[Senate Hearing 117-187]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                      S. Hrg. 117-187

                    PAID LEAVE FOR WORKING FAMILIES:
                 EXAMINING ACCESS, OPTIONS, AND IMPACTS

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                                 OF THE

                    COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION,
                          LABOR, AND PENSIONS

                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                                   ON

   EXAMINING PAID LEAVE FOR WORKING FAMILIES, FOCUSING ON EXAMINING 
                      ACCESS, OPTIONS, AND IMPACTS

                               __________

                              May 18, 2021

                               __________

 Printed for the use of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and 
                                Pensions
                                
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                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
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          COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS

                    PATTY MURRAY, Washington, Chair
BERNIE SANDERS (I), Vermont          RICHARD BURR, North Carolina, 
ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania       Ranking Member
TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin             RAND PAUL, M.D., Kentucky
CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut   SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
TIM KAINE, Virginia                  BILL CASSIDY, M.D., Louisiana
MAGGIE HASSAN, New Hampshire         LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska
TINA SMITH, Minnesota                MIKE BRAUN, Indiana
JACKY ROSEN, Nevada                  ROGER MARSHALL, M.D., Kansas
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico            TIM SCOTT, South Carolina
JOHN HICKENLOOPER, Colorado          MITT ROMