the impact of their business practices on
their employees, the communities they operate in, and the products and
services they provide to the marketplace. These companies understand
that the High-road incentivizes their employees to work more
productively and be more reliable because their employers are doing the
same for them.
High-road workplaces do more than just benefit employees and the bottom
line. They also benefit American communities because they reduce
employee reliance on taxpayer-funded safety nets, put more money into
our local economies, and improve the well-being and future prospects of
families. Yet despite the clear moral and economic benefits of the
High-road, some employers continue their substandard workplace
practices. As a result, they burden the U.S. economy as a whole and
penalize companies that do pay their fair share. By passing the FAMILY
Act, you would be disincentivizing these bad actors and level the
playing field for all companies.
As business leaders, we know that providing paid family leave is good
for business and we believe it is good for our country.
Sincerely,
The American Sustainable Business Council
______
Association of Women's Health, Obstetric, and Neonatal Nurses
1800 M Street, NW, Suite 740 South
Washington, DC 20036
800-354-2268
202-728-0575 (fax)
www.awhonn.org
July 23, 2018
Senator Bill Cassidy Senator Sherrod Brown
Chairman Ranking Member
Subcommittee on Social Security,
Pensions, and Family Policy Subcommittee on Social Security,
Pensions, and Family Policy
U.S. Senate U.S. Senate
Committee on Finance Committee on Finance
Washington, DC 20510 Washington, DC 20510
Re: ``Examining the Importance of Paid Family Leave for American
Working Families,'' July 11, 2018
Dear Chairman Cassidy and Ranking Member Brown,
Thank you for the opportunity to submit this statement for the record
on the July 11, 2018 Senate Committee on Finance Subcommittee on Social
Security, Pensions, and Family Policy hearing ``Examining the
Importance of Paid Family Leave for American Working Families.''
As an organization that represents 350,000 nurses who are clinically
active in hospitals, perinatal facilities, and Health Centers, the
Association of Women's Health, Obstetric, and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN)
promotes breastfeeding as the ideal and normative method for feeding
infants. Women should be encouraged and supported to exclusively
breastfeed for the first six months of an infant' s life and continue
to breastfeed for the first year and beyond.
Financial pressure often forces new mothers to return to work, but
doing so interferes with breastfeeding. Paid leave for new mothers
would remove the financial pressure and therefore increase the rate of
breastfeeding. Because breastfeeding has short-term and long-term
health benefits, an increase in the breastfeeding rate would have
public health benefits. If 90% of new mothers breastfed exclusively for
6 months, 13 billion health care dollars would be saved.\1\ These long-
term public health benefits would translate into a healthier future
workforce, including an increase in the number of young adults who meet
the minimum standards for health required to fill the ranks of our
armed services.
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\1\ Bartick, M., and Reinhold, A. (2010). ``The burden of
suboptimal breastfeeding in the United States: A pediatric cost
analysis.'' Pediatrics, 125, e1048-e1056. doi:10.1542/peds.2009-16162.
AWHONN supports the implementation of legislation, policies, and public
health initiatives that ensure the right to breastfeed; increase the
rate of initiating and maintaining exclusive breastfeeding in the
United States; raise awareness of the benefits of breastfeeding; and
expand research related to breastfeeding. Such initiatives should
include, but not be limited to, enhanced family medical leave policies
that provide women with paid maternity leave to fully establish and
maintain exclusive breastfeeding for at lea s t the first six months of
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their infants' lives.
For the above reasons, AWHONN supports S. 337, the Family and Medical
Insurance Leave (FAMILY) Act. AWHONN supports this bill so women can
establish and sustain breastfeeding while minimizing loss of income for
their families. Financed by a new, mandatory payroll contribution, this
bill would establish a fund administered by the Social Security
Administration to provide paid leave for 12 weeks for any family member
for any family-related medical leave including maternity care. It would
make paid leave affordable for employers of all sizes and for workers
and their families and be funded by a small employee and employer
payroll contribution. The FAMILY Act builds on successful state
programs in California, New Jersey, Rhode Island and New York.
By contrast, the proposal testified to by Sen. Joni Ernst, by borrowing
against future Social Security benefits, would provide working families
with financial security during their child-rearing years at the expense
of those same families' financial security at the time of their
retirement or permanent disability of a wage earner. AWHONN opposes
this bill because it unfairly targets women and comes at the expense of
delayed benefits when they might be most needed.
If you have any questions or desire to further discuss these issues,
please contact AWHONN Government Affairs Director Seth Chase at
[email protected] or 202-261-2427.
Sincerely,
Suzanne Berry, MBA, CAE
Interim Chief Executive Officer
______
Berner International Corporation
New Castle, Pennsylvania
Statement by Georgia Berner
paid family leave
As the retired President and CEO of Berner International Corporation,
it is difficult to understand the opposition to having a National
Family and Medical Leave insurance program. How exactly does it not
make sense? Finding and retaining the best and brightest employees is a
time consuming and costly function of running a business. To offer
benefits that support employees and their families creates a
partnership where both employer and employee have a sense of stability
and security, employees are productive and healthy, and U.S. companies
are strong and profitable. Berner is the first U.S. manufacturer of air
curtains. Air curtains create an air seal across an open doorway that
keeps cold air on one side and warm air on the other, saving energy and
creating healthy, comfortable environments. Located in New Castle,
Pennsylvania, Berner has become an employer of choice in the region,
grown to over 65 employees and continues to offer fully paid health
benefits to all full-time employees.
______
Consortium for Citizens With Disabilities (CCD)
820 First Street, NE, Suite 740
Washington, DC 20002-4243
Tel: 202-567-3516
Fax: 202-408-9520
Website: www.c-c-d.org
Email: [email protected]
Statement on Proposals to Use Social Security to
Pay for Parental Leave
Consortium for Citizens With Disabilities Social Security Task Force
The Independent Women's Forum (IWF) has proposed creating a new
parental leave benefit, paid for by asking workers to take a cut in
their future Social Security benefits. Under the IWF proposal, workers
could receive up to 12 weeks of partially paid parental leave, offset
by a reduction or delay in their Social Security retirement benefits.
Participation would be voluntary.
The undersigned members of the Consortium for Citizens with
Disabilities (CCD) Social Security Task Force oppose such proposals.
The U.S. can create a paid leave plan affordably and responsibly--
without reducing workers' Social Security benefits or forcing them to
delay retirement. We urge Congress to reject the IWF proposal and any
similar proposals. We offer the following considerations related to the
impact of such proposals on Social Security:
Access to paid leave should not be carved out of funds dedicated
to Social Security. Our Social Security system is a foundation of
economic security for workers and their families in the event of a
worker's retirement, disability, or death. Social Security represents a
promise to U.S. workers that has been built up and honored for over 80
years that should not be limited or cut. Expanding access to paid
parental leave is an important goal for all workers, including people
with disabilities and their families. However, proposals to fund paid
leave out of workers' future Social Security benefits would break the
promise of Social Security, and should be rejected.
Workers should not be asked to pay for parental leave today by
rolling the dice on their future needs for Social Security. Research
consistently finds that it is difficult to estimate financial needs in
retirement, and workers often underestimate. Asking workers in their
prime reproductive years to make decisions based in part on their
prediction of future Social Security retirement benefit needs is
unnecessary and unwise. Workers with disabilities and their families
would be more likely to face this risky roll of the dice because on
average, they are more likely to work in low-wage, part-time, non-
managerial jobs that lack employer-based paid leave benefits.
Retirement security should be strengthened, not eroded or put at
risk. According to the Urban Institute, under the IWF proposal ``. . .
parents who take 12 weeks of paid leave through the program would have
to delay their Social Security retirement benefits by 20 to 25 weeks
depending on the repayment details.'' Social Security represents a
major source of income for most retirees: it provides over half of
total income for most aged beneficiaries, and 90 percent or more of
income for nearly 1 in 4 aged beneficiary couples and over 2 in 5 aged
nonmarried beneficiaries. Even with Social Security, many seniors live
in or near poverty--and seniors with disabilities are particularly
likely to experience poverty. The CCD Social Security Task Force has
long supported strengthening--not weakening--Social Security as a
cornerstone of a financially sound retirement.
Any delays or permanent reductions in Social Security benefits
could significantly harm the economic security of people with
disabilities and their families. IWF's and similar proposals could be
funded by raising the age at which a worker could collect full
retirement benefits (in effect, a permanent reduction in benefits), or
by withholding all of a worker's initial Social Security retirement
benefits for an amount equal to the paid parental leave taken (a delay
in benefits). The more times a worker takes parental leave, the greater
the future benefit reduction. The proposed treatment of Social Security
disability or survivors' benefits is not clear; any cuts in these
benefits would be particularly harmful to people with disabilities and
their families. Workers with disabilities on average earn significantly
less than workers without disabilities and often have fewer
opportunities to save. As a result, Social Security is particularly
important to the economic security of people with disabilities, and any
reductions or delays in benefits would disproportionately harm people
with disabilities and their families.
Congress should adequately fund the Social Security
Administration (SSA) to operate and strengthen its existing core
programs--not repurpose existing limited resources to implement a new
program. From 2010 to 2018, SSA's operating budget shrank by nearly 9
percent while workloads rose. As a result, customer service has been
eroded across the agency. Today, nearly 1 million people are waiting an
average of over 590 days for a hearing before an SSA Administrative Law
Judge. These historic waits lead to extreme hardship: while awaiting a
hearing, many struggle to pay rent or meet basic needs. Some lose their
homes or go into bankruptcy, and in 2017 approximately 10,000 people
died while waiting for a hearing. Congress must fully fund SSA's
operating budget to ensure timely, accurate disability determinations
and humane, high-quality customer service across the agency. The IWF
proposal would move in the opposite direction, ``. . . raising Social
Security's annual costs, net of benefit offsets, about 1 percent over
the long run,'' according to the Urban Institute.
For these reasons, the undersigned members of the CCD Social Security
Task Force urge Congress to reject the IWF proposal and any similar
proposals to fund paid leave out of Social Security.
CCD members:
ACCSES
Allies for Independence
American Association on Health and Disability
American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities
(AAIDD)
American Psychological Association
Autistic Self Advocacy Network
Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law
Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation
Community Legal Services of Philadelphia
Easterseals
Family Voices
Justice in Aging
National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys
National Association of Councils on Developmental Disabilities
National Association of Disability Representatives
National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare
National Disability Rights Network
National Multiple Sclerosis Society
National Organization of Social Security Claimants' Representatives
Paralyzed Veterans of America
Special Needs Alliance
The Arc of the United States
United Spinal Association
Joined by:
Lakeshore Foundation
CCD is the largest coalition of national organizations working together
to advocate for federal public policy that ensures the self-
determination, independence, empowerment, integration and inclusion of
children and adults with disabilities in all aspects of society. The
CCD Social Security Task Force focuses on disability policy issues in
the Title II disability programs and the Title XVI Supplemental
Security Income (SSI) program.
For more information, contact the CCD Social Security Task Force Co-
Chairs: Lisa Ekman, [email protected]/(202) 457-7775; Tracey
Gronniger, tgronniger@
justiceinaging.org/(202) 683-1993; Jeanne Morin, [email protected]/
(202) 297-3616; Web Phillips, [email protected]/(202) 216-8358; T.J.
Sutcliffe, sutcliffe
@thearc.org/(202) 783-2229 ext. 314.
______
ERISA Industry Committee
701 8th Street, NW, Suite 610
Washington, DC 20001
(202) 789-1400
www.eric.org
July 24, 2018
U.S. Senate
Committee on Finance
Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The ERISA Industry Committee (ERIC) appreciates the opportunity to
submit a statement for the record for the hearing held on Wednesday,
July 11, 2018 before the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Social
Security, Pensions, and Family Policy, entitled ``Examining the
Importance of Paid Family Leave for American Working Families.''
ERIC is the only national association that advocates exclusively for
the nation's largest employers on health, retirement, and compensation
public policies at the federal, state, and local levels. Our members
provide generous paid leave benefits to tens of thousands of workers
across the country, and therefore have a strong interest in laws and
policies that affect their ability to offer competitive paid leave
benefits to their employees. Large employers continue to be at the
forefront of employee benefits. Through paid family leave and short and
long-term disability policies, large employers are stepping up and
providing important safety net benefits for their employees. A number
of these large employers work in almost every state and are therefore
subjected to newly adopted state government mandates on paid family and
medical leave. These mandates are imposing significant and unnecessary
compliance burdens through one-size fits-all models that have the
potential to cause employers to adversely alter their employee
benefits.
The conversation about a national paid family and medical leave law is
an important one. It has been twenty-five years since the Family and
Medical Leave Act (FMLA) was signed into law, guaranteeing millions of
Americans unpaid leave from work to care for themselves or a close
family member. Since FMLA, however, there has been a greater importance
placed on paid family leave and what it can mean for both employees and
employers. Large employers saw the benefit of offering this voluntary
benefit and have been doing so for years. Large employers that operate
in more than one state do their best to maintain a national policy that
satisfies the growing number of state mandates. Uniformity is key for
employers that want to provide the same benefits package to employees
regardless of geographic location. A national standard would ensure the
greatest type of uniformity and lessen the patchwork effect that is
currently being promulgated.
Any national paid family and medical leave law should account for and
shield those employers that have already been providing paid family and
medical leave benefits. This is most easily achieved through federal
preemption. An employer that satisfies a federal standard for paid
family leave should be deemed to have satisfied any state law that
governs the same type of paid family leave for employees.
However, should preemption be unachievable, a federal paid family and
medical leave law should establish a social insurance program rather
than a strict government mandate. A social insurance program could
utilize existing infrastructure (e.g., unemployment insurance) and
government resources, which would lessen the burdens and costs to
employers. Furthermore, the funding of benefits through a federal
program should be the sole responsibility of employees as the ultimate
beneficiaries. As the individuals receiving the wage replacement while
away from work, it should be from their wages that amounts are deducted
to ensure the solvency of a central fund from which benefits are paid.
Ultimately, we share the goal of increasing access to paid family and
medical leave to employees of private-sector employers. But, for
employers that already provide a family and medical leave through their
own policies, it is important that they can continue designing and
maintaining plans that work effectively and efficiently based on the
needs of their workforces and the industries in which they operate.
ERIC appreciates the opportunity to provide a statement for the record.
If you have any questions concerning our comments, or if we can be of
further assistance, please contact me at (202) 627-1930 or
[email protected].
Sincerely,
Will Hansen
Senior Vice President, Retirement and Compensation Policy
______
First Focus Campaign for Children
Dear Subcommittee Chairman Cassidy, Ranking Member Brown, and Members
of the Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions, and Family Policy. We
thank you for the opportunity to submit this statement for the record
on the hearing focused on addressing the need for a comprehensive,
bipartisan nationwide paid leave policy.
First Focus Campaign for Children is a bipartisan advocacy organization
dedicated to making children and families a priority in federal policy
and budget decisions. As an organization dedicated to promoting the
safety and well-being of all children in the United States, we support
the establishment of a universal paid family and medical leave program
that ensures families must never have to choose between financial
stability and the ability to care for children or other loved ones in a
time of need.
The United States drastically lags behind the rest of the developed
world when it comes to paid family leave. We are the only OECD
(Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) country that
does not provide paid maternity leave nationwide, and paid leave is
given to both parents in 23 OECD countries.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Oecd.org. (2016). Parental leave: Where are the fathers?
[online]. Available at: https://www.oecd.org/policy-briefs/parental-
leave-where-are-the-fathers.pdf [accessed 24 Jul. 2018].
Creating a national paid family and medical leave program in the U.S.
would have significant positive implications for reducing child poverty
and improving child health. The birth of a child often results in large
medical bills for families, and the income earned during paid leave can
be used to cover these medical expenses and prevent a family from
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
falling behind on other bills such as rent and utilities.
Infants in the U.S. are 76% more likely to die than those born in other
countries.\2\ Infant and maternal mortality rates in the U.S. are far
too high in comparison to other wealthy nations, and a national policy
on paid family leave would help combat this. A study from Public Health
Reports finds an increase of 10 weeks paid maternity leave predicted a
10% decrease in neonatal and infant mortality rates.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Thakrar, A., Forrest, A., Maltenfort, M. and Forrest, C.
(2018). ``Child Mortality in the U.S. and 19 OECD Comparator Nations: A
50-Year Time-Trend Analysis.'' Health Affairs, [online] 37(1), pp. 140-
149. Available at: https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/abs/10.1377/
hlthaff.
2017.0767.
\3\ Heymann, J., Raub, A. and Earle, A. (2011). ``Creating and
Using New Data Sources to Analyze the Relationship Between Social
Policy and Global Health: The Case of Maternal Leave.'' Public Health
Reports [online] 126(3_suppl), pp. 127-134. Available at: https://www.
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3150137/.
Multiple states have already successfully implemented paid leave
policies, yet a national paid leave program must be created to reach
the millions of men and women who lack access to both unpaid and paid
leave. While the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), adopted over 25
years ago, provides critical job protection for millions of workers in
the U.S., only about 60% of the nation's workforce is eligible for
protection, and there are many more employees who cannot afford to take
leave that is unpaid.\4\ Currently, only 15% of American workers have
access to paid leave, and those who do not must choose between losing
valuable income or providing loved ones, and themselves, the care they
need.\5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Abt Associates Inc. (2014). Family and Medical Leave in 2012:
Technical Report. Cambridge MA. Available at: https://www.dol.gov/asp/
evaluation/fmla/FMLA-2012-Technical-Report.pdf.
\5\ Nationalpartnership.org. (2018). Oppose Retirement Penalties
for Parents Toolkit [online]. Available at: http://
www.nationalpartnership.org/research-library/work-family/coalition/
oppose-retirement-penalties-for-parents-coalition-toolkit.pdf [accessed
23 Jul. 2018].
The Family and Medical Insurance Leave (FAMILY) Act of 2017, introduced
by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Congresswoman Rosa Delaura (D-
CT-3), would create a program that combines employer and employee
payroll contributions to create a shared fund for paid family and
medical leave for all employers of all sizes. Workers in all companies
would be eligible for up to 12 weeks of partial income, earning 66% of
their monthly wages up to a capped amount, for family and medical
leave. Paid leave could be used during a pregnancy, for childbirth
recovery, serious health condition of a child, parent, spouse or
domestic partner, adoption of a child, and/or military caregiving and
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leave.
The FAMILY Act would allow for working individuals to take paid time
off, and would not discriminate based on gender or the nature of their
job. By allowing both parents to take valuable time off after the birth
or adoption of a child, men are able to be more involved in direct care
therefore creating greater equality in households.\6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Nationalpartnership.org. (2018). Fathers Need Paid Family and
Medical Leave Fact Sheet [online]. Available at: http://
www.nationalpartnership.org/research-library/work-family/paid-leave/
fathers-need-paid-family-and-medical-leave.pdf [accessed 24 Jul. 2018].
It would also improve both maternal and child health, because mothers
are more able to breastfeed,\7\ parents are more likely to have their
children immunized and take them to important check-ups.\8\ Studies
show chat when families have access co paid leave, children get over
illnesses and heal faster.\7\
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\7\ Earle, A., Mokomane, Z. and Heymann, J. (2011). ``International
Perspectives on Work-
Family Policies: Lessons From the World's Most Competitive Economies.''
The Future of Children, 21(2). Available at: https://
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22013634.
\8\ Berger, L., Hill, J. and Waldfogel, J. (2005). ``Maternity
leave, early maternal employment and child health and development in
the U.S.'' The Economic Journal, 115(501). Available at: https://
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0013-0133.2005.00971.x.
Due to a lack of paid leave, as of 2015, 1 in 4 women returned to work
just 2 weeks after giving birth.\9\ This is detrimental for women's
health as it has been proven chat returning to work prior to 6 weeks
after giving birth puts mothers at a much greater risk for postpartum
depression.\10\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ Paquette, D. (2015). ``The shocking number of new moms who
return to work two weeks after childbirth.'' The Washington Post
[online]. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/
2015/08/19/the-shocking-number-of-new-moms-who-return-to-work-two-
weeks-after-childbirth/?utm_term=.43afa961b0f6 [accessed 24 Jul. 2018].
\10\ Dagher, R., McGovern, P. and Dowd, B. (2013). ``Maternity
Leave Duration and Postpartum Mental and Physical Health: Implications
for Leave Policies.'' Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and Law,
39(2). Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24305845.
The FAMILY Act also has positive consequences for family economic
security. According to the National Partnership for Women and Families,
the FAMILY Act could reduce by 81% the number of the nation's families
facing economic insecurity when they need time to care. In addition,
new mothers who take paid leave are over 50% more likely to receive a
future pay increase.\11\ In addition to helping families, nationwide
paid family and medical leave would help the American economy. Our
current lack of paid leave costs the economy $20.6 billion per
year.\12\
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\11\ Houser, L. and Vartanian, T. (2012). Pay Matters: The Positive
Economic Impacts of Paid Family Leave for Families, Businesses and the
Public. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Center for Women and Work. Available
at: http://www.nationalpartnership.org/research-library/work-family/
other/pay-matters.pdf.
\12\ Saad-Lessler, J. and Bahn, K. (2017). The Importance of Paid
Leave for Caregivers--Center for American Progress [online]. Center for
American Progress. Available at: https://www.americanprogress.org/
issues/women/reports/2017/09/27/439684/importance-paid-leave-
caregivers/#fn-439684-11 [accessed 24 Jul. 2018).
In contrast, we have concerns about the proposal included in Senator
Ernst's testimony, which would require families to pull from Social
Security funds in order to cover paid family leave. In the long-term,
this would hurt low-income families, creating financial stress as they
age into retirement. This proposal would also only account for paid
parental leave, thus not allowing workers to take paid time off to care
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
for themselves or other loved ones suffering from chronic illness.
A universal paid family and medical leave program in the U.S. is needed
now more than ever. According to a 2014 report from the U.S. Census
Bureau, the population aged over 65 will be double what is was in 2012
by 2050.\13\ With a growing aging population, our nation must be ready
to support the increasing amount of unpaid caregivers who will have to
take time off work to care for a spouse, parent, or other loved ones.
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\13\ Ortman, J., Velkoff, V. and Hogan, H. (2014). An Aging Nation:
The Older Population in the United States [online]. Census.gov.
Available at: https://www.census.gov/prod/2014pubs/p25-1140.pdf
[accessed 24 Jul. 2018).
We thank you again for the opportunity to submit this written
testimony. We look forward to working with you to help ensure that all
families and children are prioritized in the implementation of a
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national paid leave policy.
______
Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration
July 13, 2018
U.S. Senate
Committee on Finance
Dirksen Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, DC 20510-6200
RE: STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD--Subcommittee Hearing, ``Examining the
Importance of Paid Family Leave for American Working Families''
Chairman Hatch, Ranking Member Wyden, and members of the Subcommittee
on Social Security, Pensions, and Family Policy:
I write today on behalf of Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, a
religious congregation of Roman Catholic Sisters. The Franciscan
Sisters of Perpetual Adoration wishes to encourage the efforts of this
subcommittee on paid family leave and underscore the importance of
improving paid family leave policy--not only for workers, but for the
companies and investors which rely on their long-term health and human
capital.
As a testament to the investment community's keen interest in improving
paid family leave policy, I refer the subcommittee to the following
investor statement on paid family leave published last month and
endorsed by 58 investment companies and asset owners with assets
totaling $169 billion. Please review the statement in its entirety.
Very clearly, investors are seeking greater equality, adequacy and
accessibility in companies' paid family leave policies.
As discussed in the investor statement, suitable paid family leave
positions workers and companies to seize long-term opportunities and
guard against human capital risk. However, more support from government
is needed. Federal policy certainty and targeted resources would
promote the long-term interests of U.S. employers. As an investment
company focused on sustainable and socially responsible performance,
therefore, Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration urges Congress to
act to improve paid family leave.
Most sincerely,
Susan Ernster, FSPA
Treasurer/CFO
INVESTOR STATEMENT ON PAID FAMILY LEAVE
Published June 1, 2018
Available online at http://www.zevin.com/documents/familyleave.pdf
We write today as representatives of investors with assets totaling
$169 billion and a keen interest in investment risks and opportunities
related to human capital management. Paid Family Leave is a critical
issue impacting U.S. families, as well as our portfolio companies'
long-term performance. Federal inaction on paid family leave has
increased pressure on large employers to enhance their policies for all
employees. Investors are concerned about the long-term performance and
risk management of companies that maintain unequal and inadequate paid
family leave policies.
Companies that fail to review, disclose, and improve their approach to
paid family leave could be left behind. In the last few months alone,
Starbucks, Walmart, CVS Health and other large employers have announced
extended paid parental leave policies.\1\ Companies are finally taking
action in response to public advocacy by employees, as well as pressure
from investors, including shareholder proposals urging companies to
address critical caregiving needs.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ ``Walmart and Now Starbucks: Why More Big Companies Are
Offering Paid Family Leave.'' The New York Times, 24 Jan. 2018, https:/
/www.nytimes.com/2018/01/24/upshot/parental-leave-company-policy-
salaried-hourly-gap.html.
\2\ ``Starbucks investors press coffee chain for change on unequal
family leave.'' The Guardian, 2 Oct 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/
business/2017/oct/02/starbucks-investors-coffee-family-parental-birth-
leave.
It is well known that the current state of paid family leave is not
working for U.S. families in general and has negative impacts on
certain segments of the population in particular. Approximately 9 out
of 10 private sector workers in the U.S. do not have access to a single
day of paid family leave, and one in four new moms is back at work just
10 days after childbirth.\3\ The lack of proper paid family leave, as
further defined below, can disproportionately impact women, forcing
them to leave their career track in order to care for children, and
contributing to systemic and long-term gender pay gap issues.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ ``13 Percent of Private Industry Workers Had Access to Paid
Family Leave in March 2016: The Economics Daily.'' U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics, 4 Nov. 2016. Web 9 May 2017.
The status quo is also bad for business--subjecting companies to
avoidable long-term risks and costs, such as workforce retention issues
and higher turnover, loss of high-quality talent, and diminishing
diversity levels. For example, it is costly for companies to replace
workers (and train their replacements) when poor paid family leave
policies cause them to leave the workforce. On the other hand,
according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, companies
offering paid family leave to all workers report increased morale, as
well as cost savings, from less employee turnover.\4\ In a recent New
York Times report, a Starbucks official stated that improved paid
family leave ``brings the talent we're looking for, and industry-
leading retention.''\5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ ``Leaves That Pay: Employer and Worker Experiences With Paid
Family Leave in California,'' Center for Economic and Policy Research,
January 2011, http://cepr.net/publications/reports/leaves-that-pav.
\5\ ``Walmart and Now Starbucks: Why More Big Companies Are
Offering Paid Family Leave,'' The New York Times, 24 Jan. 2018, http://
www.nytimes.com/2018/01/24/upshot/parental-leave-company-policy-
salaried-hourly-gap.html.
Unequal paid family leave can also lead to litigation risk. For
example, last year, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued
Estee Lauder, citing disparities between paid leave for mothers and
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
fathers.
Recent progress at the companies mentioned above signals a wave of
action among U.S. corporations and a potential watershed moment for
paid parental leave in the U.S. As the labor market tightens, more and
more companies are positioning themselves to attract and keep talent
with incentives such as paid family leave and other family-friendly
policies. Policies that leave out hourly or part-time workers, that
ignore fathers and adoptive parents, or that do not provide adequate
length of leave for families to recover or bond with newly arrived
children will no longer suffice. We believe that the ``Paid Leave Arms
Race'' \6\ that has played out in the professional services, financial,
and knowledge economy sectors is now moving into the service and retail
sectors. As such, we are urging companies across our portfolios to
revisit their approach.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ ``Deloitte Enters the Paid Family Leave Arms Race With 16 Weeks
of Family Leave,'' Fortune, Sep. 8 2016, http://fortune.com/2016/09/08/
deloitte-family-leave/.
Companies should strive for best practice to realize all of the
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
benefits of paid family leave. Policies in this area should:
Be equal . . . between classes of employees, salaried and
hourly, full-time and part-time, corporate office and field . . .
between new parents regardless of gender or family circumstance.
Providing an additional 6 to 8 weeks of short-term disability for birth
mothers is acceptable.
Be adequate . . . in length for the health of newly arrived
children and birthing mothers, and provide the necessary bonding time
for new parents. Although Walmart excluded their part-time workforce,
the length of Walmart's new policy sets the baseline standard for
companies: 16 weeks of fully paid parental leave to employees who give
birth, and 6 weeks fully paid to all other new parents.
Be accessible . . . to all employees. Policies should be easy to
find and understand, and managers should encourage employees of all
genders to fully utilize their paid family leave . . . to the public
and investors. Increasingly, investors and job seekers desire
transparency in companies' human capital management policies in a range
of areas, from diversity and inclusion to compensation and benefits. We
believe that these factors are material for large employers. Sound
management of these factors can increase future opportunities (just as
mismanagement can increase future costs).
We are keen to pursue dialogues with companies on how sound human
capital management, including strong paid family leave policies, can
support long-term investor value. As investors, we urge large employers
to review and expand policies consistent with the above standards.
SIGNATORIES
Zevin Asset Management Walden Asset Management
Clean Yield Asset Management The Sustainability Group of Loring,
Wolcott, and Coolidge
Tri-State Coalition for Responsible
Investment NorthStar Asset Management, Inc.
Arjuna Capital Impax Asset Management LLC
Trillium Asset Management Sisters of the Presentation of
Aberdeen, S.D.
Progressive Asset Management Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual
Adoration
Sisters of Saint Joseph of Chestnut
Hill, Philadelphia, PA Everence and the Praxis Mutual
Funds
International Brotherhood of
Teamsters Sisters of Charity of Nazareth
Seventh Generation Interfaith Inc. Dominican Sisters--Grand Rapids
Region VI Coalition for Responsible
Investment Skye Advisors
Sisters of St. Agnes Justice,
Peace, and Integrity of Creation
Office Manaaki Foundation
Community Capital Management, Inc. Northwest Coalition for Responsible
Investment
Midwest Coalition for Responsible
Investment Sisters of Charity, Halifax
Tri-State Coalition for Responsible
Investment Socially Responsible Investment
Coalition
JLens Mercy Investment Services
Congregation of St. Joseph Daughters of Charity, Province of
St. Louise
Mirova Stance Capital
SharePower Responsible Investing,
Inc. Vert Asset Management
Epic Capital Wealth Management Three Corners Capital
Greenvest/VFG Newground Social Investment
CtW Investment Group Nathan Cummings Foundation
AFL-CIO FNV
Sisters of St. Dominic of Caldwell,
NJ Dominican Sisters of Hope
Ursuline Sisters of Tildonk, U.S.
Province Friends Fiduciary Corporation
Bon Secours Health System, Inc. Socially Responsible Investment
Coalition
Congregation of Sisters of St.
Agnes Nia Impact Capital
Nia Community Foundation
______
The Heritage Foundation
214 Massachusetts Avenue, NE
Washington, DC 20002
(202) 546-4400
heritage.org
Meeting Working Families' Needs and Desires for Paid Family Leave
Without Creating a New National Entitlement
Rachel Greszler
Research Fellow in Economics, Budgets and Entitlements, The Heritage
Foundation
My name is Rachel Greszler. I am a Research Fellow in Economics,
Budgets and Entitlements at The Heritage Foundation. The views I
express in this statement for the record are my own and should not be
construed as representing any official position of The Heritage
Foundation.
Before beginning my formal statement examining the implications of
various proposals to increase access to paid family leave in the U.S.,
I would like to provide some personal information that has helped shape
my views on paid family leave.
I am a mother of six children, ranging in age from 4 months to 9 years.
I have been blessed with the ability to take family leave--mostly paid,
but some unpaid--following the birth of each of my children, and I am
incredibly grateful for those times of family leave.
I would love for all mothers to be able to receive the same opportunity
that I have had to spend some time at home--without financial
hardship--following the birth or adoption of a child. I would also like
to see businesses provide paid leave for purposes other than just
maternity leave.
However, my experience has shown me that the best type of paid family
leave is not a one-size-fits all federal policy, but rather one that
comes from the voluntary decision of private employers to provide paid
leave. Employers working with employees offers far more flexibility and
accommodation than any federal program could provide.
Each of my six paid family leaves has been different--one included
intermittent bed rest and a C-section, another a premature delivery,
and some involved very little engagement with work while on leave while
others involved a significant amount. A federal paid family leave
program could not have provided me with the same benefits and
flexibility that l received. A federal program would not have provided
immediate access to benefits for unplanned health events, and it would
not have allowed me to ease back into work on a flexible schedule when
desired. Moreover , I would not have maintained momentum in my career
if I had routinely disengaged from work completely for three months at
a time every year-and-a-half over the past decade--something that a
federal paid leave program would urge, if not require.
I am excited that more and more companies are realizing the value of
paid family leave for their workers and their businesses and I am very
hopeful that this rise in employer-provided paid family leave will
continue. I hope that the federal government will avoid enacting
policies that will hinder or eliminate employer-provided paid leave
programs or that will burden taxpayers with increased federal taxes and
will instead look to reduce regulatory and tax burdens so that more
employers have the resources they need to be able to provide paid
family leave benefits for their workers.
Summary
Americans widely support paid family leave for workers, and that
support is evident in the growth of employer-based and state-based paid
family leave programs. Despite those expansions, many federal lawmakers
seek to implement a national paid family leave program. A federal
mandate on employers would reduce overall employment and lead to
discrimination against women of childbearing age. A taxpayer-
financed paid leave program would be incredibly costly, subject to
abuse and misuse, and would crowd out existing paid leave programs,
shifting the costs onto federal taxpayers. Moreover, a federal paid
leave program would inevitably grow in size, scope, and cost over time.
A new proposal that has support among some conservative lawmakers would
allow workers to trade future Social Security benefits for paid leave
benefits. Tempting as this proposal is--giving workers the option to
draw Social Security benefits when they need them most, while
minimizing both costs and crowd-out effects by requiring workers to pay
for the benefits they receive--it would nonetheless add another
national entitlement and open the door to significant and costly
unintended consequences.
All federal entitlements have an overwhelming tendency to expand in
size and scope over time, and with those expansions come increased
costs, higher taxes, and unsustainable deficits. Instead of expanding
Social Security into a cradle-to-grave social cure-all--creating a
piggy bank that seeks to meet all of workers' socially desirable income
needs--policymakers should reduce Social Security's burden on workers'
paychecks by returning the program to its original purpose of poverty
protection for the elderly. Most Americans already pay far more in
Social Security taxes than they do in federal income taxes, and they do
not need another component that could increase Social Security's costs
and hasten its insolvency.
While federal lawmakers should not enact a new national paid leave
entitlement, they can and should enact policies that would make paid
family leave more accessible and affordable for ordinary Americans.
Some of those policies include increased access to tax-free savings for
paid family leave, allowing lower-wage private sector workers to
receive paid time off in exchange for overtime hours, giving states the
option to use their Unemployment Insurance (UI) systems for paid family
leave benefits, and increasing access to and enrollment in temporary
disability insurance policies that provide maternity leave benefits.
Access to Paid Family Leave in the U.S.
We do not know exactly what percentage of workers have access to some
form of paid family leave because many workers utilize informal paid
leave programs. However, the commonly cited statistic--based on a
Bureau of Labor Statistics survey of formal paid leave programs--that
only 12 percent to 15 percent of workers in the U.S. have access to
paid family leave is inaccurate.\1\ State-based paid family leave
policies alone cover 21 percent of all workers.\2\ Moreover, many
workers have access to paid family leave through formal employer-
provided paid family leave policies; employer-provided vacation and
sick leave; and temporary disability insurance policies.
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\1\ Bureau of Labor Statistics, ``Employee Benefits Survey,'' March
2016, https://www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/benefits/2016/benefits_leave.htm
(accessed July 19, 2018).
\2\ Employment in California, New York, Rhode Island, and New
Jersey totaled 31.384 million in May 2018, out of total U.S. employment
of 149.636 million. Bureau of Labor Statistics, ``Economic News
Release,'' Table 3. Employees on nonfarm payrolls by state and select
industry indicator, seasonally adjusted, May 2018, https://www.bls.gov/
news.release/laus.t03.htm (accessed July 19, 2018).
A Kaiser/HRET survey found that 34 percent of private-industry workers
report that they work for companies that offer paid family leave (and
21 percent have paid paternity leave).\3\ Similarly, an Abt Associates
survey commissioned by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2012 found
that 34.2 percent of worksites provided formal paid leave for Family
and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) qualifying reasons, 37.4 percent provided
some other type of arrangement (such as vacation or sick days) and only
25.6 percent provided no pay.\4\ Among worksites covered by FMLA, only
17 percent provided no pay.\5\ Moreover, that same report found that 65
percent of workers who took family leave received pay for it.\6\
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\3\ Nisha Kurani et al., ``Paid Family Leave and Sick Days in the
U.S.: Findings From the 2016 Kaiser/HRET Employer Health Benefits
Survey,'' May 31, 2017, http://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/issue-
brief/paid-family-leave-and-sick-days-in-the-u-s-findings-from-the-
2016-kaiser
hret-employer-health-benefits-survey/ (accessed July 18, 2018).
\4\ Jacob Alex Klerman, Kelly Daley, and Alyssa Pozniak, ``Family
and Medical Leave in 2012: Technical Report,'' Abt Associates, prepared
for U.S. Department of Labor, September 2012, revised April 2014, pp.
96-97, https://www.dol.gov/asp/evaluation/fmla/FMLA-2012-Technical-
Report.pdf (accessed July 18, 2018). Full pay: 13.3 percent of
worksites; partial pay: 20.9 percent of worksites; did not know or
refused to answer the question: 2.4 percent of worksites.
\5\ Ibid.
\6\ Forty-eight percent of workers who took family leave reported
that they received full pay for their leave while 17 percent said they
received partial pay.
Short-term or temporary disability insurance provides another way that
many workers receive paid family leave in the United States. In 2017,
50 percent of full-time, private-sector workers had access to temporary
disability insurance.\7\ While access to paid family leave is lowest
among lower-wage workers, it appears to be on the rise. Over just the
past 3 years, more than 100 large, name-brand companies announced new
or expanded paid family leave policies,\8\ and as of February 1, 2018,
when Lowe's announced its new policy, the largest 20 employers in the
U.S. all provide paid family leave.\9\ Particularly important is growth
in programs at companies like Walmart, Target, McDonald's, Starbucks,
Lowe's, and Home Depot, which employ many low-wage workers who
traditionally lacked access to paid family leave.
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\7\ Bureau of Labor Statistics, ``National Compensation Survey:
Employee Benefits in the United States,'' March 2017, ``Table 16.
Insurance benefits: Access, participation, and take-up rates, private
industry workers,'' https://www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/benefits/2017/
ownership/private/table16a.pdf (accessed February 12, 2018).
\8\ National Partnership for Women and Families, ``Leading on
Leave,'' April 2018, http://www.nationalpartnership.org/research-
library/workfamily/paid-leave/new-and-expanded-employer-paid-family-
leave-policies.pdf (accessed July 19, 2018).
\9\ Claire Cain Miller, ``Lowe's Joins Other Big Employers in
Offering Paid Parental Leave,'' The New York Times, February 1, 2018,
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/01/upshot/lowes-joins-other-big-
employers-in-offering-paid-parental-leave.html (accessed July 19 ,
2018).
Notwithstanding this recent uptick in paid family leave offerings among
some large employers in low-wage industries, an overwhelming majority
of lower-income workers do not have access to paid family leave--at
least not formal paid leave. Part of this stems from the fact that low-
wage workers are more likely to work in very small firms that tend to
lack the financial and functional resources to provide paid leave.
Among workers ages 18 to 61, 28 percent of those living in poverty (and
30 percent of those with children) are employed by small firms with
fewer than 10 employees, compared to 18 percent of all workers.\10\
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\10\ Data are from the March 2017 Consumer Population Survey's
Annual Social and Economic Supplement.
Expanding paid family leave to this difficult-to-reach group of low-
wage workers without crowding out privately provided paid leave
policies, and in a way that provides meaningful benefits, is a
difficult task. Instead of economically harmful mandates on employers
or a one-size-fits-all federal program that would crowd out existing
policies, lawmakers should seek policies that can help expand employer-
provided paid leave programs because employers are better-equipped to
respond to the unique needs of their workers with minimal cost and
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maximum flexibility.
Americans Want Paid Family Leave but They Want Employers--Not
Taxpayers--to Provide It
According to a recent Pew poll, 82 percent of Americans believe that
mothers should receive paid leave after the birth or adoption of a
child and 69 percent believe fathers should receive similar leave.\11\
Eighty-five percent of Americans believe workers should receive paid
leave to deal with their own serious health condition, and 69 percent
believe that leave should extend to workers to care for family members
with serious health conditions.\12\
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\11\ Juliana Menasce Horowitz, Kim Parker, Nikki Graf, and Gretchen
Livingston, ``Americans Widely Support Paid Family and Medical Leave,
but Differ Over Specific Polices,'' Pew Research Center, March 23,
2017, http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2017/03/
22152556/Paid-Leave-Report-3-17-17-FINAL.pdf (accessed July 19, 2018).
\12\ Ibid.
Overwhelmingly, Americans who support paid family leave think that
employers--as opposed to federal or state taxpayers--should provide it.
About 12 percent of those who support paid family leave think the
federal government, meaning taxpayers, should provide it; about 10
percent think state governments should be responsible; and close to 60
percent think that employers should provide paid leave (leaving about
18 percent who think that workers should save for their own leave).\13\
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\13\ Employers and governments are abstract terms that actually
refer to the people who work for, and receive goods and services from,
employers and governments. Ultimately, employer-
provided leave is paid for through factors such as lower pay for
workers, higher prices for products and services, and lower profits
distributed to shareholders. Government-provided paid leave must be
paid for through higher taxes or fewer government services.
Americans' preferences along with employers' uptick in the provision of
paid family leave suggests that policymakers should not rush to enact a
federal paid family leave program. Instead, they should allow employer-
provided programs to continue to expand and look to fill the gaps in
paid family leave through alternative pathways that would not disrupt
existing paid leave programs or create a costly new entitlement.
A One-Size-Fits-All Government Program Will Not Meet Workers Needs
The Occupational Information Network (O*Net) lists more than 1,100
occupational categories for employment in the U.S.\14\ Needless to say,
American workers span very diverse occupations and employment
situations, from manufacturing to medical jobs and from standard nine-
to-five work days to self-selected gig-economy schedules.
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\14\ O*Net Resource Center, O*Net 22.3 Database, ``Occupational
Titles: Occupational Data,'' available for download at https://
www.onetcenter.org/database.html?p=3#occ (accessed July 16, 2018).
No single federal paid family leave policy could possibly accommodate
the unique needs of America's diverse workforce. The nature of some
jobs, such as teachers, nurses and fast food workers, is such that they
must be present at their job site--often during specific hours--in
order to work. Many other jobs, however, are more flexible and workers
can accomplish certain tasks from home and outside the standard
workday. These types of jobs are conducive to flexible paid family
leave arrangements, such as extending the length of leave by working
part-time, or providing paid leave but allowing or asking workers to
remain marginally connected, such as answering e-mails or taking phone
calls as they are able. A federal policy could not do this. It would
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require all-or-nothing work.
Moreover, workers face unique family and medical situations. While
employers can work individually with employees to meet their needs and
minimize misuse and abuse of company policies, a federal policy would
either be too rigid and limited to meet most workers' needs or so broad
and generous that it would cause workers to take paid family leave for
all sorts of nonessential or unintended purposes.
Employer-provided paid family leave programs can better meet workers
needs than a federal program, and they can do so without requiring
taxpayers to foot the bill.
Why Expanding Social Security for Paid Family Leave Is a Bad Idea
It seems like a win-win. A new proposal to allow workers to trade off
future Social Security benefits for current Paid Family Leave benefits
is designed--at least in theory--to offer a cost-free way for the
government to provide paid family leave without significantly crowding
out the availability of privately provided paid family leave policies.
Not forcing taxpayers to pay for individual workers' paid family leaves
and not shifting costs that the private sector already, and
increasingly, provides onto taxpayers are well-intentioned and laudable
goals. If it were politically possible for the proposal to remain as
limited as it was first introduced, the plan would face just one
significant flaw. Accounting for political realities, however, the
proposal faces at least five significant flaws.
Flaw 1: Using Social Security for Paid Family Leave Violates its
Purpose, Weakens the Program Financially, Strengthens it Politically,
and Makes Necessary Reform Nearly Impossible.
Social Security was designed to help keep elderly individuals out of
poverty when they became too old to work. Expanding an old-age, anti-
poverty program to provide young- to middle-age workers with paid
family leave benefits decades before they would otherwise receive
retirement benefits would not only weaken the program financially. By
making cash benefits available to tens of millions more individuals, it
would also increase resistance to necessary reforms.
For example, one of the most common-sense proposals for addressing
Social Security's looming insolvency is to increase the program's
eligibility age because workers now live significantly longer and are
subject to less physically demanding jobs than when the program first
began. However, if some workers--primarily women and probably
disproportionately lower-income and minority--take a handful of family
leaves that push their eligibility age back to 68 or 69, it would be
more difficult to increase Social Security's eligibility age program-
wide because of the disproportionate impact on those who used Social
Security for paid leave.
These flaws associated with using Social Security for paid family leave
exist regardless of whether or not the proposal evolves over time into
a more generous, expansive, and costly program.
In reality, however, the probability that the proposal remains
perfectly intact over the coming decades is close to zero.
Consequently, the proposal suffers even greater flaws than some more
generous federal paid family leave proposals that use a new payroll tax
to finance benefits.
Flaw 2: Housing Paid Family Leave in a Sacrosanct Entitlement Program
Guarantees its Expansion.
The proposal's authors cite not wanting to create a new federal program
as a reason to house a new paid family leave program into an existing
government program. They also seek to minimize the size and scope of a
federal paid leave program, but the best way to do that would be to
place a paid family leave program within the office of federal gas tax
collections--or some other equally detestable government program.
Placing a paid family leave benefit within America's favorite
government program would guarantee its growth, instead of its
restraint.
Just as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid have expanded over
time, paid family leave benefits--buoyed by Social Security's
platform--would inevitably expand. Subsequent Congresses would
inevitably vote to: eliminate the requirement that individuals
``repay'' their paid family leave benefits through delayed retirement;
expand benefits to 100 percent of pay instead of Social Security's
roughly 50 percent benefit level; add benefits for non-maternity
medical leave and to care for family members; and increase the number
of weeks individuals can receive benefits.
Flaw 3: Intended Cost-Free Proposal Would Become a Costly New
Entitlement.
The inevitable expansion of the proposed Social Security paid family
leave benefits (as explained above) would lead to substantial costs for
federal taxpayers, particularly young and future workers.
The Heritage Foundation used its Social Security model to estimate the
effects of future likely expansions of a potential Paid Family Leave
program within Social Security. If a future Congress decides not to
require workers to delay their retirement benefits in exchange for paid
family leave, Heritage analysts estimate that the program would cost
between $101 billion and $114 billion over 10 years.\15\ If a future
Congress expanded the program further, allowing workers to receive 100
percent of their pay--as opposed to the roughly 50 percent that Social
Security would provide--for 12 weeks following the birth or adoption of
a child, the program's costs would rise to $198 billion over 10
years.\16\ Finally, if a future Congress also allowed workers to use
the program for general paid family leave, as opposed to just following
the birth or adoption of a child, its costs would rise to $231 billion
over 10 years.\17\
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\15\ Rachel Greszler and Drew Gonshorowski, ``How a Proposed
Federal Paid Family Leave Policy Would Become a Federal Entitlement and
Weaken Social Security,'' Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 3318,
May 29, 2018, https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2018-06/
BG3318_0.pdf.
\16\ Ibid.
\17\ Ibid.
These estimates only account for fiscal effects and not behavioral
effects. Eliminating the provision that workers ``pay for'' their
benefits through delayed retirements would cause most workers who
currently use privately provided paid family leave to instead--or at
least first--use the federal program. Moreover, expanding the size of
benefits and their eligible uses would cause workers to take more
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family leave, which would further drive up taxpayer costs.
The pathway of paid family leave programs in other countries provides
an example for the likely expansion of any federal U.S. policy.
Between 1980 and 2011, the median amount of paid leave for mothers
among Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
countries increased from 14 weeks to 42 weeks.\18\ In Canada, paid
leave benefits doubled from 17 weeks to 35 weeks (52 weeks including
home care payments) from 1980 to 2013 while the program's costs roughly
quadrupled from 0.07 percent to 0.28 percent of gross domestic product
(GDP). Similarly, Denmark's paid family leave program doubled in cost
from 0.24 percent of GDP in 1980 to 0.48 percent in 2013.\19\
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\18\ Gordon B. Dahl et al., ``What Is the Case for Paid Maternity
Leave?'' National Bureau of Economic Research, October 2013, http://
www.nber.org/papers/w19595.pdf (accessed July 19, 2018).
\19\ Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, ``PF
2.5 Annex: Detail of Change in Parental Leave by Country,'' OECD Family
Database, Social Policy Division, last updated October 26, 2017, http:/
/www.oecd.org/els/family/database.htm (accessed July 19 ,2018).
A U.S.-equivalent of Canada's paid leave program would cost $56 billion
per year, or $360 for every worker while a Denmark-equivalent program
would cost $80 billion per year, or $510 per worker. At $23,000 per
worker over a 45-year working career, that is a high price to pay for a
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program that they may not even use.
Carrie Lukas of the Independent Women's Forum noted that expensive,
taxpayer-financed programs can create resentment.\20\ Some workers take
multiple paid family leaves, and others take none, perhaps because they
are unable to have children. They nevertheless have to pay taxes to
support other workers' paid leave. Moreover, Lukas noted that generous,
job-protected paid leave benefits cause employers and workers alike to
resent having to hold an employee's position for months or years while
other workers often have to take on additional work to make up for co-
workers who take extensive leaves.
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\20\ Carrie Lukas, ``I Live in a Country With Paid Leave. It's No
Magic Bullet,'' The Washington Post, May 11, 2016, https://
www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2016/05/11/i-live-in-a-
country-with-paid-family-leave-its-no-magic-bullet/
?noredirect=on&utmterm=.736315l5ebf8 (accessed July 15, 2018).
When employers--instead of taxpayers--provide paid family leave, there
is less reason for resentment. Employer-based policies can create a
``we're all in this together'' atmosphere with far lower costs and
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workplace interruptions than a federal program.
Fatal Flaw 4: Using Social Security for Paid Family Leave Will Treat it
as a Private Piggy Bank.
Authors of the Social Security proposal aim to contain paid family
leave costs to the workers who take them. This helps ensure that
workers only take leave when necessary. Personal savings is the best
way to achieve this goal, but many low- and middle-income workers do
not have savings and would be hard-pressed to accumulate any. Thus, the
proposal essentially lets workers treat their Social Security taxes as
a private piggy bank when in reality those taxes are sunk contributions
to an old age, social insurance program.
Despite common misconceptions, workers have no legal claim to their
prescribed Social Security benefits. Under current law, when Social
Security's notional trust fund (the program has been running cash-flow
deficits since 2010) becomes exhausted around 2034, Social Security
benefits will drop by 21 percent. Moreover, Congress can change Social
Security's rules and benefits at any time, even revoking Social
Security benefits entirely. That is the nature of government-provided
social insurance programs. That is why conservatives advocate for
personal savings as the most sure source of income for retirement and
other life events.
The Social Security paid family leave proposal tries to transform
social insurance into something it is not--private savings. By allowing
workers to tap Social Security benefits decades early, for a purpose
entirely unrelated to the program's intent, a paid family leave program
would open the door to allowing workers to access Social Security
benefits for all sorts of socially acceptable purposes such as paying
off student loans, buying a home, or paying for medical expenses.
If the government--through Social Security--can finance and approve
personal loans, individuals and families would save less and become
more reliant on the government to meet their major financial life
events.
Fatal Flaw 5: A Federal Paid Family Leave Program Will Crowd Out
Employer- and State-Based Programs.
Any federal paid family leave program would inevitably crowd out
employer- and state-provided paid family leave programs because no
employer or state government would rationally choose to pay for
something that their workers could otherwise get for free from the
federal government.
In the July 11, 2018, hearing to which this statement applies, Ms.
Carolyn O'Boyle, representing Deloitte, confirmed this reality. Ms.
O'Boyle said that Deloitte has their workers first utilize the state-
provided paid leave benefits and then Deloitte supplements over and
above those benefits to ensure their workers receive Deloitte's maximum
benefits.
This is what all logical businesses and state governments would do,
meaning any federal program would shift costs currently born by
employers and states onto federal taxpayers instead. Considering that
about 14 percent of all employees take family leave within a given
year, and currently, upwards of 35 percent of those leaves are at least
partially paid for by employers (and only 25.6 percent include ``no
pay''), the crowd-out costs of a federal paid family leave program
would be substantial.\21\ A very rough and conservative estimate of a
minimal federal program that provided up to 6 weeks of paid family
leave, with benefits equal to two-thirds of pay, and capped at $645 per
week (based on an annual salary of$50,000) could crowd out at least $75
billion in privately provided paid family leave benefits. That $75
billion would be on top of the costs of providing paid family leave
benefits for workers who currently lack access to them.
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\21\ Abt Associates, ``Family and Medical Leave in 2012: Technical
Report,'' prepared for Jonathan Simonetta, U.S. Department of Labor,
revised April 18, 2014, https://www.dol.gov/asp/evaluation/fmla/FMLA-
2012-Technical-Report.pdf (accessed July 17, 2018).
As proposed, the Social Security trade-off for paid family leave would
minimize crowd-out of existing paid leave programs because it would
require workers to effectively pay for their family leave benefits
through later retirement dates. This would preserve much of the value
of privately provided paid family leave benefits that do not require
workers to make personal trade-offs. If a future Congress eliminated
the requirement that workers repay their paid family leave benefits
through later retirements, however, significant crowding out would
occur as many employers would eliminate their paid family leave
programs in lieu of having their workers access the taxpayer-financed
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Social Security paid family leave program.
Alternatives to a Federal Paid Family Leave Program
A federal paid family leave policy would require an inflexible, one-
size-fits-all policy that would not meet workers' needs as well as
privately provided programs, and it would become extremely costly.
There are steps that lawmakers can take, however, to help make family
leave more accessible to American workers without creating a new
entitlement, without crowding out existing paid family leave policies,
and without increasing taxpayer costs. Those policies include:
The Working Families Flexibility Act. Sponsored by Representative
Martha Roby (R-AL) and Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), this bill would allow
private employers to give workers the same option that state and local
workers have; that is, to choose between time-and-a-half pay or time-
and-a-half paid leave in exchange for overtime hours.\22\ This would be
particularly helpful to the low-wage workers that lack access to paid
family leave because it targets hourly employees who earn below about
$24,000 per year. It would, for example, allow an employee who worked
five hours of overtime every week for one year to accumulate 10 weeks
of paid leave, and a worker who logged just two hours of overtime each
week for a year could earn four weeks of paid leave.
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\22\ 115th Congress, H.R. 1180, May 3, 2017, https://
www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/1180/text (accessed
July 19, 2018).
Universal Savings Accounts. The U.S. double taxes savings by taxing
income when it is first earned, and then taxing the investment gains
that it generates if workers save and invest it. Universal Savings
Accounts would eliminate one of these layers of taxation and allow
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
workers to save money for any purpose--including paid family leave.
Representative John Katko introduced a bill--the Working Parents
Flexibility Act--that would create tax-free parental leave savings
accounts similar to existing 401(k)s.\23\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\23\ 115th Congress, H.R. 2533, https://www.congress.gov/bill/
115th-congress/house-bill/2533 (accessed July 19, 2018).
Penalty-Free Withdrawals From Retirement Accounts. Either alone or in
conjunction with Universal Savings Accounts, lawmakers could allow
workers to make penalty-free withdrawals from their IRAs or 40l(k)s for
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
family leave.
Payroll Tax Credit for Qualified Disability Insurance Policies. Many
workers who do not have access to formal paid family leave nevertheless
receive maternity leave benefits through temporary disability insurance
policies. Temporary disability insurance usually provides about 60
percent of workers' pay and almost all temporary disability insurance
policies cover maternity leave. In 2017, 50 percent of full-time,
private-sector workers had access to temporary disability
insurance.\24\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\24\ Bureau of Labor Statistics, ``Employee Benefits in the U.S.,''
``Table 16. Insurance benefits: Access, participation, and take-up
rates, private industry workers,'' March 2017, https://www.bls.gov/ncs/
ebs/benefits/2017/ownership/private/table16a.pdf (accessed July 19,
2018).
Federal policymakers could increase access to temporary disability
insurance benefits by allowing employers and workers who purchase
disability insurance policies that cover both long term and temporary
disability to receive a payroll tax credit to offset part of their SSDI
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
payroll tax.
Allowing States to Use Unemployment Insurance Systems for Paid Family
Leave. Without mandating that states implement paid maternity leave
policies within their existing Unemployment Insurance (UT) systems (as
proposed in the President's fiscal year 2018 budget), the
Administration could grant states the flexibility to use their UI
systems as a source of paid parental leave. Since UI systems are almost
exclusively funded at the state level, this would not constitute a new
national entitlement. It would be important, however, that states not
experience-rate the paid parental leave component of their programs
because if companies' UI taxes were to increase based on the number of
workers who took leave, it could lead to discrimination against women
of child bearing age.
Reducing Regulations. Employers have to comply with all sorts of costly
regulations, some of which have provided no, or even negative, benefits
to workers. Reducing unnecessary and burdensome regulations on
employers would free up resources that could go toward providing paid
family leave policies.
Lower Taxes. Lower taxes on individuals and businesses would free up
income and resources to apply toward paid family leave-whether through
higher personal savings or new employer-provided paid leave. Recent
reports on new and expanded paid family leave policies from large
companies such as Lowe's and Chipotle following the Tax Cuts and Jobs
Act of 2017 show that lower taxes have contributed to greater paid
family leave benefits.\25\
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\25\ Patrice Lee Onwuka, ``5 Companies Expanding Parental Leave
Thanks to Tax Cuts,'' Independent Women's Forum, February 15, 2018,
http://www.iwf.org/blog/2805845/5-Companies-Expanding-Parental-Leave-
Thanks-to-Tax-Cuts (accessed July 19, 2018).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Conclusion
The U.S. already has an expanding network of employer-based and state-
based paid family leave policies that are better equipped to meet
workers' individual needs and desires than a one-size-fits-all national
policy. A federal paid family leave program would crowd out these
existing programs and create a costly, administratively burdensome new
national entitlement. Moreover, a paid family leave entitlement would
inevitably grow in size and scope over time, and it could produce
negative unintended consequences for the workers it aims to help.
While helping workers better spread their income needs--including paid
family leave--over time is a laudable goal, tapping Social Security is
not the best way to achieve this and it would result in unintended and
costly consequences.
Instead, policymakers can help increase workers' access to paid family
leave by enacting the Working Families Flexibility act, enacting
Universal Savings accounts, or allowing workers to take penalty-free
withdrawals from their retirement accounts for paid family leave;
allowing states the option of using their UI systems to provide paid
family leave benefits; and by increasing access to temporary disability
insurance policies through a payroll tax credit.
______
Human Rights Campaign
1640 Rhode Island Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20036
P 202-628-4160
F 202-423-2861
[email protected]
Chairman Cassidy, Ranking Member Brown, and Members of the Committee:
My name is David Stacy, and I am the Government Affairs Director for
the Human Rights Campaign, America's largest civil rights organization
working to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT)
equality. On behalf of our over 3 million members and supporters, I am
honored to submit this statement into the record for this important
hearing on making paid family leave available to Americans. Today, I
will specifically speak to this topic as it relates to ensuring the
physical and financial health of LGBTQ workers and their families.
Welcoming a new child, caring for a sick spouse or parent, or facing a
serious illness can change--and strain--a family's bottom line. Access
to uniform paid leave is essential to closing the gaps created by these
major life events and helping families stay healthy. Due to systemic
discrimination including health disparities, LGBTQ people facing these
changes often find themselves having to choose between the caregiving
or recovery time they deserve and the paycheck they need.
The United States lags far behind other industrialized nations when it
comes to paid medical leave. We are also the only industrialized
country to offer no paid leave to working adults (such as leave that
would allow an employee to take care of an ill family member or to
welcome a new child). In addition, while a lack of access to paid leave
is a universal challenge in the US, LGBTQ individuals are uniquely
impacted. According to a 2018 HRC survey of LGBTQ workers, fewer than
half of respondents reported that their employer's policies cover new
parents of all genders equally and only 49 percent say that employer
policies are equally inclusive of the many ways families can welcome a
child, including childbirth, adoption, or foster care.\1\ Perhaps even
more concerning, one in five respondents report that they would be
afraid to request time off to care for a loved one because it might
disclose their LGBTQ identity, illustrating the need for explicit
federal LGBTQ-inclusive non-
discrimination protections, such as those contained in the Equality Act
(S. 1006/H.R. 2282).
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\1\ Johnson, A.; Lee, M.; Maxwell, M.; Miranda, L. (2018). 2018
U.S. LGBTQ Paid Leave Survey, Washington, DC: Human Rights Campaign
Foundation.
Seven in ten LGBTQ individuals live in states that lack a family leave
law or have a law that only allows leave for workers who have a
biological or legal relationship with the child.\2\ LGBTQ couples
raising children are also twice as likely to have household incomes
near the poverty line compared to their non-LGBTQ peers--and single
LGBTQ people are three times more likely to live near the poverty
threshold as their non-LGBTQ peers.\3\
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\2\ Family Leave Laws, http://www.lgbtmap.org/equality-maps/
fmla_laws (data current as of 7/19/2018).
\3\ Gates, G. (2013). LGBT Parenting in the United States. The
Williams Institute. http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/
uploads/LGBT-Parenting.pdf.
LGBTQ individuals who take time off face heightened challenges in
accessing paid leave policies even where they do exist. We know that
LGBTQ workers facing a major life event are often left with leave
policies that are under-inclusive at best. Even for LGBTQ workers whose
employers have a formal paid leave policy, one in five respondents to
the 2018 survey reported that fears of discrimination could prevent
them from requesting a leave if it would require disclosing their LGBTQ
identity.\4\ And without explicit federal laws protecting us from being
fired simply because of who they are, LGBTQ workers also remain at risk
of being fired if they are forced to come out when requesting leave.
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\4\ Supra note 1.
The Family and Medical Insurance Leave (FAMILY) Act would establish the
nation's first-ever insurance program for paid family and medical leave
helping to ensure that workers are able to take leave at times they
need it most. The FAMILY Act would help bridge the financial gap facing
many working families following the birth or adoption of a child as
well as person or family illness requiring leave from work. It would
provide workers with up to 12 weeks of financial support during a
family or medical leave from with up to 12 weeks of financial support
during a family or medical leave from work. This would cover time taken
following the birth or adoption of a child including time to recover
from pregnancy and childbirth, as well as leave taken to care for a
sick child, parent, spouse or domestic partner, recover from illness
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
personally, or time taken for military caregiving and leave purposes.
Inclusive paid leave would help ensure that families will not have to
risk their economic livelihood when they need to take time off to care
for loved ones. Only 13 percent of the workforce receives paid family
leave from their employer, and less than 40 percent have personal
medical leave from a disability program provided through their
workplace.\5\ The FAMILY Act helps correct that problem by expanding
access to both family and medical leave. All workers, and especially
those who are LGBTQ, not only stand to gain from paid leave, but the
lack of inclusive and comprehensive leave policies continues to harm
working Americans and their loved ones.
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\5\ U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2016, September). National
Compensation Survey: Employee Benefits in the United States, March 2016
(Tables 16 and 32). http://www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/benefits/2016/
ebb10059.pdf.
I appreciate the opportunity to offer this testimony today and urge
Congress to act to make paid leave accessible so that all workers,
including LGBTQ workers, have the best chance possible to have
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physically and financially healthy families.
______
Independent Women's Forum
1875 I Street, NW, Suite 500
Washington, DC 20006
iwf.org
202-857-3293
Modernize Our Entitlement Programs to Make Them Better,
Not Bigger, With Social Security Parental Leave
July 23, 2018
U.S. Senate
Committee on Finance
Dirksen Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, DC 20510-6200
Dear Chairman Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA), Ranking Member Sherrod Brown
(D-OH), and members of the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Social
Security, Pensions, and Family Policy,
Balancing work and family responsibilities can be challenging-and that
while the rewards of parenting are wonderful, there are also burdens.
Americans of all political stripes want working parents to be able to
take time off from work to welcome a new baby without financial
hardship. This leave from work can have great benefits for parents,
children, families, for our society, and for our economy.
Taxpayers also have an interest in increasing access to paid leave.
Currently, an estimated 17 percent of workers who lack paid leave
benefits end up turning to government assistance programs when they
have to take unpaid time off from work. That share increases to nearly
50 percent of workers with lower incomes.
Unfortunately, proposals that aim to guarantee access to paid family
leave often come with serious downsides. A paid-leave mandate on
employers raises costs, making it more expensive for businesses to hire
and retain workers. To compensate for those costs, businesses may
reduce benefits for others or simply hire fewer employees. A new
government entitlement program, like the one proposed in the FAMILY
Act, would increase government spending, raise taxes on all workers,
and could displace the myriad paid-leave and flexible-work solutions
that many employers voluntarily offer today. Ironically, the FAMILY Act
would make our workplaces less flexible and could leave workers-
particularly women-with fewer opportunities.
The goal for policymakers ought to be to help parents who lack the paid
leave benefits they need, but without disrupting existing benefit
package, discouraging private companies from continuing to offer
benefits, or changing how employers approach hiring decisions.
This can be accomplished by giving workers access to benefits they have
already earned, through the Social Security program, as first described
in this policy paper written by Kristin Shapiro and published by
Independent Women's Forum.
The Social Security Parental Leave Option
The concept behind this proposal is simple: Workers begin paying into
Social Security from their first day on the job, and the benefits they
receive at retirement reflect the decisions they make throughout their
working lives. This reform would give every worker the option to take
some of the benefits they earn after having or adopting a child, in
exchange for delaying their retirement eligibility to make up for those
costs.
The benefits of this approach are clear:
It works within the framework of other existing programs and
laws. It expands the safety net--protecting hardworking Americans at
all income levels--without requiring a new payroll tax or creating a
new bureaucracy.
It easily fits within the modern work environment, providing new
options for individuals working multiple jobs, are self-employed or
participating in the gig economy and lack traditional employer-based
benefits.
Businesses would still have an incentive to continue offering
employees benefits and flexible work arrangements.
It helps parents who need support, but is also fair to others:
this program is voluntary and no one's benefits are affected, unless
they decide to take parental leave.
This proposal recognizes that most people tend to have greater
financial needs and less income early in life, and builds on the
concept that money paid into Social Security belongs to workers. Having
access to Social Security parental benefits would give recipients,
particularly those living paycheck to paycheck, the option to get the
benefits they need--benefits they've earned--now.
Improving--Not Undermining--Social Security
Many are understandably concerned about how such a proposal would
impact Social Security's finances. Social Security has a long-term
financial imbalance and unfunded liabilities which ought to be
addressed. That is true now and would remain true if this important
reform was passed.
This proposal is designed to be revenue neutral over the long term:
those who take parental leave benefits would have lower total lifetime
retirement benefits so that the total benefit they receive from Social
Security is unchanged. However, it could move up the timing of when
some of those benefits would be paid out and therefore impact the
budget, and--unless the Social Security Trust Fund is credited to
account for those payments--could move up the date of the Trust Fund's
depletion. Analysis of the proposal laid out in the IWF publication has
been done by the Urban Institute, Heritage Foundation, Mercatus, and
American Action Forum and estimated that the program would modestly
impact the program's cash-flow and move up the date on the Trust Fund's
depletion by about 6 months.
While it's useful to consider the program's impact of the Trust Fund,
it's also important to keep the Trust Fund in perspective: many have
written how the Trust Fund is essentially an accounting device, and
that Social Security's financial problems are the same before and after
the Trust Fund runs out. Either way, taxpayers still have to come up
with funds to meet obligations, or benefit levels need to be reduced.
Additionally, when it comes to assessing this paid parental leave
proposal, these conclusions ignore other factors that might actual mean
that the reform will help Social Security's overall financial pictures.
For example, access to paid leave is associated with greater labor-
force attachment for women. Women who can take paid time off after
giving birth are more likely to return to their jobs, which means that
they will keep paying into Social Security, which will mean more
revenue into Social Security's Trust Fund.
It's also important to look beyond just Social Security's finances to
how this would impact taxpayers more broadly. And the good news is that
giving people access to paid parental leave could decrease the number
of people using other public welfare programs. Currently, nearly 17
percent of workers who lack access to paid parental leave go on
government assistance to finance their paid leave--and this number
jumps to nearly 50 percent for low-income individuals. It's far better
for these people to access a benefit through Social Security--which
they then pay back through delayed retirement benefits--than to use
these forms of public assistance.
Finally, those worried about Social Security's finances should keep in
mind that, if we do not provide access to paid leave through Social
Security, it is highly likely that taxpayers will be forced to pay for
it in other ways--either through state-run programs supported through a
payroll tax, or through a federal program, such as the one proposed by
the AEI-Brookings Project, that would also require a new payroll tax.
Having taxpayers on the hook to pay for an entirely new, open-ended,
additional paid-leave entitlement program and having another share of
payroll already allocated to a new funding stream is a bigger threat to
taxpayers and to the health of existing entitlement programs than
changing the timing of some of Social Security's already outstanding
obligations .
A Personalized Safety Net for Today's Workers
Social Security was created in 1935 when our work world was very
different than it is today. Women were far less likely to work, to
serve as breadwinners, or to head their own households. People also
didn't live as long as they do today, so many never made it to
retirement age or died not long after retiring. People were also more
likely to work for one company for much of their working lives. Today,
not only do people change jobs more frequently, but a growing number
are self-
employed, work as independent contractors or have multiple employers.
We need to modernize our government programs to keep up with our
changing world and support the needs of people today.
Currently, Social Security is structured so that it takes a significant
share of income early in someone's working life--when people tend to
have lower income and larger expenses--and then provides a relatively
large benefit at retirement, beginning around age 67, which may have
been the end of a workers' life in 1935, but now is a time when people
tend to be more financially secure and many are able and happy to
continue working.
If some workers today believe that their need for income support is
greater in the weeks following the birth or adoption of a child than it
will be at age 67--and they are willing to make the trade off so that
the overall value of their benefits is unchanged--then government
should provide that choice.
Certainly, policymakers will need to consider this precedent carefully
and insure that people do not front-load their Social Security
benefits, leaving them without sufficient support during retirement.
Yet the potential for those future slippery-slope options doesn't mean
that policymakers shouldn't modernize the existing safety net so that
it serves people better today.
Social Security Is Already Based on Trade-offs
The foundation of the proposal to reform Social Security is a trade-
off: workers who opt to take a parental benefit after having or
adopting a child are agreeing to delay access to their retirement
benefits to compensate for those costs.
Some have argued that it's unfair to ask people to accept delayed
retirement benefits in exchange for taking parental leaves. Others have
expressed concern that policymakers will undermine this concept and do
away with the pay for, leaving the parental benefit as just a costly
new entitlement program run through the Social Security system.
Yet this concern seems unfounded, and ignores how the concept of trade-
offs is already baked into Social Security. It would seem unfair to
leave takers if under current law everyone was guaranteed the same
benefit at retirement, and solely those who took parental leave would
face a lower or altered payment schedule. But that's not how Social
Security works. Benefits are already calculated based on each
individual's earnings history so that everyone who receives a
retirement benefit has a personalized amount based on his or her
decisions about work and when to retire.
Congress has not considered reforming the benefit calculation for
people who lost their jobs or took time out of the workforce to care
for a loved one, and therefore qualify for lower retirement payments.
Nor have they considered it unfair that those who take retirement early
have a lower monthly payment. It's unclear why Congress would allow
trade-offs for these groups but shouldn't give those who take parental
leave similar options, based on similar trade-offs.
Supporting Workers and a More Flexible Economy
The recent tax cuts showed that businesses want to better support their
workers when they can afford to do so. Companies have been expanding
their paid leave benefits, including to hourly workers, as well as
increasing wages. That's great news and a process we all want to see
continue.
One of the biggest problems with government involvement in offering
paid leave programs is that it could discourage private businesses from
offering benefits on their own and create less flexible workplaces.
Compared to other approaches, like the creation of a new stand-alone
entitlement program, the Social Security parental leave proposal is
much less likely to crowd out private action or encourage
discrimination.
Since employees would be making a trade-off in delaying future
retirement benefits, employees would still want and benefit from
employer-provided paid leave, which would give those businesses that
offer such benefits a competitive advantage in attracting and retaining
valuable workers. Employers would face no new costs in administering or
paying for those who elect to use Social Security, other than in
temporarily using replacement workers, a problem that they would have
often faced even in the absence of the Social Security paid leave bene
fits.
Therefore, this proposal meets the goals of providing more support for
those who truly need it, but without undermining economic opportunity
or making our workplaces less flexible and innovative.
Government can help more people by doing a better job with the programs
that already exist, rather than layering on new programs and new costs
and burdens on employers and taxpayers. Social Security parental leave
accomplishes exactly that: it makes an existing program more flexible
and allows people to customize the program to meet their unique needs.
This is a win for taxpayers, businesses, women, and families.
Sincerely,
Carrie Lukas
President
Independent Women's Forum
[email protected]
______
International Franchise Association
1900 K Street, N.W., Suite 700
Washington, DC 20006
Phone: +1 202-628-8000 Fax: +1 202-628-0812
www.franchise.org
July 11, 2018
The Honorable Bill Cassidy The Honorable Sherrod Brown
Chairman Ranking Member
U.S. Senate U.S. Senate
Subcommittee on Social Security,
Pensions, and Family Policy Subcommittee on Social Security,
Pensions, and Family Policy
Washington, DC 20510 Washington, DC 20510
Dear Chairman Cassidy and Ranking Member Brown:
On behalf of the International Franchise Association (IFA), the world's
oldest and largest organization representing franchising worldwide, I
write to express support for the Subcommittee on Social Security,
Pensions, and Family Policy's efforts to develop and consider paid
family leave proposals in advance of today's hearing entitled
``Examining the Importance of Paid Family Leave for American Working
Families.''
Many franchise businesses are looking for ways to expand paid family
leave benefits for their workforces. Franchise owners recognize that
offering paid family leave has shown to improve recruitment and
retention of employees, which is especially valuable at a time when
labor markets are tight. But businesses only enjoy a competitive
benefit in attracting employees by offering paid leave benefits if
federal policies are noncompulsory. Business owners need the freedom to
offer the policies that fit their unique workforces, and thus any
legislation advanced by Congress simply must not involve an inflexible
mandate.
So long as legislative proposals are voluntary for small business
owners, it makes great sense for Congress to provide American
businesses with additional means to make paid family leave available to
American workers. There has been growing support for greater policy
development on this issue from both sides of the aisle in Congress, as
well as important thought leadership from White House Advisor Ivanka
Trump. IFA looks forward to today's hearing, and would like to offer
support for the further discussion on policy proposals that enhance the
ability of small businesses to voluntarily provide paid family leave.
Sincerely,
Matthew Haller
Senior Vice President, Government Relations and Public Affairs
______
Main Street Alliance
1101 17th St., NW, Suite 1220
Washington, DC 20036
www.mainstreetalliance.org
Statement of Sivan Cotel, Co-founder, Stonecutter Spirits
in Middlebury, Vermont
1197 Exchange St. Unit A, Middlebury, VT 05753
Sivan Cotel is the co-founder of Stonecutter Spirits, a distillery
located in Middlebury, VT. He is on the Board of Main Street Alliance
of Vermont, a statewide network of small business owners.
All of us, regardless of political affiliation, generally share the
same goals: we want to grow our local economy, support our small
businesses, and keep our families and communities healthy and thriving.
Most small business owners across the U.S. want to offer paid family
leave to their employees, but aren't able to provide a benefit on their
own--no matter how much they'd like to. A paid family and medical leave
insurance program would eliminate this dilemma for small businesses
across Vermont and the U.S. Vermont in particular is proud of being a
small-business state. We will likely always be a small-business state,
and that can be a unique strength. But it also comes with challenges in
how we think about the nature of employment, and we need to address
these challenges with smart policies that reflect the reality of the
business landscape in Vermont and nationally and help small businesses
thrive.
This is why small business owners in Vermont championed the creation of
a state paid and medical leave insurance system. The bill passed both
the Vermont House and Senate, only to be vetoed by Governor Scott. What
happened in Vermont demonstrates why we need a national policy like the
FAMILY Act.
The creation of a national universal family and medical leave benefit
would help level the playing field for small businesses and
entrepreneurs as we start and grow our businesses, and allow us to
better compete for top talent. We all have a stake in ensuring that our
next generation has a bright future. This policy helps us achieve our
common goals and ensure future generations can thrive.
We are not going to solve the issues we face across the nation or grow
our economy if we fail to act or with half measures like the
Independent Women's Forum proposal. The IWF proposal falls short of
what small businesses and working families need. It fails to provide
medical leave and provides an inadequate 45 percent of wage replacement
for parental leave, by raiding future social security benefits. We need
progress and we need to do the hard work.
The FAMILY Act would make providing paid family and medical leave
accessible and affordable for small businesses. It puts us on the right
path to creating a real small business economy.
______
Statement of Karen Lamy DeSousa, President,
Advance Air and Heat Co., Inc.
177 Bullock Road, East Freetown, MA 02717
Karen Lamy DeSousa is the President of Advance Air and Heat Co., Inc.,
a commercial heating and air conditioning contractor located in East
Freetown, MA. She is a leader with the Main Street Alliance of
Massachusetts, a statewide network of small business owners.
People should be able to take time away from work to get well when they
have a serious medical condition, or care for close family member who
has a serious illness. They should be able to take time to welcome a
new child. Thanks to the paid family and medical leave insurance law
we've just passed here in the Commonwealth, workers can now do all
those things.
This policy makes a difference to me as a business owner who knows that
caring for people is an important part of my bottom line. On the other
hand, the proposal by Senators Rubio and Ernst wouldn't help my small
business. Their flawed and narrow proposal asks working parents to take
a cut in their future Social Security benefits to underwrite meager
parental leave benefits. Instead, I urge the Committee to support the
FAMILY Act.
Recently, one of my employees--whom I'll call Charlie--told me his
mother was ill and he was setting up a mother-in-law apartment to care
for her. But, after working all day as an HVAC tech, he just didn't
have the time and energy.
We were as flexible and understanding as we could be. We used earned
sick time and paid time off as much as we could afford to. But Charlie
needed more, but he couldn't take unpaid time off with two kids in
college, a mortgage, and medical expenses. Both his work and his
attention to his mother suffered.
I've been through this with my own family, and I would have offered
paid leave to my employees if I could have afforded it. But I couldn't.
My business didn't have the money to pay for extended leave, and we
didn't have the time or skills to manage and administer a paid family
medical leave program on our own. Setting up an insurance program,
managing the qualifications, eligibility, and writing the checks is
outside our skill set.
That's why I'm thankful for the family friendly policies like paid
family and medical leave policies we've won in our Commonwealth. Those
policies help businesses like mine and the 20 employees I'm responsible
for.
I need Charlie and other employees like him. Properly training and
preparing a new HVAC tech takes five years at minimum. Losing skilled
employees and having to recruit and train new ones hurts our ability to
help our customers and could cost us their business. Plus, the more
time we spend on Human Resources, the less time we can spend on our
business.
The lack of paid leave put us at a competitive disadvantage with big
corporations that have full-time human resources staff, or competitors
in Rhode Island, which has a paid family medical leave insurance law.
One of the many benefits of the new state paid family medical leave
program is that no matter how big or small your business, you can offer
this benefit. The state is responsible for the administration and pays
from a trust. That means businesses like mine can give employees up to
20 weeks of some partially paid time and still have funds to pay for a
replacement or more overtime for other employees to keep our business
running.
All workers across the country deserve this. The FAMILY Act would
provide up to 12 weeks of paid leave a year and covers around two-
thirds of wages. And it would be a baseline, so Massachusetts could
still offer its more generous policy. Policies like this are a win-win
for families, workers, Main Street businesses, our communities, and our
economy. They help us all take care of our loved ones. And they help
level the playing field between small business and big corporations,
which have the market power to give good benefits to top managers.
The proposal by Senators Rubio and Ernst wouldn't have helped my
employee Charlie, and it won't help my business. It's time to listen
Main Street businesses who are fighting for high-road employment
policies and support the FAMILY Act.
______
Statement of Jen Kimmich, Owner, The Alchemist
100 Cottage Club Road, Stowe, VT 05676
Jen Kimmich is the co-owner of The Alchemist, a craft brewery located
in Stowe, VT. She is the Board Chair of the Main Street Alliance of
Vermont, a statewide network of small business owners.
Small businesses are a vital part of the U.S. economy. In Vermont,
roughly 90 percent of our state's businesses have fewer than 20
employees and these are the businesses that are least likely to be able
to offer paid family and medical leave on their own. A national family
and medical leave insurance program would make it possible for all
employers, large and small, to ensure their employees can be successful
providing for and caring for their families.
This past legislative session, Main Street Alliance of Vermont led the
campaign for a comprehensive paid family and medical leave insurance
program. The bill passed both the Vermont House and Senate, but
unfortunately it was vetoed by Governor Scott. What happened in Vermont
demonstrates why a national paid leave insurance system is needed,
rather than continuing with the state-by-state piecemeal approach.
Partisan regional politics shouldn't dictate whether we can care for
ourselves or our loved ones.
The proposal by the Independent Women's Forum does not come close to
what small businesses need. It cuts Social Security for working
parents, doesn't provide medical or family leave, and it has very low
benefit rate, only 45 percent of wages for the average worker. Research
has shown that anything less than 66 percent of wage is inadequate. At
the Alchemist, we provide 13 weeks of paid family and medical leave to
our 52 full time employees at 100 percent of wage replacement.
Providing paid leave hasn't hurt our company's productivity or
increased our costs. In fact, just the opposite is true--it has
strengthened workforce stability and it has increased our bottom line.
We've been able to build the brewery to have the resources to provide
paid leave, but most small businesses can't afford to provide paid
leave to their employees. Small business owners pay competitive wages
and are eager to help their employees learn new skills, but one area
where not everyone can compete is benefits. With modest bottom lines,
most small businesses simply aren't able to provide extended paid
leave.
Many small business owners pay competitive wages and are eager to help
their employees learn new skills, but one area where we just cannot
compete is benefits. With modest bottom lines, most small businesses
simply aren't able to provide extended paid leave. The FAMILY Act
creates an affordable, self-sustaining national family and medical
leave insurance program. It is funded responsibly by small employee and
employer payroll contributions, which equate to less than the cost of a
cup of coffee a week.
If we are serious about supporting Main Street small businesses and
working families, the FAMILY Act is the best next step.
______
Statement of Todd Mikkelson, Co-Owner, Sprayrack
4144 Shoreline Drive, Spring Park, MN 55384
Todd Mikkelson is the co-owner of Sprayrack, a water penetration and
air infiltration testing product design and manufacturing business
located in Spring Park, Minnesota. He is a leader with the Main Street
Alliance of Minnesota, a statewide network of small business owners.
Fifteen years ago I began engineering devices that are now the industry
standard in water and air infiltration testing. With a leap of faith,
my wife and I put all our savings into our business, Sprayrack. I'm not
afraid of risk-taking and think it's an important part of innovation.
But small businesses just don't have the resources to manage our risks
like larger companies. Our public policies must be innovative and help
to manage this risk if we want Main Street to thrive. This is why I
support the FAMILY Act, and am deeply concerned about the Independent
Women's Forum proposal to raid Social Security to underwrite an
inadequate parental leave benefit.
Five years ago, my wife and I were terrified to hire our first
employee. He was an experienced, 57-year-old electrician who had been
struggling to find a job worthy of his skill-set. The reality is that
his age made him less attractive to larger companies. He became
invaluable to us. He's a great problem solver, and he took over
management of our assembly shop, freeing me to develop products and
expand our marketing. That accelerated the pace of our growth, and we
now have three employees.
About two years ago, this employee had to have his hip replaced. We
needed to retain him. The costs of the time and money it would take to
replace him were astronomical, to say nothing of the uncertainty for my
business. So, we paid him thousands of dollars out of pocket to stay
home to recover for a few weeks. Our business took a significant
financial hit to retain this employee, and it's unlikely that we could
afford to do it again.
This is the plight of many real small businesses. When we find talented
employees, they quickly become almost as important to the business as
the owners--and we can't afford to lose them. My employees are
essential to my business, and they're also decent, hardworking people
who deserve time to care for themselves or a sick family member. But
with modest bottom lines, it's hard for small businesses to provide
paid and family medical leave. It's awful to be unable to afford to
treat your employees the way you feel they should be treated.
That's why the U.S. needs a comprehensive paid family and medical leave
insurance system like what is outlined in the FAMILY Act. It is a
reasonable way for businesses like mine to support and retain our
employees when serious family and medical needs arise. Employers and
employees each contribute $1.50 per week towards an insurance pool that
spreads the cost of leave, reducing the burden on individual employers.
Small-business owners and our employees alike would be eligible. This
will help level the playing field for small businesses as we struggle
to match the more generous paid leave benefits offered by larger
employers.
The IWF proposal on the other hand only provides parental leave and
wouldn't cover my employee who needed to have his hip replaced. Raiding
social security to provide an inadequate parental leave benefit is
similar to what Republicans put forth in Minnesota a couple years ago:
a half-baked joke that won't help my small business. The FAMILY Act is
what my business needs to succeed.
______
Statement of Sabrina Parsons, CEO, Palo Alto Software
44 West Broadway, Suite 500, Eugene, OR 97401
Sabrina Parsons is the CEO of Palo Alto Software, a small business
software distribution company headquartered in Eugene, OR. She is a
leader with Main Street Alliance of Oregon, a statewide network of
small business owners.
For nearly eleven years, I've run a software development company in
Eugene, Oregon. We have 70 full time employees and I've been able to
build up the company to have the resources to provide comprehensive
paid family and medical to our employees. The program has helped my
business recruit and retain talented and loyal employees.
In a male dominated industry, we have been able to attract and support
women professionals. We know that women shoulder most of the caregiving
responsibilities in the U.S. and that women's success in the workplace
is often tied to our ability to take care of our families, whether it
be a new child, a sick spouse or an elderly family member. At Palo Alto
Software we use our resources to invest in our employees, and always
make sure we remember that employees are people with human needs, and
not just numbers to our bottom line.
The proposal by Senators Ernst, Rubio and Lee, as outlined by the
Independent Women's Forum, is not real paid leave and wouldn't benefit
my business or my employees. Under their proposal, working parents
would need to borrow against future social security benefits in order
to take parental leave at a very low wage replacement rate. What
benefits my business and would benefit other small businesses is a more
comprehensive program that pays enough wages to keep an employee loyal,
and happy. Employee turnover is a huge cost to small businesses, and a
real paid leave program would help small businesses retain more and
better employees.
At Palo Alto Software, we provide paid family and medical leave at or
nearly at 100 percent of salary. We recently had an employee with a
parent who went through cancer treatment and she was able to go home
and take care of her mother. Through our policy she had job protected
paid leave and earned 100 percent of her salary during the time she
needed to care for her sick mother. We had another employee who needed
to take medical leave to recover from an accident, and we were able to
provide him with nearly four months of paid leave 95 percent of his
salary. We also offer our employees fully paid maternity and paternity
leave.
While my business now has the resources to provide paid leave, this
isn't a reality for most small business owners. When my company was
smaller, and had 20 employees, we did everything we could, but we
couldn't afford the comprehensive paid leave we can today. And in
different industries it's even harder. For example, it's very difficult
in the restaurant industry where profits margins are really thin.
Small business owners want to provide paid leave to their employees but
they need some help. The FAMILY Act, sponsored by Senator Gillibrand,
would create a self-sustaining national paid family and medical leave
insurance system. Employers and employees would contribute, spreading
out the funding so that it would cost less than $1.50 per week, which
is less than a cup of coffee. Small-business owners and our employees
alike would be eligible.
The FAMILY Act would not only support working people to address their
own serious medical needs or care for a family member, but it would
also support small businesses. It makes providing paid leave affordable
and feasible to implement for small businesses. Because the reality is
that when a small business can't provide paid leave, it's that much
harder to recruit and retain employees. Employees are face the very
difficult decision to choose their families and their health over their
jobs and financial stability because often it's a life or death choice.
Turnover costs are a major expense for small businesses. On average,
across all industries, turnover costs 20 percent of an employee's
annual salary. Moreover, most small business owners want to provide
their employees access to paid leave. But they are scared about how
that will affect their bottom line. They are scared of the rhetoric
they hear that it's going to be too expensive, and they are scared that
they are not going to be able to afford it. The FAMILY Act would create
a more favorable environment for small businesses, spurring small
business and economic growth.
The U.S. falls behind all other industrialized economies in ensuring
employees have access to paid leave. It's time that our elected
officials in DC step up and commit to supporting real paid leave
policies like the FAMILY Act so small business owners, our employees
and all working people have paid time to care for themselves or a loved
one.
______
Statement of Tony Sandkamp, Owner, Sandkamp Woodworks
430 Communipaw Ave., Jersey City, NJ 07304
Tony Sandkamp is the owner of Sandkamp Woodworks, a cabinet and
architectural woodworking business located in in Jersey City, New
Jersey. He is a leader with the Main Street Alliance of New Jersey, a
statewide network of small business owners.
I'm a proud supporter of New Jersey's Family Leave Insurance Program,
which helps small businesses like mine provide paid family and medical
leave to my four employees. All small businesses and workers, in every
state, should be able to count on a program with the same benefits and
protections. I am concerned about the Independent Women's Forum
proposal to provide paid leave that's funded by raiding Social
Security, covers only parental leave, and offers stingier wage
replacement. New Jersey's program worked for my business, and it should
be the baseline for the country.
Three years ago one of my employees came to me and said his wife was
having twins. He needed help getting some paid time off, and we weren't
sure to what to do. Luckily, I had a friend who knew about the Family
Leave Insurance Program. The paperwork was pretty straightforward, we
filled it out together and sent it in, and he got two thirds of his
wages replaced while bonding with his twins. He is a very important
part of my business, and this was very important to his life. So we
made adjustments, he got some paid time with his family, and he's still
with us.
I also remember life before our paid leave program, and I know that's
still the reality for most small businesses and workers around the
country. In 2006, before there was any such program, I had an employee
who had to leave his job because of family needs. I only found after
the fact that his mother was dying of cancer, around the Christmas
season, and he could have really used the New Jersey Family Leave
Insurance then. This was awful for him. It was a tough loss for me
personally since along with losing an employee, I lost a longtime
friend. It was also detrimental to my business. He had been my best
employee for several years and performed many critical management
functions. The costs of the time and money it took to replace him were
astronomical. I had to take time away from my responsibilities as the
owner to fill the gap in the interim.
The New Jersey Family Leave Insurance law allows small business owners
like me to provide paid family and medical to my employees and ensure
that no one is forced to choose between caring for serious family and
medical needs or putting food on the table. It also helps that small
business can recruit and retain dedicated employees, decreasing costly
turnover expenses and strengthening our bottom lines.
New Jersey's program is an important starting point. People like my
employee whose mother was dying of cancer would not be helped by the
IWF proposal. And the wage replacement in the IWF proposal would be too
low to really sustain my employee who had twins. That's why I urge you
to shelve the limited, flawed proposal to raid social security and
support the FAMILY Act, which builds upon what we have in New Jersey.
______
Statement of Adam Stephens, Owner of Marathon Bicycle Company
104 East Maple Ave., Fayetteville, WV 25840
Adam Stephens is the owner of Marathon Bicycle Company, a bike rental,
sales and repair shop, and Arrowhead Bike Farm, a bike rental shop,
biergarten and campground, located in Fayetteville, WV. He is a leader
of Main Street Alliance a national network of small business owners.
In November, 2017, my doctors told me I had a detached retina in my
left eye and would require a few operations in order to regain my
vision. They scheduled the first procedure for the middle of July.
There's never a great time to get sick, but as the owner of two
businesses in Fayetteville that rely on tourism, Marathon Bikes and
Arrowhead Bike Farm, there isn't a worse time than the peak of the
season to have to step away from my business for medical care.
At our farm I have a staff of five employees that can pull together and
manage things while I recover. But Marathon Bikes, my rental, sales and
repair shop, can't operate if I'm not there for an extended period. If
I follow my doctor's orders--and I plan to--I won't be able to work for
2 weeks. I calculate that closing down for the last two weeks in July
will cost me 10-15 percent of my gross revenue for the year. It won't
be catastrophic; my business will survive, but 2018 certainly won't be
remembered as a good year. And this surgery is just the first of many
procedures I need to have, which will cause additional revenue loss.
While seven states (including DC) offer paid family and medical leave,
West Virginia is not one of them. This leaves West Virginians like me
stuck scrambling when an unexpected family or medical situation comes
up.
The Independent Women's Forum proposal, which is being sold as a paid
leave proposal, wouldn't help me either. It isn't real paid leave.
That's because it only covers parental leave, and that excludes most
working people who need time to deal with a personal or family member's
serious illness. Additionally, despite cutting future Social Security
benefits, the plan only provides working parents with 45 percent of
their usual wages. After my child was born, I couldn't afford to take
one day off to bond with her. The IWF proposal benefit rate is so low,
that it wouldn't have made taking leave any more feasible for me.
It doesn't have to be this way. Access to real paid family and medical
leave shouldn't be based on where you live. Taking time away from work
to attend to serious medical issues like eye surgery or family
circumstances like the birth of a child or a sick parent should not be
calamitous for workers or small businesses.
That's why Congress needs to pass federal legislation that covers all
workers in times of need. The FAMILY Act would create a national paid
family and medical leave insurance system. It would be funded by
employers and employees, and all workers and small-business owners
would be eligible, regardless of the company's size.
Operationally, the FAMILY Act is pretty simple. Workers and employers
each make a small payroll contribution--as little as $1.50 per worker
each paycheck. Then, when workers--or operators of small businesses
like me--need to take time away from work, we can draw enough income
from the fund to get us by until we're back on our feet. Employers can
use the salary of their on-leave workers as they see fit; they can use
it to hire a temporary replacement, invest it in their business or save
it for another use.
Paid family and medical leave promotes a stronger economy, healthier
families, and helps small businesses like mine thrive. It's especially
good for small business, helping to level the playing field with big
corporations in hiring and retaining talented employees, and giving
small business owners like me a way to get the medical care we need
without jeopardizing our livelihood.
It's going to cost me an arm and a leg to get the care I need to
protect my eyesight. But Congress has the power to change this reality
for millions of working families and small business owners like me.
For questions, please contact Sapna Mehta, Legislative and Policy
Director, at [email protected].
______
Mercatus Center
George Mason University
THE TROUBLES OF FINANCING PAID FAMILY
LEAVE WITH SOCIAL SECURITY
Veronique de Rugy
Senior Research Fellow, Mercatus Center at George Mason University
Senate Committee on Finance, Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions,
and Family Policy
``Examining the Importance of Paid Family Leave for American Working
Families''
July 11, 2018
Chairman Cassidy, Ranking Member Brown, and distinguished members of
the Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions, and Family Policy:
My name is Veronique de Rugy, and I am an economist and senior research
fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. My colleagues
and I recently studied a proposal to use Social Security to extend paid
family leave to new parents, and I am grateful for the opportunity to
discuss our findings with you.
Attached to this document you will find a policy brief, ``Consequences
of Financing Paid Parental Leave Using Social Security,'' and a
Mercatus chart product, ``Social Security Can't Afford Family Leave.''
The chart product shows the fiscal implications of financing paid
family leave using Social Security. The brief argues against using
Social Security to extend paid family leave to new parents. In doing
so, it makes the following key points:
Between 45 and 63 percent of women report already having access
to paid leave, even without government mandating or paying for a
parental leave benefit.
In theory, paid family leave is potentially budget neutral over
the lifetime of the individual Social Security beneficiary. In reality,
it would add to Social Security's solvency problems from the start,
precipitating the insolvency of the program. In addition, to make this
program really revenue neutral, Congress would have to stick to the
commitment to withhold Social Security retirement benefits decades from
now. Unfortunately, the federal government has a long established
tradition of reneging on budgetary offsets later after having spent
money upfront. Therefore, it is unrealistic to assume it would follow
through this time around.
Until the first beneficiaries of the new paid leave program
start postponing their retirement decades down the road, additional
borrowing will be required to pay for the paid leave benefits claimed
by parents, on top of all Social Security benefits currently going to
retirees. Assuming a 25 percent take-up rate by eligible parents, the
new benefits would cost up to $7 billion per year.
Using Social Security to pay for family leave means adding
fiscal pressure to an already unsteady system in a highly indebted
budgetary environment. Lawmakers' six options for dealing with the
Social Security shortfall would all become more severe:
sharp reductions of benefits
significant delays in the age of retirement
eligibility
steep increases of the payroll tax rate above
its current 12.4 percent level
lifting the $128,400 income cap subjected to
the tax
bailing out the system with general revenues,
eroding its status as an earned benefit
some mix of the previous five
It would be unwise to establish the principle that Social
Security's future retirement benefits can be borrowed against to
finance the current needs of the young.
History shows that we can't expect any new paid parental leave policy
will remain in its original form and merely redistribute tax dollars to
parents in the short run from their future retirement benefits. More
likely, it will devolve into another welfare program--funded from a
Social Security trust fund that was not designed for that purpose and
should not be used for it now.
I would be happy to discuss any of these matters in further detail.
Sincerely,
Veronique de Rugy
Senior Research Fellow
Mercatus Center at Mercatus University
ATTACHMENTS (2)
``Consequences of Financing Paid Parental Leave Using Social Security''
(Mercatus Policy Brief)
``Social Security Can't Afford Paid Family Leave'' (Mercatus
Freestanding Chart)
______
Consequences of Financing Paid Parental Leave
Using Social Security
Veronique de Rugy, Jason J. Fichtner, and Charles Blahous
June 2018
Social Security is the largest government program. In FY 2017 it paid
over $939 billion--4.9 percent of GDP--in benefits to 62 million
Americans (45 million of whom are retired).\1\ Unfortunately, the
program is not on sound financial footing, as 17 percent of currently
scheduled benefits lack funding, and the two Social Security trust
funds combined face depletion in 2034.\2\ Upon trust fund depletion,
program tax revenue will only be able to pay 77 percent of benefits.
The financial troubles facing the Social Security program are among the
many reasons why a new proposal to use Social Security as a way to
extend paid family leave to new parents is a bad idea.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Social Security Administration, ``Social Security Beneficiary
Statistics,'' accessed May 4, 2018, https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/
OASDIbenies.html.
\2\ Board of Trustees, Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and
Federal Disability Insurance Trust Funds, The 2017 Annual Report of the
Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and
Federal Disability Insurance Trust Funds, 2017; Social Security
Administration, ``A Summary of the 2018 Annual Reports,'' accessed May
4, 2018, https://www.ssa.gov/oact/trsum/.
The plan proposed by Kristin Shapiro of the Independent Women's Forum
in her recent paper A Budget-Neutral Approach to Parental Leave appears
at first to be simple and elegant.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Kristin A. Shapiro, A Budget-Neutral Approach to Parental Leave
(Washington, DC: Independent Women's Forum, January 2018).
Consider a 26-year-old new mother with five years of work experience
earning $31,100 per year. Under this plan, she could receive 12 weeks
of paid leave at a rate of close to $300 per week, or approximately
$3,600 over the 12-week period.\4\ In exchange, in the future, her
eligibility to claim Social Security retirement benefits would be
delayed by about 6 weeks.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Kristin A. Shapiro and Andrew G. Biggs, ``A Simple Plan for
Parental Leave,'' Wall Street Journal, January 24, 2018.
This is a simple, stylized example. The plan lacks necessary details
for a more complete analysis. In a recent piece in The Wall Street
Journal, Andrew Biggs of the American Enterprise Institute and Kristin
Shapiro provide additional numbers on the potential cost of the
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
proposed paid parental leave policy:
The cost is low because parental-leave benefits claimed early
in life would be low relative to retirement benefits claimed
later, as earnings typically rise considerably from one's 20s
to one's early 60s. . . . Consider an average woman, who enters
the workforce at 21 and has her first child at 26. At 25 she
would have a salary of about $31,100, according to Social
Security Administration data. Using the same formula used to
calculate Social Security disability benefits, she would be
eligible for a Social Security parental-leave benefit of $1,175
a month, equal to 45% of her earnings at 25. . . . Because of
Social Security's progressive benefit formula, lower-income
workers would receive a higher benefit relative to their
earnings.\5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Shapiro and Biggs, ``A Simple Plan for Parental Leave.''
To the designer's credit, this plan doesn't involve mandating employers
to provide paid leave to their employees, and it piggybacks on an
existing entitlement program rather than starting a new one from
scratch. Its apparent simplicity and purpose, topped with the claim
that it wouldn't add to the deficit, has already attracted support. It
was taken up by both conservative and moderate members of the
Republican congressional conferences, and it is gaining some traction
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
among conservative groups.
Unfortunately, while the plan lacks many details, there are already
considerable reasons to oppose it. The first question Americans should
ask is whether paid family leave is best provided through the
government and whether the private sector is providing, or could
provide, such a benefit. Data from the Census Bureau's Survey of Income
and Program Participation (SIPP), the U.S. Department of Labor's FMLA
Worksite and Employee Surveys, the Census Bureau's Current Population
Survey (CPS), and the National Survey of Working Mothers show that even
without the government mandating or paying for a parental leave
benefit, between 45 percent and 63 percent of women report already
having access to paid leave.\6\ This should come as no surprise, since
academic studies show that companies benefit from providing this type
of benefit to their workers--adding satisfaction, as well as lowering
turnover rates and raising productivity. When businesses can afford to
offer paid family leave, they increasingly do. It is unclear that there
would be net societal benefit in shifting the costs of paid parental
leave from the workplaces that benefit from it to federal taxpayers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Council of Economic Advisers, The Economics of Paid and Unpaid
Leave, June 2014; Vanessa Brown Calder, ``Myth Busting Paid Leave
Statistics,'' Cato at Liberty, March 8, 2018.
Setting these general concerns aside, this paper will focus on a more
specific problem with the plan: the use of the Social Security trust
funds to finance paid parental leave. We will discuss how this proposal
is an inappropriate expansion of the mission of the program, how it
disrupts the link between work and benefits, and how it will almost
certainly not be budget neutral, among other issues. Rarely do the
finances of such programs conform to their designers' original
intentions. If a paid leave program were to be added to Social
Security, over time we could expect that its eligibility criteria would
be expanded (as they have been with other entitlement programs) to
include other paid leave options besides caring for a newborn, such as
caring for aging parents or a spouse. The duration of the benefit would
likely be extended over time as well, as paid leave benefits in other
countries have been. The final transformation of the new benefit may
happen when advocates for beneficiaries demand that it be paid for with
general government revenue rather than delayed retirement. In sum, it
is reasonable to expect that this new entitlement would not long remain
a budget-neutral modification of existing mandatory spending
obligations, but would eventually become an entirely new spending
obligation, with all of the costs and market distortions that such
entitlements typically create.
INAPPROPRIATE EXPANSION OF THE ROLE OF SOCIAL SECURITY
Using Social Security as a way to provide paid leave would be a
significant expansion in the types of benefits that Social Security
pays for, and one that departs significantly from the program's
historical mission.
The historical mission of Social Security has been to provide ``a
comprehensive package of protection'' against income loss as the result
of a permanent departure from the workforce, consequent to a primary
household earner's retirement or death.\7\ This system was originally
designed as a social insurance program to cover low-probability and
high-cost events (such as living well beyond the average life
expectancy or losing income if a working spouse dies). Later the
program was expanded to include disability benefits. That expansion
took place only after a very protracted debate during the 1950s and
after proponents of the expansion gave multiple assurances and
procedural guarantees that the establishment of disability insurance
benefits would not undermine the funding of the retirement program.\8\
As part of this process, and to fulfill this requirement, the
Disability Insurance system was established with a separate trust fund
and a separate payroll tax. As Senator Walter George (D-GA) stated
during floor debate,
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ Social Security Administration, Social Security Accountability
Report for Fiscal Year 1997, November 21, 1997.
\8\ Charles Blahous, ``Costs of Merging Social Security Retirement
and Disability Funds,'' e21 (Manhattan Institute for Policy Research),
April 27, 2015.
The moneys for disabled persons will not be commingled in any
way with the funds for old-age insurance or for widows and
spouses. The contribution income and the disbursements for
disability payments will be kept completely distinct and
separate. In this way the cost of disability benefits always
will be definitely known and the costs always will be shown
separately . . . a separate tax is to be levied to build up a
fund which can be easily policed, which can never encroach upon
the fund for widows, and for those who reach age 65, and for
children and other beneficiaries.\9\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ Charles Blahous, ``Costs of Merging Social Security Retirement
and Disability Funds.''
Even still, disability benefits were only provided for those facing
long-term income loss owing to a disabling condition. None of those
safeguards ground the current paid leave proposal; instead, it seems
the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Trust Fund would be required
to finance a new kind of benefit entirely--one that does not align with
the original intent of the program. Given that the OASI trust fund is
already significantly underfunded, it seems imprudent to start tapping
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
those inadequate funds to pay for a new category of benefits.
To elaborate on the previous point, paid leave is a fundamentally
different kind of benefit than the other benefits Social Security pays
for. Although people do risk income interruptions when they leave the
workforce to care for children, having children doesn't permanently
destroy one's ability to earn income, now or in the future. Social
Security is designed instead to protect against lasting income loss--
because someone either died, retired, or became disabled. For better or
worse, in order to receive disability benefits, applicants must show
that their disabilities are an ongoing condition; Social Security
explicitly says that ``no benefits are payable for partial disability
or for short-term disability.''\10\ In other words, Social Security has
never been intended to provide temporary ``tiding-over'' benefits,
unlike, for example, unemployment insurance.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ Social Security Administration, ``Benefits Planner:
Disability,'' accessed May 4, 2018, https://www.ssa.gov/planners/
disability/qualify.html.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
PAID LEAVE WOULD END THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WORK AND BENEFIT
Social Security is a program with many problems,\11\ including its
projected insolvency. However, one of the program's relative virtues is
that no workers get benefits that they haven't at least in some way
earned with their payroll tax contributions. On the retirement side of
the program, one must work and contribute payroll taxes for at least 40
quarters (10 years) to be eligible for benefits.\12\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\11\ Jason J. Fichtner, ``Restoring and Modernizing Social Security
Through Sustainable Reform'' (testimony before the House Committee on
the Budget, Mercatus Center at George Mason University, Arlington, VA,
July 13, 2016).
\12\ Social Security Administration, ``Benefits Planner,'' accessed
May 4, 2018, https://www.ssa.gov/planners/credits.html.
Disability is more complex, and one could argue that its benefits
aren't adequately tied to contributions paid. However, its design is
defensible from an insurance perspective since disability can strike at
any time and cause a permanent loss of income. Yet even on Social
Security's disability side, one must work and contribute for a few
years before qualifying (6 quarters of tax contributions are required
to become eligible before the age of 24; otherwise, 20 quarters are
required over a worker's previous 10 years).\13\ And although some
young workers receive disability benefits that their own contributions
have not yet adequately funded, it is far more common for workers to
receive disability benefits only much later in their careers, after
several years of contributing payroll taxes to the system.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\13\ Social Security Administration, ``Understanding Supplemental
Security Income Social Security Entitlement--2018 Edition,'' accessed
May 4, 2018, https://www.ssa.gov/ssi/text-entitle-ussi.htm.
By contrast, paid parental leave is ill-suited for this type of
contributory funding system. Most people tend to have children toward
the beginning of their careers rather than toward the end, and well
before their contributions, even in the aggregate, are sufficient to
fund benefits. Under a paid parental leave policy, many people will
likely have children long before they have contributed payroll taxes
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
for 20, let alone 40, quarters of paid employment.
To address this issue, the proponents of the paid leave system would
require that parents, no matter their age, need to have worked at least
four quarters (one year) in their lifetime, including in at least two
of the last four quarters preceding the birth of their child, to become
eligible for Social Security parental benefits.\14\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\14\ Shapiro, A Budget-Neutral Approach to Parental Leave.
This is a serious weakening of the work-benefit relationship that
currently exists in Social Security. Moreover, it is easy to anticipate
that even these minimal work requirements will eventually be relaxed or
even eliminated to provide additional assistance to lower-income
parents without established labor force attachment. Establishing a new
benefit that is not premised primarily upon prior employment-based
contributions will likely render it inevitable that the benefit is
ultimately conceived and provided solely on the basis of need, rather
than earned through work. While there is a place in government for
purely need-based assistance to poor families, Social Security is not
that place.
A NOT-SO-BUDGET-NEUTRAL PROPOSAL
Advocates for the paid leave proposal express an intention that this
new benefit be budget neutral and not add to the net cost of Social
Security. As Shapiro writes, ``The proposed program would be structured
to be self-funding. In return for receiving parental benefits, new
parents would agree to defer their collection of Social Security
benefits upon retirement for the period of time necessary to offset the
cost of their parental benefits.''\15\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\15\ Shapiro.
For instance, if a 25-year-old had a baby and claimed paid leave
benefits in 2018, she would effectively be using her 2060 old-age
retirement benefits. That's assuming she wants to retire at 67. She
would make up for her paid leave benefits in 2060--over 40 years
later--by delaying her retirement benefits by six weeks. For each
additional child, she would forgo an additional six weeks of retirement
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
benefits, and so on and so forth.
It seems simple enough. But while in theory this paid family leave is
potentially budget neutral over the lifetime of the individual Social
Security beneficiary, it would nevertheless add to Social Security's
solvency problems for several years, if not decades. Social Security
has been running a cash flow deficit since 2010--one that is currently
projected to be permanent. Starting from the implementation of any new
paid parental leave program, additional borrowing will be required to
pay for the paid leave benefits claimed by parents, on top of all
Social Security benefits currently going to retirees. According to
Shapiro, assuming a 25 percent take-up rate by eligible parents, that
additional cost would add up to $7 billion per year.\16\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\16\ Shapiro, 4.
These additional benefit outlays will accelerate the depletion of the
trust funds, which the 2017 Social Security Trustees report already
projects will happen in 2034, and at which time Social Security
benefits would be reduced by roughly one-quarter under current law.\17\
By 2034, the federal budget deficit is estimated to be $2.4 trillion
(6.5 percent of GDP), and the public debt to be $38.4 trillion (105
percent of GDP), to which the costs of this additional benefit would be
added.\18\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\17\ Social Security Administration, ``Summary of the 2018 Annual
Reports.''
\18\ Congressional Budget Office, The Budget and Economic Outlook:
2018 to 2028, April 2018.
In other words, using Social Security to pay for family leave means
adding fiscal pressure to an already unsteady system in a highly
indebted budgetary environment. Lawmakers' six options for dealing with
the Social Security shortfall would all become more severe: sharp
reductions of benefits, significant delays in the age of retirement
eligibility steep increases of the payroll tax rate above its current
12.4 percent level, lifting the $128,400 income cap subjected to the
tax, bailing out the system with general revenues and eroding its
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
status as an earned benefit, or a mix of the five.
Designed to be part of a multifaceted system for income replacement in
retirement, Social Security benefits, along with employer pensions and
individual savings, form the so-called ``three-legged stool'' of
retirement.\19\ Social Security alone cannot provide adequate
retirement income for all, and it currently lacks adequate funding for
the benefits it promises.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\19\ Social Security Administration, ``Agency History,'' accessed
May 4, 2018, https://www.ssa.gov/history/stool.html.
It would be especially unwise to establish the principle that Social
Security's future retirement benefits can be borrowed against to
finance the needs of the young in the present. In the first place,
promises of Social Security benefits are funded only by future
taxpayers; there is no storehouse of personal Social Security savings
for young workers to draw from. And even if there were such a
storehouse, there would be no logical basis for limiting access to it
only for paid parental leave; the door would be open to unlimited
alternative uses for such advance payments, from down payments on a
home to paying off student loans. Indeed, some of these expansions are
already being proposed.\20\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\20\ Elliott Harding, ``A Solution to the Student-Debt and Social
Security Crises,'' National Review, March 12, 2018.
Nor should Americans take it as a given that the proposal would
actually be self-funding, even over the lifetime of a beneficiary. This
would be a ``benefits now, funding later'' program. There is no fail-
safe mechanism for ensuring that lawmakers follow through on the
benefit offsets decades hence. In some cases, follow-through may even
be impossible, such as for those who receive benefits up front but then
remain out of the workforce as stay-at-home parents. According to the
Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 35 percent of women with young
children do not participate in the labor force.\21\ The program would
also fail to be self-funding in instances of workers who later become
disabled or drop out of the workforce and thus have no retirement
benefits to delay.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\21\ Bureau of Labor Statistics, Women in the Labor Force: A
Databook, November 2017.
It is worth adding that government paid leave programs around the world
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
have a bad track record. As Vanessa Brown Calder reminds us,
In 1989 Larry Summers wrote about government-mandated paid
leave, ``There is no sense in which benefits become `free' just
because the government mandates employers offer them to
workers.'' And in 1994 Jonathan Gruber reported women's wages
were reduced to reflect the cost of benefit mandates. Gruber
estimated that the shift in cost was around ``the order of 100
percent.'' \22\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\22\ Vanessa Brown Calder, ``Republicans Are Negotiating the Terms
of Surrender on Paid Leave,'' The Hill, February 21, 2018.
Under the current paid leave proposal, the government wouldn't mandate
or provide net funding for the benefit--at least at first. Yet it is
naive to think that no new costs will emerge as such a program
inevitably evolves. Potential adverse consequences of these costs
include unexpected burdens and disruptions for small businesses, lower
wages, and even an increased reluctance to hire or promote women of
childbearing age.
TWO WRONGS DON'T MAKE A RIGHT
A valid criticism of the Social Security program is that because of the
collision between demographic trends and funding methods, the program
causes substantial, inequitable income redistribution from the youngest
in society to the oldest.\23\ In addition, changes in the capital
market and standards of living in the United States over the past 50
years mean that the older beneficiaries of the program are over
represented in the top income quintile.\24\ As a result, many see this
proposal to provide paid leave benefits through Social Security as a
way to reverse some of Social Security's intergenerational income
redistribution, away from retired and older Americans back toward
younger ones.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\23\ Hearing on ``What Workers Need to Know About Social Security
as They Plan for Their Retirement,'' hearing before the Subcommittee on
Social Security of the House Committee on Ways and Means, 113th
Congress (2014) (statement of C. Eugene Steuerle, Institute Fellow and
Richard B. Fisher Chair, Urban Institute).
\24\ Tyler Cowen and Veronique de Rugy, ``Reframing the Debate,''
in The Occupy Handbook, ed. Janet Byrne (New York: Back Bay Books,
2012), 411-21.
However, the proposal would not actually correct these
intergenerational inequities. That can only be done by lessening the
existing redistribution from later birth cohorts to earlier ones--
either by reducing benefits for older cohorts or by shifting from a
pay-as-you-go system to a funded one through, for example, the
establishment of personal accounts. The paid leave proposal is instead
a proposal for younger Americans to pay for income during their
parenting years out of their own eventual retirement income; in other
words, if it works as designed, it would have no net effect of
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
correcting intergenerational inequities.
Moreover, owing to Social Security's currently projected insolvency,
changes will need to be made to individuals' benefit levels and
retirement eligibility ages in any event. Would those who have taken
parental leave be subjected to these changes on top of the delays they
have already accepted in exchange for parental leave income? These are
additional considerations the proponents have yet to provide answers
for.
CONCLUSION: THE HIGH COST OF GOOD INTENTIONS
In his book, The High Cost of Good Intentions, Hoover Institution
scholar John Cogan explains how throughout history government programs
were created for one reason or another, but over time the stated
mission was expanded beyond recognition. Federal entitlement programs
demonstrate this inevitable tendency. Originally designed to provide a
measure of economic security to senior citizens and a safety net for
the poor, they now redistribute money to Americans in all income
classes, rich and poor alike. As Cogan explains, over 60 percent of all
U.S. households that receive entitlement program benefits have incomes
above the poverty line before the receipt of those benefits.\25\ Cogan
further notes that over 30 percent of the benefits go to households in
the upper half of the income distribution. The same general pattern is
found across federal programs from food stamps to Social Security
Disability Insurance to Medicaid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\25\ John F. Cogan, The High Cost of Good Intentions: A History of
U.S. Federal Entitlement Programs (Stanford, CA: Stanford University
Press, 2017), 2 9-3; Clifton B. Parker, ``Federal Entitlements Intended
to Lift People out of Poverty Now Benefit the Middle Class, Stanford
Scholar Says,'' Stanford News Service, February, 21, 2018, https://
news.stanford.edu/press-releases/2018/02/21/medicare-social-ity-keep-
growing/.
The same will happen under a paid parental leave policy, especially
since it will take decades to implement intended budget offsets. We
can, for example, expect future profamily interest groups to argue that
beneficiary parents who are later required to delay retirement are
being subjected to a ``retirement penalty'' or a ``baby penalty''
compared to nonparents. We can also expect other interest groups to
demand that the four-quarter work requirement be eliminated so that
everyone can benefit, and we expect those interest groups will have
statistics at their disposal demonstrating that the work requirements
are unfairly regressive. Other possible changes in eligibility might
include allowing nonparents and parents alike to tap their future
Social Security benefits to pay for college tuition, the care of an
aging parent, or the purchase of a house or a car. The Shapiro proposal
itself anticipates future expansions, saying that ``after the program
has existed for several years, policymakers can study its operation and
effects and better evaluate whether it would be appropriate to offer
more generous benefits or to open up the program to other populations
(such as individuals needing paid medical or family leave).'' \26\
Given that Social Security's retirement benefits are already
inadequately financed, the program simply cannot afford the risk of
these myriad benefit obligations being added without reliable assurance
that budget neutrality principles will be upheld over all time.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\26\ Shapiro, A Budget-Neutral Approach to Parental Leave.
History may not always repeat itself. But it sure does rhyme. If
history is our guide, it is unrealistic to expect that any new policy
to provide paid parental leave through the Social Security system will
remain in its original form and merely redistribute tax dollars to
parents in the short run from their future retirement benefits. More
likely, it will devolve into another welfare program-funded from a
Social Security trust fund that was not designed for that purpose and
shouldn't be used for it now.
Social Security Can't Afford Paid Family Leave
Veronique de Rugy and Justin Leventhal
Several plans have been proposed for the federal government to provide
paid family leave. One proposed plan by the Independent Women's Forum
would provide 12 weeks of leave paid leave with compensation calculated
through the current disability benefits formula (estimated to be an
average of $3,528 for 12 weeks). If an individual chose to take this
benefit, that individual would pay back the Social Security system by
deferring old-age benefit payments by 6 weeks. The theory behind this
deferral is that over the long term, the deferral of payments will
allow Social Security program to remain deficit neutral. However, even
if the program remained deficit neutral over the 30-40 years it would
take to reclaim family leave benefits, this proposal would add to the
problems already faced by Social Security. Even without this proposal,
the Social Security trust fund is expected to be depleted in 2034, long
before the benefits are repaid.
Using the number of births in 2016 as a baseline, one can estimate the
future cost of parental leave payments each year, depending on the
percentage of new parents who take advantage of their new entitlement.
If only half of all new parents collected family leave payments from
this system, the cost would be $14 billion per year.
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1118.002
After accounting for smaller interest payments (owing to a smaller
trust fund each year), if only half of new parents used this system,
the Social Security trust fund would be $259 billion lower at the
beginning of 2033 than otherwise.
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1118.003
The lower starting position of the Social Security trust fund means
that it would be depleted one year early. This poses a problem not just
for retirees, but also for those people who would be collecting
payments for family leave from this system, which will soon be
bankrupt.
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1118.004
______
National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association (NARFE)
606 N. Washington Street
Alexandria, VA 22314
phone 703-838-7760
fax 703-838-7785
www.NARFE.org
Richard G. Thissen Jon Dowie
National President National Secretary/Treasurer
July 24, 2018
Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions, and Family Policy
Committee on Finance
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Chairman Cassidy, Ranking Member Brown, and members of the Senate
Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions, and Family Policy:
Thank you for holding the hearing titled ``Examining the Importance of
Paid Family Leave for American Working Families'' on Wednesday, July
11, 2018.
I am writing to submit for the hearing record the views of the National
Active and Retired Federal Employees Association (NARFE) in support of
paid parental leave for federal employees.
Specifically, NARFE supports H.R. 6275, the Federal Employees Paid
Parental Leave Act of 2018, introduced by Congresswoman Barbara
Comstock, R-VA, which would provide 12 weeks of paid leave to federal
employees for the birth, adoption or foster placement of a child.
This policy is long overdue. The United States of America is the only
industrialized country in the world without a national law requiring
paid parental leave--including for its civil servants. Within the
United States, many large private-sector employers have recognized the
value of this policy. In fact, in 2008, the Joint Economic Committee
surveyed Fortune 100 companies and found that nearly three-quarters (74
percent) of the responding companies offered a specific paid parental-
leave program to new mothers. The federal government should follow
their lead and join every other developed nation.
The policy reflects smart human-resource-management practice. Paid
parental-leave policies have been shown to facilitate the recruitment
and retention of young workers. With only 6 percent of the federal
workforce under the age of 30, and more than 40 percent eligible to
retire within 3 years, federal government recruitment of young workers
is becoming increasingly important. Additionally, the policy has been
shown to improve employee morale, which increases productivity.
Offering paid parental leave would actually save the federal government
money. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that previous versions
of the legislation mentioned above would not impact direct spending.
Additionally, Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) calculates
that the federal government could prevent 2,650 departures per year
among female employees by offering paid parental leave, preventing $50
million per year in turnover costs.\1\
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\1\ ``The Need for Paid Parental Leave for Federal Employees:
Adapting to a Changing Workforce,'' from the Institute for Women's
Policy Research, 2009.
The study went on to say, ``Recruiting new employees, the relatively
low productivity of new hires, drains on the productivity of colleagues
and supervisors, human resources processing time, training, and lost
productivity between the departure of an employee and the hiring of a
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replacement are all real costs to employers.''
A separate report from the Institute for Women's Policy Research on
first-time mothers stated: ``Controlling for observed differences,
first-time mothers who utilized paid leave had only a 2.6% probability
of quitting their jobs and a 92.3% probability of returning to the same
employer post-birth of their children. In contrast, first-time mothers
who did not utilize paid leave experienced a 34.3% probability of
quitting their job and had a 73.3% probability of working for the same
employer after birth.'' \2\
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\2\ ``Paid Leave and Employment Stability of First-Time Mothers,''
from the Institute for Women's Policy Research, 2017.
Paid parental leave also demonstrates the value we place on family and
parenting. Parents should not be forced to make difficult trade-offs
between spending invaluable time to bond with their new child, or being
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able to pay their bills and save for their child's future.
This hearing focused on a nationwide paid family-leave policy. We
support that pathway as well. But if that is too heavy a lift, I urge
Congress, the federal government's board of directors, to at least
institute such a policy for the federal government's own employees. It
is past time to do so.
Thank you for considering NARFE's views. If you have any questions or
comments regarding this letter, please contact NARFE Staff Vice
President, Advocacy, Jessica Klement at 703-838-7760 or
[email protected].
Sincerely,
Richard G. Thissen
National President
______
New York City Department of Consumer Affairs
42 Broadway, 8th Floor
New York, NY 10004
Dial 311
(212-NEW-YORK)
nyc.gov/consumers
Statement of Lorelei Salas, Commissioner of the New York City
Department of Consumer Affairs
The New York City Department of Consumer Affairs (``DCA'') strongly
urges Congress to create a comprehensive national program that makes
paid leave affordable for employers of all sizes and available for
workers to care for a new child upon their birth or adoption, a family
member with a serious health condition, or themselves if they have a
serious health condition. The Family and Medical Insurance Leave
(FAMILY) Act (S. 337/H.R. 947), sponsored by Representative Rosa
DeLauro and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand does just that, and would create
a baseline right that may be supplemented by greater protections
provided by state and local governments.
DCA, particularly its Office of Labor Policy and Standards
(``OLPS''), has first-hand knowledge of how local government's role in
labor law enforcement is essential to promoting individual financial
security and improving family and public health without sacrificing a
vigorous and growing economy.\1\ OLPS is charged with implementing and
enforcing New York City's workplace laws, developing innovative
policies to raise job standards, and providing a central resource to
help working New Yorkers assert their rights under local, state, and
federal law.
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\1\ New York City, Office of the Mayor, ``Two Years After Mayor De
Blasio Expands Paid Sick Leave to One Million New Yorkers, City's
Economy Stronger Than Ever,'' April 1, 2016, available at http://
www1.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/318-16/two-years-after-mayor-de-
blasio-expands-paid-sick-leave-one-million-new-yorkers-city-s-economy.
Through DCA's enforcement of the City's Paid Safe and Sick Leave
Law (PSSL), we have witnessed the necessity of paid leave for the
health of workers, their families, and the City's economy. PSSL
guarantees almost all workers in New York City, regardless of
immigration status and whether they are full-time, part-time, or
contingent, a strand of basic human dignity--up to forty hours of paid
time off to care for themselves or their loved ones when they are ill
or to seek medical treatment, without fear of penalty or retribution
from their employer. Evidence of PSSL's success since its adoption in
2014 are the recent amendments to it that passed without controversy.
These amendments expanded the Law's definition of family member to
include ``chosen family'' and its uses to those related to taking
safety measures from domestic violence, human trafficking, stalking or
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sexual assault.
Paid Family Leave Is Especially Critical for the Long-term Economic
Security of Women and Low-income Workers
DCA welcomed New York State's implementation of a family and
medical leave insurance program in 2108. By joining California, New
Jersey and Rhode Island, workers in New York City and across the State
will have increased protections when confronted with the most consuming
of life events that require workers to temporarily devote their full
time and attention to the care of a loved one--whether a new baby or
family member battling a long-term illness--or to recover from their
own serious illness or injury.\2\ Approximately 85% of American workers
lack paid family leave through their jobs.\3\ Paid family leave is
especially critical for some of the most vulnerable workers--women and
those who earn the lowest wages.\4\ Women shoulder most unpaid
caregiving responsibilities, of children, the elderly and the disabled:
two-thirds of unpaid caregivers are women.\5\ Women are more likely
than men to leave their jobs to meet caregiving obligations and this
has a direct impact on women's economic security and stability and the
lifetime earnings gap between men and women.\6\ Paid family leave
enables women to remain in their jobs, acquire seniority, increase
their earnings and, subsequently, their retirement savings.\7\
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\2\ Washington State and the District of Columbia will join the
growing list of jurisdictions with paid family leave programs in 2020.
\3\ FAMILY Act Coalition letter, July 11, 2018, available at http:/
/www.nationalpartner
ship.org/research-library/work-family/coalition/family-act-coalition-
letter.pdf.
\4\ Jasmine Tucker and Kayla Patrick, National Women's Law Center,
Women in Low-Wage Jobs May Not Be Who You Expect (August 30, 2017),
https://nwlc.org/resources/women-in-low-wage-jobs-may-not-be-who-you-
expect/.
\5\ Women and Caregiving: Facts and Figures (December 31, 2003),
https://www.caregiver.org/women-and-caregiving-facts-and-figures.
\6\ Women's Bureau Report, U.S. Department of Labor, 2, 3 (February
2015), available at https://www.dol.gov/wb/resources/
older_women_economic_security.pdf.
\7\ Claire Cain Miller, ``Paid Leave Encourages Female Employees to
Stay,'' The New York Times, July 28, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/
2014/07/29/upshot/how-paid-leave-helps-female-employees-stay-.html.
A lack of paid family leave makes the ability to provide long-term
temporary care to a family member particularly elusive for low-wage
workers, who cannot afford to take unpaid time off from work, even if
they might be entitled to it under the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA)
or an employer's policy. Low-income workers often lack a financial
cushion or safety net on which to rely while absent from work.\8\
Losing income while taking care of their own or a family member's
health condition has a compounding effect on family finances that is
particularly acute for low-income workers, creating a risk that they
will fall into poverty. Many of the reasons for which employees would
be eligible to use family leave bring new expenses, like the cost of
diapers, child care, or prescription medications,\9\ in addition to
costs associated with lost wages.\10\ An analysis of FMLA found that
nearly 1 in 10 employees went on public assistance program (such as
food stamps or welfare) when on leave.\11\ When paid leave is offered,
those with paid leave are 39% less likely to access public assistance
than those not offered the benefit.\12\ Additionally, among families
who receive public assistance in the year after birth, new mothers who
were offered paid leave report $413 less in public assistance than
those mothers who were not offered paid leave.\13\ Thus, implementing
paid leave programs appears to reduce the need for public assistance,
which can also free up government spending to invest in other
activities supportive of economic growth.\14\ Paid family leave would
begin to break the cycle in which economic deprivation leads to
hazards, including poor health, which in turn perpetuate poverty.
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\8\ National Women's Law Center, Set Up to Fail: When Low-Wage Work
Jeopardizes Parents' and Children's Success, 4, 2016, https://nwlc-
ciw49tixgw5lbab.stackpathdns.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/FINAL-
Executive-Summary-Set-Up-to-Fail.pdf; Board of Governors of the Federal
Reserve System, Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in
2016, 1, 2 (May 2017), https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/
files/2016-report-economic-well-being-us-households-201705.pdf.
\9\ Nancy Rankin and Margaret Mark, The Community Service Society
of New York, A Necessity, Not a Benefit, 9 (May 2015), available at
http://www.cssny.org/publications/entry/a-necessity-not-a-benefit.
\10\ Patricia Stoddard-Dare et. al., ``How Does Paid Sick Leave
Relate to Health Care Affordability and Poverty Among US Workers?'',
2018, Social Work in Health Care, 57:5, 376-392, https://
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00981389.2018.1447532.
\11\ Id. at 377.
\12\ Patricia Stoddard-Dare et. al., ``How Does Paid Sick Leave
Relate to Health Care Affordability and Poverty Among US Workers?'',
2018, Social Work in Health Care, 57:5, 376-392, https://
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00981389.2018.1447532.
\13\ Gault, Barbara et al., Paid Parental Leave in the United
States, 13, March 2014, https://www.dol.gov/wb/resources/
paid_parental_leave_in_the_united_states.pdf.
\14\ Id.
Paid Family Leave Is Associated With Improved Health Outcomes and Lower
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Healthcare Costs
Paid family leave would help meet the growing health needs of the
population and has the potential to improve public health.\15\ The
United States has a growing aged population,\16\ and ``within just a
couple decades, older people are projected to outnumber children for
the first time in U.S. history.'' At the same time, ``the number of
Americans who are providing unpaid care to people who are older,
disabled, or otherwise in need of assistance is expected to increase
from 40 million to nearly 45 million unpaid caregivers by 2020.'' \17\
Further, over 1 in 7 Americans are simultaneously raising a child and
caring for a parent.\18\
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\15\ New York City, Office of the Mayor, ``Two Years After Mayor De
Blasio Expands Paid Sick Leave to One Million New Yorkers, City's
Economy Stronger Than Ever,'' April 1, 2016, available at http://
www1.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/318-16/two-years-after-mayor-de-
blasio-expands-paid-sick-leave-one-million-new-yorkers-city-s-economy.
\16\ U.S. Census Bureau, ``Older People Projected to Outnumber
Children for First Time in U.S. History,'' March 13, 2018, available at
www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2018/cb18-41-population-
projections.html.
\17\ American Association of Retired Persons, ``AARP Report Finds
Caregiving Market Will Grow 13% to Become $279 Billion Disruptive
Opportunity 2016-2020,'' January 12, 2016, available at https://
press.aarp.org/2016-01-12-AARP-Report-Finds-Caregiving-Market-Will-
Grow-13-To-Become-279-Billion-Disruptive-Opportunity-2016-2020.
\18\ Kim Parker and Eileen Patten, The Sandwich Generation: Rising
Financial Burdens for Middle-Aged Americans, January 30, 2013, http://
www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/01/30/the-sandwich-generation/.
Access to paid sick and family medical leave may reduce a family's
total medical care expenses.\19\ Elderly patients cared for by family
members have significantly shorter hospital stays and recover faster
from illness.\20\ And, in addition to the importance of postpartum
leave for maternal and newborn health, research has also shown the
benefits of other types of paid family leave. For example, when parents
take longer work leaves to care for their seriously ill children, child
physical and emotional health is positively impacted.\21\
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\19\ Patricia Stoddard-Dare et. al., ``How Does Paid Sick Leave
Relate to Health Care Affordability and Poverty Among US Workers?'',
2018, Social Work in Health Care, 57:5, 376-392, https://
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00981389.2018.1447532.
\20\ Courtney Van Houtven and Edward C. Norton, ``Informal Care and
Health Care Use of Older Adults,'' Journal of Health Economics, 2004:23
(6):1159.
\21\ Schuster MA, Chung PJ, Elliott MN, Garfield CF, Vestal KD, and
Klein DJ. ``Perceived Effects of Leave From Work and the Role of Paid
Leave Among Parents of Children With Special Health Care Needs.'' Am J
Public Health, 698-705, (2009), https://doi.org/10.1080/
00981389.2018.1447532.
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Programs Like the FAMILY Act Are Proven to Strengthen Business
Evidence from existing state programs shows that family leave
programs can be financially sound, self-sustaining, and strengthen
business. A study conducted when California's program had been in
effect for over six years found that most employers reported that the
paid family leave program has either a positive effect or no noticeable
effect on productivity, profitability, turnover, and employee
morale.\22\ Additionally, small businesses were less likely than larger
businesses to report negative effects.\23\ And 91 percent of employers
responded ``no'' when asked if they were aware of instances of
employees abusing the program.\24\ Early studies about the effect on
business of Rhode Island's paid family leave program are leading to a
similar conclusion: the effect on business is neutral or positive.\25\
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\22\ Eileen Applebaum and Ruth Milkman, Leaves That Pay: Employer
and Worker Experiences With Paid Family Leave in California, 4 (2011),
http://cepr.net/documents/publications/paid-family-leave-1-2011.pdf.
\23\ Eileen Applebaum and Ruth Milkman, Leaves That Pay: Employer
and Worker Experiences With Paid Family Leave in California, 4 (2011),
http://cepr.net/documents/publications/paid-family-leave-1-2011.pdf.
\24\ Eileen Applebaum and Ruth Milkman, Leaves That Pay: Employer
and Worker Experiences With Paid Family Leave in California, 4 (2011),
http://cepr.net/documents/publications/paid-family-leave-1-2011.pdf.
\25\ National Partnership for Women and Families, First
Impressions: Comparing State Paid Family Leave Programs in Their First
Years (2015), http://www.nationalpartnership.org/research-library/work-
family/paid-leave/first-impressions-comparing-state-paid-family-leave-
programs-in-their-first-years.pdf; Ann Bartel et al., Assessing Rhode
Island's Temporary Caregiver Insurance Act: Insights From a Survey of
Employers (2016), https://www.dol.gov/asp/evaluation/completed-studies/
AssessingRhodeIslandTemporaryCaregiverInsuranceAct_InsightsFromSu
rveyOfEmployers.pdf.
The Path to National Family Leave Must Leave Room for Local Governments
to Create Additional Protections and Not Take Away From Other Important
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Benefits
As Congress, and this Committee, in particular, continue to study
workplace policies it should recognize that the federal government has
an important role to play in supporting local enforcement needs and
should not consider policies that would dilute or repeal progressive
local labor laws, or exacerbate the power imbalance between employers
and employees such as by denying employees their ability to control
their work schedules and time off. One piece of legislation being
debated in Congress that is particularly troubling is H.R. 4219, the
``Workflex in the 21st Century Act'' (``H.R. 4219'' or the ``bill'').
H.R. 4219 undermines local labor standards that are tailored to
maintain robust local economies by removing local control that benefits
workers and businesses. The bill purports to require paid time off
comparable to state and local paid sick leave laws, but in fact
replaces meaningful rights to paid time off, which are the product of
grassroots democratic processes, with individual employers' own
parameters for when and how employees can use time and what employees
will be paid when they use the time. Accordingly, we urge Congress to
reject H.R. 4219.\26\
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\26\ See House Education and Workforce Committee Subcommittee on
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions hearing on ``Workplace Leave
Policies: Opportunities and Challenges for Employers and Working
Families,'' December 2017 (testimony from Lorelei Salas, Commissioner
of the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs), available at
https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/dca/downloads/pdf/partners/Advocacy-
WorkplaceLeavePolicies-121917.pdf.
Similarly, efforts to respond to a national bipartisan call for
paid family leave by allowing workers to draw from Social Security
contributions when on leave from work due to circumstances addressed by
the FAMILY Act only exacerbates an existing problem and creates
another. Such a proposal does nothing to address the lifetime wage gap
between men and women that results from women shouldering most unpaid
caregiving responsibilities. Moreover, it will translate into a delayed
retirement age, with a disproportionate impact on lower-income workers
\27\ and, potentially, defund retirement for some workers.
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\27\ Michael Hiltzik, ``Paid Family leave is a great idea, but not
if we hit up Social Security for the money,'' Los Angeles Times,
January 29, 2018, available at http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/
la-fi-hiltzik-family-leave-20180129-story.html.
The benefits of paid family leave for workers, business, and
society at large are well-documented and well-understood, yet most
workers do not have access to this basic, common-sense protection. Any
such program providing this protection must be affordable, cost-
effective, and sustainably funded with new revenue--not by cutting or
reducing benefits from other programs that people rely on. The FAMILY
Act is the only national policy proposal that meets these criteria and
provides baseline rights making it financially possible for all working
people to take leave when they need it most. The United States is long
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overdue in taking this important step.
Respectfully Submitted,
Lorelei Salas
Commissioner
______
1,000 Days
1029 19th Street, NW, Suite 250
Washington, DC 20036
www.ThousandDays.org
July 18, 2018
U.S. Senate
Committee on Finance
Dirksen Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, DC 20510-6200
RE: Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions, and Family Policy
hearing ``Examining the Importance of Paid Family Leave for American
Working Families''
On behalf of 1,000 Days, I would like to thank the Senate Finance
Committee for holding the hearing on the importance of paid family
leave for America's working families. This is a critically important
issue and we urge Congress to support comprehensive paid family and
medical leave that helps all working parents in the U.S. give their
children the strongest start to life. Specifically, paid leave policy
must (1) provide sufficient time off; (2) cover all employers and all
employees; (3) ensure economic security; and (4) cover the full range
of family caregiving and medical needs comprehensively.
1,000 Days is the leading non-profit organization working in the U.S.
and around the world to ensure that women and children have a healthy
first 1,000 days. We know that good nutrition in the first 1,000 days
from a woman's pregnancy through her child's 2nd birthday sets the
foundation for all the days that follow.
Unlike in most other countries in the world, in the U.S. parents are
often forced to choose between taking time off from work to care for
their young children and earning the income they need to support their
families. In fact, only a small minority of private sector workers in
the U.S.--typically those who work in higher paid jobs--have access to
paid leave through their employers. Even more troubling is the fact
that 1 in 4 women in America return to work just 2 weeks after giving
birth, putting their health and that of their infant at risk.
Ultimately, it is young children and their families paying the price
for the country's inaction on paid leave.
There is strong evidence that shows that paid leave contributes to
healthier outcomes for babies and their families. Parental leave can
help reduce infant death and illness, increase the likelihood that
babies get their pediatric check-ups and immunizations, and lower
mothers' risk of health complications after childbirth and postpartum
depression. Studies show that paid leave helps women breastfeed, more
successfully and for longer periods of time, enabling both mom and baby
to reap the powerful long-term health benefits of breastfeeding.
Finally, science tells us that babies brains are nourished by time
spent with parents and caregivers. Policies that enable parents to
spend time nurturing and caring for their babies--particularly in the
early weeks after birth and for babies that are born pre-term, low
birth weight or with illness-are critical to the healthy cognitive,
social and emotional development of children.
To support a healthy first 1,000 days, Congress must move quickly to
pass a comprehensive national paid family and medical leave program
that covers all workers, including small business employees and the
self-employed. 1,000 Days looks forward to working with Congress to
develop a policy that will:
1. Provide sufficient time off. At a minimum, 12 weeks of paid
leave should be provided to working parents upon the birth or adoption
of a child. 1,000 Days supports efforts to increase paid leave up to 24
weeks annually, which is especially critical to supporting women to
breastfeed exclusively for six months, as recommended by the American
Academy of Pediatrics, the American Congress of Obstetricians and
Gynecologists and the World Health Organization.
2. Cover all employers and all employees. Paid leave must be
available to all workers regardless of the size of their employer, the
sector they work in, the length of their employment or whether they
work full-time, part-time or are self-employed. Leave must be available
to both women and men, regardless of marital status, and policies must
be designed in a way to prevent unequal treatment in the workplace and
hiring discrimination based on age, gender, sexual orientation and
other criteria.
3. Ensure economic security. Employees' wages and benefits must be
maintained so that workers are not forced to decide between their
caregiving obligations and their jobs. Employees must also retain the
right to resume full paid employment after taking leave.
4. Cover comprehensively. Any plan should be available for the
full range of personal medical and family caregiving needs, such as
those established by the Family and Medical Leave Act.
The first 1,000 days is critical to the long-term health and well-being
of both women and children. A strong and comprehensive national paid
leave policy is a long-
overdue investment in the future of this country's families and in turn
our country as a whole.
1,000 Days thanks the Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions, and
Family Policy for its work and we look forward to working with you to
advance a comprehensive national paid leave policy.
Sincerely,
Lucy Sullivan
Executive Director
1,000 Days
______
Strengthen Social Security Coalition
1440 G Street, NW
Washington, DC 20005
The Strengthen Social Security Coalition (SSSC) is a broad-based
coalition of over 350 national and state organizations representing 50
million Americans, including seniors, workers, women, people with
disabilities, children, young adults, veterans, people of low income,
people of color, communities of faith, and others. We are united in our
support of Social Security, a promise made to Americans of all
generations. We support expanding Social Security, including adding
paid family leave. We strongly oppose, however, proposals that advance
paid family leave at the expense of Social Security retirement
benefits. It is unnecessary to do so.
The provision of paid family leave is long past due in the United
States. All Americans should have access to paid family leave, but paid
family leave should not jeopardize anyone's retirement security.
Americans are overwhelmingly supportive of paid family leave and Social
Security. The nation is wealthy enough both to provide paid family
leave to all working families and to increase Social Security's vital,
but modest, retirement, disability, and survivor benefits.
Social Security was created in 1935 to replace wages lost as a result
of old age, so that Americans would have guaranteed income in
retirement. In the decades following, Social Security was expanded to
protect workers from other events that lead to loss of wages--long-term
disability and the death of a family breadwinner. It is a universal
social insurance program. Nearly all workers pay in, and in return they
are eligible for benefits when they experience one of the insured
events--old age, disability, or death leaving dependents.
While Social Security successfully covers long-term income losses, our
nation, unlike many other countries, lacks a paid family and medical
leave system for when workers take time out of the workforce for short-
term reasons like having a child, caring for a loved one, or receiving
medical treatment. It's long past time for us to join the rest of the
world in providing paid family and medical leave.
Proposals, like the Independent Women's Forum (IWF) plan, are harmful
to American families. The IWF proposal would allow new parents to take
up to twelve weeks of leave with partial wage replacement--but only in
return for delaying their Social Security benefits when it comes time
to retire. This ``deal'' is simply a Social Security benefit cut. Our
country is facing a looming retirement crisis caused by the decline of
traditional pensions, the inadequacy of 401(k)s, decades of rising
inequality and stagnating wages. The last thing American families need
is to be forced to cut their future benefits to pay for pressing
immediate financial needs like those that occur at the birth of a
child. Nor is there any reason to force them to make that choice: we
are the wealthiest country in the history of the world. Protecting and
expanding Social Security's retirement, disability, and survivor
benefits, while also providing working families with paid family and
medical leave is a matter of political will and values, not
affordability.
While the IWF proposal is supposed to help women, in reality women
would be most hurt. Women's retirement security would take the biggest
hit from this plan because women provide the substantial majority of
caregiving, and so, would disproportionately see their own Social
Security benefits reduced under this proposal.
Moreover, women disproportionately rely on Social Security. As a result
of longer life expectancies, on average, lower-paying jobs, often
without access to supplementary retirement plans, and more time out of
the workforce caring for family members, women's average monthly Social
Security benefits are already 20 percent lower than men's. We should be
crediting time out of the workforce caring for family members towards
the calculation of Social Security, not forcing women to reduce their
earned Social Security benefits even further for the invaluable, but
monetarily uncompensated work of caregiving.
In addition to forcing new parents who need leave to cut their own
future retirement benefits, the IWF plan is also very narrowly targeted
to only cover parental leave. It does nothing for those who need
medical leave either for themselves or to care for a loved one.
American families can and should have paid family leave and a secure
retirement. Every member of Congress should reject the IWF plan and any
other plan that tries to disguise a Social Security benefit cut behind
the promise of other worthwhile goals. Our coalition, and the American
people, will not stand idle as leaders try to dismantle our effective
Social Security system in the name of paid parental leave. Rather, we
urge Congress to develop a paid family leave system in addition to, not
instead of, adequate Social Security benefits.
We look forward to your support in this matter and extend our
assistance to create paid family leave while also expanding economic
security in the form of increased Social Security benefits for
retirees, people with disabilities, children who have lost parents, and
others.
______
ZERO TO THREE
1255 23rd Street, NW, Suite 350
Washington, DC 20037
Phone: (202) 638-1144
Fax: (202) 638-0851
U.S. Senate
Committee on Finance
Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions, and Family Policy
Dirksen Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, DC 20510-6200
July 11, 2018
Chairman Cassidy and Members of the Subcommittee:
My name is Matthew Melmed. For the past 23 years I have been the
Executive Director of ZERO TO THREE, a national nonprofit organization,
located in Washington, DC, whose mission is to ensure that all babies
and toddlers have a strong start in life. I thank the Subcommittee for
bringing attention to this critical family support. For babies, the
precious time paid family leave allows them with their parents begins
laying the foundations for all learning and relationships. For parents,
paid leave reduces anxiety over making ends meet by providing job
security and consistent income during a time when focusing on their new
families should be paramount. State paid leave programs show such
policies garner support from employers, who realize the benefit of a
more stable workforce. And our nation takes the first steps toward
building the strong workers, innovators, and citizens that our country
will need to secure a vibrant future.
At ZERO TO THREE, we translate the science of early childhood
development into useful knowledge and strategies for parents,
practitioners, and policymakers. We work to ensure that babies and
toddlers benefit from the family and community connections critical to
their well-being and healthy development. And the science tells us that
nothing is more important to who we become in life than the early close
relationships we form from birth.
The current focus on paid family leave among policymakers is indeed
welcome. As your Subcommittee takes its first steps into this policy
area, I would raise two other points. At ZERO TO THREE, we are
passionate about advocating for the needs of babies and their parents.
But I underscore that while forming or augmenting a family by welcoming
a new baby is an important and joyful event, parents also need paid
medical leave when other situations require family caregiving. For
example, if their children suffer from chronic illnesses or need
surgery to correct congenital problems; one parent contracts a disease
such as cancer requiring ongoing treatment; or an elderly parent needs
care following a debilitating fall; caregiving falls on family members.
As a caring society, where the family is the core unit, we should
support families' ability to care for each other throughout life.
Finally, we often hear that we should take incremental steps in
enacting such a far-reaching policy that could potentially benefit
every family in America. I submit that we have already taken that step,
with the Family and Medical Leave Act 25 years ago. I think American
families do an incredible job in weaving the fabric of our society, but
they are stressed to the limit and need more than another baby step
forward. They cannot afford to wait another generation to have supports
that enable them to nurture their families and be productive workers.
So, I welcome the opportunity to discuss the critical importance of a
comprehensive paid family and medical leave social insurance program
for our nation's youngest families, those with newborn or newly adopted
babies, infants, and toddlers, and for all families.
The importance of unhurried time in the first year of life
Science has significantly enhanced what we know about the needs of
infants and toddlers, underscoring the fact that experiences and
relationships in the earliest years of life play a critical role in a
child's ability to grow up healthy and ready to learn. We know that
infancy and toddlerhood are times of intense intellectual
engagement.\1\ A baby's brain produces one million new neural
connections every second, influenced most significantly by the everyday
moments they experience with parents and caregivers.\2\ During this
time--a remarkable 36 months--the brain undergoes its most dramatic
development, and children acquire the ability to think, speak, learn,
and reason. The early years establish the foundation upon which later
learning and development are built. If experiences in those early years
are harmful, stressful, or traumatic, the effects of such experiences
become more difficult, not to mention more expensive, to remediate over
time if they are not addressed early in life.
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\1\ Shonkoff, J., and Phillips, D. 2000. From neurons to
neighborhoods: The science of early childhood development. Washington,
DC: National Academy Press.
\2\ Center on the Developing Child (2009). Five Numbers to Remember
About Early Childhood Development (brief). Retrieved from
www.developingchild.harvard.edu.
Most critical for the issue at hand, research demonstrates that forming
secure attachments to a few caring and responsive adults is a primary
developmental milestone for babies in the first year of life. During
the earliest days and months, children learn about the world through
their own actions and their caregivers' reactions. They are learning
about who they are, how to feel about themselves, and what they can
expect from those who care for them. Such basic capacities as the
ability to feel trust and to experience intimacy and cooperation with
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others develop from the earliest moments of life.
According to the groundbreaking report released by the National
Academies of Science, From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of
Early Childhood Development, a young child's parents structure the
experience and shape the environment within which early development
unfolds.\3\ Early relationships are important for all infants and
toddlers, but they are particularly important for those living in
lower-income families because they can help serve as a buffer against
the multiple risk factors these children may face. These early
attachments are critical because a positive early relationship,
especially with a parent, reduces a young child's fear in novel or
challenging situations, thereby enabling her to explore with confidence
and to manage stress, while at the same time, strengthening a young
child's sense of competence and efficacy.\4\ Early attachments also set
the stage for other relationships and play an important role in shaping
the systems that underlie children's reactivity to stressful
situations.\5\
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\3\ Ibid.
\4\ Ibid.
\5\ Ibid.
All infants need ample time with their parents at the very beginning of
their lives to form these critical relationships. It takes several
months of focused attention to become a responsive caregiver to a young
child, establishing a pattern that will influence the child's long-term
cognitive, social, and emotional development.\6\ The better parents
know their children, the more readily they will recognize even the most
subtle cues that indicate what the children need to promote their
healthy growth and development. For example, early on infants are
learning to regulate their eating and sleeping patterns and their
emotions. If parents can recognize and respond to their baby's cues,
they will be able to soothe the baby, respond to her cues, and make the
baby feel safe and secure in his or her new world. Trust and emotional
security enable a baby to explore with confidence and communicate with
others--critical characteristics that impact early learning and later
school readiness.
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\6\ Ibid, pp. 44-49.
In addition to building secure and healthy early attachments, unhurried
time at home with a newborn allows parents the time they need to
facilitate breastfeeding, attend well-child medical visits, and ensure
that their children receive the immunizations necessary to lower infant
mortality and reduce the occurrence and length of childhood
illnesses.\7\, \8\, \9\ The capacity to recognize
a caregiver's voice, smell, and face develops around three months of
age.\10\ Paid time to care gives parents and babies important time to
foster these connections. Parents and caregivers may also need time
with a new baby to identify and intervene in a variety of developmental
difficulties. This is especially important for caregivers of infants
who are considered at high risk, such as babies born preterm or at low
birth weights and those who have illnesses or birth defects.\11\
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\7\ Sheila B. Kamerman, ``Parental Leave Policies: The Impact on
Child Well-Being.'' In Peter Moss and Margaret O'Brien, eds.,
International Review of Leave Policies and Related Research 2006, 16-
21. London, UK: Department of Trade and Industry, 2006. Retrieved
January 19, 2017 from http://www.leavenetwork.org/fileadmin/
Leavenetwork/Annual_reviews/2006_annual_
report.pdf.
\8\ Ibid.
\9\ Zigler, Muenchow, and Ruhm, Time off with baby.
\10\ Ibid, p. 47.
\11\ Ibid, p. 41.
Studies of two-parent, opposite-sex households show a number of
positive outcomes when fathers take leave. Fathers who take two or more
weeks off after the birth of a child are more involved in that child's
direct care nine months after birth than fathers who take no leave.\12\
Involved fathers also promote children's educational attainment and
emotional stability.\13\ And, a father's involvement in a newborn's
care in the first six months can mean both mother and baby sleep
better.\14\
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\12\ Nepomnyaschy, L., and Waldfogel, J. ``Paternity Leave and
Fathers' Involvement With Their Young Children: Evidence From the
American Ecls-B.'' Community, Work, and Family, 10(4), 427-453. 2007.
\13\ Michael Lamb, The role of the father in child development, 4th
ed. (pp. 1-18, 309-313), 2004. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley and Sons,
Inc.; Kristin Smith, After the Great Recession, More Married Fathers
Providing Child Care. Carsey School of Public Policy, 2005. Retrieved
from https://carsey.unh.edu/publication/after-great-recession-more-
married-fathers-providing-child-care.
\14\ Liat Tikotzky, Avi Sadeh, Ella Volkovich, Rachel Manber, Gal
Meiri, and Golan Shahar, ``Infant sleep development from 3 to 6 months
postpartum: links with maternal sleep and paternal involvement.''
Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 80(1), p.
107-124, 2015.
Paid leave also reduces economic uncertainty by providing job security
and consistent income during a time in which it is essential for
parents to focus on their new families rather than worrying about how
to make ends meet. Time at home also benefits employers by reducing
staff turnover and the subsequent training and hiring costs associated
with new staff.\15\
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\15\ Boushey, H., and Glynn, S. (2012, November 16). There Are
Significant Business Costs to Replacing Employees. Center for American
Progress publication. Retrieved from http://www.americanprogress.org/
wp-content/uploads/2012/11/CostofTurnover.pdf.
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Family and medical leave
The 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) allows employees to take
up to twelve weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave to care for newborns,
newly adopted and foster children, and seriously ill family members,
including themselves. I want to emphasize the lifelong nature of family
caregiving needs, not just the occasion of the birth or adoption of a
child. Of the more than 100 million Americans who have taken time off
from work under the FMLA since it was enacted 25 years ago,\16\ only 21
percent did so to take care of a new child.\17\ Although FMLA has had
great success, far too many workers are still unable to take leave.
Nearly half of eligible employees (46 percent) reported that they could
not afford to take the leave that they needed because it was
unpaid.\18\ Furthermore, a full 40 percent of the workforce is
currently not covered by the federal law because they work for smaller
employers, work part time, or have not been on the job long enough to
qualify.\19\ That is a lot of families, both newly forming and
established, without the ability to tend to the caregiving that falls
to them.
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\16\ Klerman, J., Daley, K., and Pozniak, A. Family and Medical
Leave in 2012: Technical Report. U.S. Department of Labor, 2012.
Retrieved from www.dol.gov/whd/fmla/survey.
\17\ Klerman, Jacob, Kelly, Daley, and Alyssa Pozniak. (2012).
Family and Medical Leave in 2012: Technical Report. Cambridge, MA: Abt
Associates. Retrieved from https://www.dol.gov/asp/evaluation/fmla/
FMLA-2012-Technical-Report.pdf.
\18\ Ibid.
\19\ Ibid.
I would like to emphasize one other very important fact about FMLA: it
was a bipartisan effort, the result of dedicated lawmakers from both
sides of the aisle having respectful discussions that involved real
give and take. I firmly believe such fruitful conversations and
negotiations can occur again, with the well-being of both families and
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our economy as the goal.
Twenty-five years after the passage of the FMLA, the research about
paid and unpaid leave is clear: unpaid leave is not enough. A strong
body of evidence shows that paid family and medical leave strengthens
families and supports public health and child development. Research
also shows that paid leave helps employers recruit and retain valued
employees, benefitting businesses and our economy.\20\ Data from states
with paid leave show health and economic benefits and strong levels of
support from employers.\21\
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\20\ EY. (2017, March). Viewpoints on paid family and medical
leave: Findings from a survey of US employers and employees (Fig. 26).
Retrieved 26 January 2018, from http://www.ey.com/Publication/
vwLUAssets/EY-viewpoints-on-paid-family-and-medical-leave/$FILE/EY-
viewpoints-on-paid-family-and-medical-leave.pdf.
\21\ Bartel, A., Baum, C., Rossin-Slater, M., Ruhm, C., and
Waldfogel, J. (2014, June) California's Paid Family Leave Law: Lessons
From the First Decade. U.S. Department of Labor publication. Retrieved
from http://www.dol.gov/asp/evaluation/reports/
PaidLeaveDeliverable.pdf.
Given that caregiving needs affect many families, it is not surprising
that eighty-two percent of 2016 voters--across party lines--say it is
important for the President and Congress to consider a paid family and
medical leave law.\22\ But currently where you live largely determines
what guarantees you have, as states and communities lead the way. Five
states and the District of Columbia have all passed state paid leave
laws, providing a strong body of evidence upon which to build a robust
federal policy. Data from states with paid leave \23\ show health and
economic benefits, as well as strong levels of support from employers.
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\22\ National Partnership for Women and Families. (2016). Key
Findings: 2016 Election Eve/Election Night Survey. Retrieved from
http://www.nationalpartnership.org/research-library/work-family/key-
findings-2016-election-eve-election-night-survey.pdf.
\23\ Isaacs, J., Healy, O., and Peters, E. (2017). Paid Family
Leave in the United States: Time for a New National Policy. Urban
Institute. Retrieved from https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/
publication/90201/paid_family_leave_0.pdf.
Twenty-five years is too long to wait to fulfill the promise of the
FMLA. It is time for Congress to stand up for hard-working families,
businesses, and the economy by supporting a comprehensive, inclusive
paid family and medical leave program.
What a real paid family and medical leave program looks like
We need a strong, inclusive national paid family and medical leave
insurance program and to set a nationwide paid leave baseline. It is
well past time for the United States to adopt a national standard, but
policy details matter tremendously. Disparities in people's access to
paid leave, changing demographics, and the realities working families
face today require that any national plan:
Be comprehensive of working people's needs as reflected in the
FMLA, such as for their own serious health conditions, including
pregnancy and childbirth recovery; to bond with and care for a newborn
or newly adopted child; care for a parent, child, spouse, or domestic
partner with a serious health condition; and/or for particular military
caregiving and leave purposes.
Be inclusive of all working people across the United States,
covering workers in all companies, no matter their size. Younger, part-
time, lower-wage, contingent, and self-employed workers would all be
eligible for benefits.
Provide a meaningful duration of leave, at least 12 weeks, and
wage replacement rate to make taking leave financially possible for all
working people--ensuring low- and middle-wage workers have a higher
share of their wages replaced.
Be affordable, cost-effective, and sustainably funded with new
revenue--not funded by cutting or reducing benefits from programs
people rely on.
Make it illegal to fire or discriminate against an individual
who has applied, intends to apply for, or who uses family and medical
leave insurance benefits.
Any plan that fails to meet these standards is unacceptable
These key elements create crucial job and financial security so
employees can take the time they need to heal, provide the nurturing
their babies need to get off to a strong start, and get back to work
more focused and confident. In all, investing in a paid family and
medical leave policy means a stronger likelihood of getting kids off to
a healthy start, keeping parents in the workforce, and keeping the
economy strong.
The current proposal, originally put forth by the Independent Women's
Forum (IWF) and embraced by Senators Rubio, Ernst, and Lee, as well as
advisors in the White House, is not an acceptable policy solution.
Parents should not be faced with the false choice between caring for a
newborn or adopted baby and cutting their Social Security retirement or
disability benefits later. In effect, parents are being penalized for
undertaking an endeavor--taking on raising a child--that benefits all
of society, especially if they have the time to get that child's
development off to a good start. People can and should be able to have
paid family and medical leave while they're working and safe and secure
benefits for retirement.
New moms and dads should not have to jeopardize their retirement by
using Social Security to fund their parental leave. Workers shouldn't
be asked to pay for paid leave today by rolling the dice on their
future needs for Social Security retirement benefits later. Research
consistently finds that it is difficult to estimate financial needs in
retirement, and workers often underestimate.\24\ According to the Urban
Institute, under the IWF proposal, parents who participate in the
program would have to delay collecting Social Security retirement
benefits for about twice as many weeks as they collected leave.
Participants who take 12 weeks of paid leave would experience a 3
percent decline in lifetime Social Security retirement benefits, but
losses would be significantly higher for people with larger families
who take multiple leaves.\25\ Asking workers in their prime
reproductive years to make decisions based in part on their prediction
of future Social Security retirement benefit needs is an unnecessary
and unwise gamble. This does not take into account scenarios where
parents may become disabled and need their Social Security benefits to
make ends meet.
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\24\ Society of Actuaries. Consumer concern over financial risks of
retirement increase. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.soa.org/press-
releases/2018/consumer-concern-financial-risk/.
\25\ Favreault, M.M., and Johnson, R.W. (2018). Paying for Parental
Leave With Future Social Security Benefits. Retrieved from https://
www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/98101/
paying_for_parental_leave_with_future_social_security_benefits_0.pdf.
Any plan that leaves behind people caring for family members or dealing
with their own serious health issue does not address the needs of
America's working families. Creating a plan that covers only parental
leave excludes the vast majority of workers who need time to care.
Three-quarters of people using FMLA had to care for their own health or
that of a seriously ill family member. Any U.S. paid leave plan should
reflect the well-established reasons set out in the FMLA, which are
parental leave, family care leave, personal medical leave and military
caregiving leave.
Parental-only leave would also lead to stark inequities within the
workplace, even for people with young children: a parent of a newborn
would have access to paid time away from work for bonding, but a
coworker whose six-month-old is critically ill or whose spouse needs
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postpartum care would have no guarantee of time or income support.
The proposed program design--providing parental leave only, and with
benefits that are too small a share of most workers' typical wages--
will reinforce rather than help to equalize caregiving disparities
between women and men and will not meet the needs of lower-wage
workers. Data from California's and New Jersey's paid family leave
programs show that low wage-replacement rates and low benefit caps
lessen the likelihood of men taking leave and reduce the ability of
lower-wage workers to take leave. That's why California recently raised
wage replacement rates to 70 percent for lower-wage workers and 60
percent for all other workers,\26\ and why New Jersey lawmakers last
year passed a bill that would have provided both wage-
replacement rate increases and updates to New Jersey's low benefits
cap.\27\
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\26\ State of California Employment Development Department. About
Paid Family Leave. Retrieved from https://www.edd.ca.gov/Disability/
About_PFL.htm
\27\ Hetrick, C. ``NJ assembly approves expanding paid family
leave.'' (2017). Observer. Retrieved from http://observer.com/2017/06/
nj-assembly-approves-expanding-paid-family-leave/.
A program that only covers new parents and offers low wage replacement
rates will be used primarily by lower-wage women who have given birth
and have no other option and a significant need. Indeed, one reason the
FMLA was designed to cover family caregiving leave and personal medical
leave was to minimize the potential for employment discrimination.\28\
While fathers increasingly want to, and do, provide care for their
families,\29\ norms and stereotypes about gender, work and caregiving
mean that some employers perceive mothers and young women as less
committed workers. A paid leave program that is only accessible to
parents, especially one with low wage replacement and low maximum
benefits, could exacerbate implicit bias and discrimination,
undermining the potential of gender-equal leave to help create
workplace equity and foster women's employment opportunities.
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\28\ Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, Pub. L. No. 103-3,
Sec. 2, 107 Stat. 6, 6-7 (1993). Retrieved from https://www.dol.gov/
whd/fmla/fmlaAmended.htm#SEC_2_FINDINGS_AND_
PURPOSES.
\29\ Harrington, B., Van Deusen, F., Sabatini Fraone, J., Eddy, S.,
and Haas, L. (2014). The New Dad: Take Your Leave. Perspectives on
paternity leave from fathers, leading organizations, and global
policies. Boston College Center for Work and Family publication.
Retrieved from http://www.thenewdad.org/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/
BCCWF_The_New_Dad_2014_FINAL.
157170735.pdf; Heilman, B., Cole, G., Matos, K., Hassink, A., Mincy,
R., and Barker, G. (2016). State of America's Fathers. A MenCare
Advocacy publication. Retrieved from http://men-care.org/soaf/download/
PRO16001_Americas_Father_web.pdf.
At a time where the country is facing a falling birth rate, we should
enact public policies that support America's working families. Just
this month, The New York Times investigated this phenomenon in the
article, ``Americans Are Having Fewer Babies. They Told Us Why.'' The
top reason young adults reported they had or expected to have fewer
children than they considered ideal, was that child care is too
expensive. Another of the most-cited reasons was lack of or not enough
paid family leave.\30\ Forcing parents to risk their future economic
security for a low-wage replacement paid leave plan during their child
bearing years is not a viable policy solution to a critical problem for
today's families.
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\30\ Miller, C. ``Americans Are Having Fewer Babies. They Told Us
Why.'' The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/
07/05/upshot/americans-are-having-fewer-babies-they-told-us-why.html.
Paid maternity and/or paternity leave by itself is not sufficient for
working families. It covers only one life event and may not even be the
only time an infant or toddler needs her parents' constant presence.
For example, the rates of childhood cancer have been increasing over
the past 20 years. Almost half of all pediatric cancer occurs during
early childhood, with the peak incidence of invasive childhood cancer
occurring during infancy. Unquestionably, all children and particularly
very young ones need the reassuring presence of their parents at such
times. Families who care for a child with cancer incur considerable
costs during the diagnostic, treatment, and follow-up care phases of
the disease. Four major factors contribute to these expenses: necessary
travel; loss of income because of a reduction or termination of
parental employment; out-of-pocket treatment expenses; and inability to
draw on assistance programs to supplement or replace lost income.\31\
As with most caregiving duties, the majority falls on the mother and
therefore her career and financial stability is most at risk.
Typically, the mother is the one who terminated or reduced work hours,
which affects the entire family's financial well-being. This economic
burden can have long-term effects on the financial security, quality of
life, and future well-being of the entire family, including the
siblings of the affected child. Paid family and medical leave would
help to alleviate the financial burden and eliminate the fear of
retaliation when returning to work after caring for a chronically ill
child.
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\31\ Miedema, B., Easley, J., Fortin, P., Hamilton, R., and
Mathews, M. (2008). ``The economic impact on families when a child is
diagnosed with cancer.'' Current Oncology, 15(4), 173-178. Retrieved
from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2528308/.
The reality is that workers need both a comprehensive paid family and
medical leave plan and Social Security. The U.S. can create a paid
leave plan affordably and responsibly without reducing workers' Social
Security or forcing them to delay retirement. Policymakers should
reject this proposal and instead consider a paid leave plan that is
responsibly and sustainably funded, guarantees leave for the full range
of family and medical needs covered in the FMLA and offers adequate
benefits that enable all working people to take the leave they need.
Conclusion
With more than 4 million babies born in the United States and 135,000
children adopted each year, the pool of just these tiny beneficiaries
is vast and deserving. Paid family and medical leave is an issue that
states continue to grapple with as more mothers with very young
children enter the workforce--almost 60 percent of mothers with infants
are in the labor force.\32\ Before heading back to the workplace,
parents need time to bond with their babies and enable them to form the
all-
important attachments that will help give them a good start in life.
This time together helps babies take the first critical step toward the
strong, foundational development that in time will make them successful
learners, workers, citizens--and parents, themselves. But as critical
as that time is, it is not the only time when family members are called
upon to become caregivers. If we truly value families, we should
recognize the worth and dignity of their fulfilling these
responsibilities that preserve the very fabric of our society.
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\32\ U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2017.
Employment status of mothers with own children under 3 years old by
single year of age of youngest child and marital status, 2016-2017
annual averages. Table 6. Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/
news.release/famee.t06.htm.
I urge the Subcommittee to consider the unique needs of our nation's
youngest families as you explore ways in which to create a national
paid family and medical leave program. I urge you to work together in
the spirit of the creators of the Family and Medical Leave Act, take
the full step, and agree on what families really need to fulfill their
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responsibilities to each other and the nation's economy.
Thank you for your time and for your commitment to our nation's
infants, toddlers, and their families.
Sincerely,
Matthew E. Melmed
Executive Director, ZERO TO THREE
______
Zevin Asset Management, LLC
2 Oliver Street, Suite 806
Boston, MA 02109
617-742-6666
www.zevin.com
[email protected]
July 10, 2018
U.S. Senate
Committee on Finance
Dirksen Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, DC 20510-6200
RE: STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD--Hearing of the Subcommittee on Social
Security, Pensions, and Family Policy ``Examining the Importance of
Paid Family Leave for American Working Families,'' July 11, 2018
Chairman Hatch, Ranking Member Wyden, and members of the Subcommittee
on Social Security, Pensions, and Family Policy:
I write today on behalf of Zevin Asset Management, a firm that invests
globally, integrating environmental, social, and governance (ESG)
issues into our financial analysis. Zevin Asset Management wishes to
encourage the efforts of this subcommittee on paid family leave and to
underscore the importance of improving paid family leave policy--not
only for workers, but for the companies and investors which rely on
their long-term health and human capital.
As a testament to the investment community's keen interest in improving
paid family leave policy, I refer the subcommittee to the following
investor statement on paid family leave published last month and
endorsed by 58 investment companies and asset owners with assets
totaling $169 billion. Please review the statement in its entirety.
Very clearly, investors are seeking greater equality, adequacy and
accessibility in companies' paid family leave policies.
As discussed in the investor statement, suitable paid family leave
positions workers and companies to seize long-term opportunities and
guard against human capital risk However, more support from government
is needed. Federal policy certainty and targeted resources would
promote the long-term interests of U.S. employers. As an investment
company focused on sustainable and socially responsible performance,
therefore, Zevin Asset Management urges Congress to act to improve paid
family leave.
Most sincerely,
Pat Miguel Tomaino
Director of Socially Responsible Investing
Zevin Asset Management, LLC
______
INVESTOR STATEMENT ON PAID FAMILY LEAVE
Published June 1, 2018
Available online at http://www.zevin.com/documents/familvleave.pdf
We write today as representatives of investors with assets totaling
$169 billion and a keen interest in investment risks and opportunities
related to human capital management. Paid Family Leave is a critical
issue impacting U.S. families, as well as our portfolio companies'
long-term performance. Federal inaction on paid family leave has
increased pressure on large employers to enhance their policies for all
employees. Investors are concerned about the long-term performance and
risk management of companies that maintain unequal and inadequate paid
family leave policies.
Companies that fail to review, disclose, and improve their approach to
paid family leave could be left behind. In the last few months alone,
Starbucks, Walmart, CVS Health, and other large employers have
announced extended paid parental leave policies.\1\ Companies are
finally taking action in response to public advocacy by employees, as
well as pressure from investors, including shareholder proposals urging
companies to address critical caregiving needs.\2\
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\1\ ``Walmart and Now Starbucks: Why More Big Companies Are
Offering Paid Family Leave.'' The New York Times, 24 January 2018,
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/24/upshot/parental-leave-company-
policy-salaried-hourly-gap.html.
\2\ ``Starbucks investors press coffee chain for change on unequal
family leave.'' The Guardian, 2 October 2017, https://
www.theguardian.com/business/2017/oct/02/starbucks-investors-coffee-
family-parental-birth-leave.
It is well known that the current state of paid family leave is not
working for U.S. families in general and has negative impacts on
certain segments of the population in particular. Approximately 9 out
of 10 private sector workers in the U.S. do not have access to a single
day of paid family leave, and one in four new moms is back at work just
ten days after childbirth.\3\ The lack of proper paid family leave, as
further defined below, can disproportionately impact women, forcing
them to leave their career track in order to care for children, and
contributing to systemic and long-term gender pay gap issues.
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\3\ ``13 Percent of Private Industry Workers Had Access to Paid
Family Leave in March 2016: The Economics Daily.'' U.S. Department of
Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, 4 November 2016. Web 9 May 2017.
The status quo is also bad for business--subjecting companies to
avoidable long-term risks and costs, such as workforce retention issues
and higher turnover, loss of high-quality talent, and diminishing
diversity levels. For example, it is costly for companies to replace
workers (and train their replacements) when poor paid family leave
policies cause them to leave the workforce. On the other hand,
according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, companies
offering paid family leave to all workers report increased morale, as
well as cost savings, from less employee turnover.\4\ In a recent New
York Times report, a Starbucks official stated that improved paid
family leave ``brings the talent we're looking for, and industry-
leading retention.'' \5\
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\4\ ``Leaves That Pay: Employer and Worker Experiences With Paid
Family Leave in California.'' Center for Economic and Policy Research,
January 2011, http://cepr.net/publications/reports/leaves-that-pay.
\5\ ``Walmart and Now Starbucks: Why More Big Companies Are
Offering Paid Family Leave,'' The New York Times, 24 January 2018,
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/24/upshot/parental-leave-company-
policy-salaried-hourly-gap.html.
Unequal paid family leave can also lead to litigation risk. For
example, last year, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued
Estee Lauder, citing disparities between paid leave for mothers and
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fathers.
Recent progress at the companies mentioned above signals a wave of
action among U.S. corporations and a potential watershed moment for
paid parental leave in the U.S. As the labor market tightens, more and
more companies are positioning themselves to attract and keep talent
with incentives such as paid family leave and other family-friendly
policies. Policies that leave out hourly or part-time workers, that
ignore fathers and adoptive parents, or that do not provide adequate
length of leave for families to recover or bond with newly arrived
children will no longer suffice. We believe that the ``Paid Leave Arms
Race'' \6\ that has played out in the professional services, financial,
and knowledge economy sectors is now moving into the service and retail
sectors. As such, we are urging companies across our portfolios to
revisit their approach.
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\6\ ``Deloitte Enters the Paid Family Leave Arms Race With 16 Weeks
of Family Leave.'' Fortune, September 8, 2016, http://fortune.com/2016/
09/08/deloitte-family-leave/.
Companies should strive for best practice to realize all of the
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benefits of paid family leave. Policies in this area should:
Be equal . . . between classes of employee s, salaried and
hourly, full-time and part-time, corporate office and field . . .
between new parents regardless of gender or family circumstance.
Providing an additional 6 to 8 weeks of short-term disability for birth
mothers is acceptable.
Be adequate . . . in length for the health of newly arrived
children and birthing mothers, and provide the necessary bonding time
for new parents. Although Walmart excluded their part-time workforce,
the length of Walmart's new policy sets the baseline standard for
companies: 16 weeks of fully paid parental leave to employees who give
birth, and 6 weeks fully paid to all other new parents.
Be accessible . . . to all employees. Policies should be easy to
find and understand, and managers should encourage employees of all
genders to fully utilize their paid family leave . . . to the public
and investors. Increasingly, investors and jobseekers desire
transparency in companies' human capital management policies in a range
of areas, from diversity and inclusion to compensation and benefits. We
believe that these factors are material for large employers. Sound
management of these factors can increase future opportunities (just as
mismanagement can increase future costs).
We are keen to pursue dialogues with companies on how sound human
capital management, including strong paid family leave policies, can
support long-term investor value. As investors, we urge large employers
to review and expand policies consistent with the above standards.
SIGNATORIES
Zevin Asset Management Walden Asset Management
Clean Yield Asset Management The Sustainability Group of Loring,
Wolcott, and Coolidge
Tri-State Coalition for Responsible
Investment NorthStar Asset Management, Inc.
Arjuna Capital Impax Asset Management LLC
Trillium Asset Management Sisters of the Presentation of
Aberdeen, S.D.
Progressive Asset Management Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual
Adoration
Sisters of Saint Joseph of Chestnut
Hill, Philadelphia, PA Everence and the Praxis Mutual
Funds
International Brotherhood of
Teamsters Sisters of Charity of Nazareth
Seventh Generation Interfaith Inc. Dominican Sisters--Grand Rapids
Region VI Coalition for Responsible
Investment Skye Advisors
Sisters of St. Agnes Justice,
Peace, and Integrity of Creation
Office Manaaki Foundation
Community Capital Management, Inc. Northwest Coalition for Responsible
Investment
Midwest Coalition for Responsible
Investment Sisters of Charity, Halifax
Tri-State Coalition for Responsible
Investment Socially Responsible Investment
Coalition
JLens Mercy Investment Services
Congregation of St. Joseph Daughters of Charity, Province of
St. Louise
Mirova Stance Capital
SharePower Responsible Investing,
Inc. Vert Asset Management
Epic Capital Wealth Management Three Corners Capital
Greenvest/VFG Newground Social Investment
CtW Investment Group Nathan Cummings Foundation
AFL-CIO FNV
Sisters of St. Dominic of Caldwell,
NJ Dominican Sisters of Hope
Ursuline Sisters of Tildonk, U.S.
Province Friends Fiduciary Corporation
Bon Secours Health System, Inc. Socially Responsible Investment
Coalition
Congregation of Sisters of St.
Agnes Nia Impact Capital
Nia Community Foundation
[all]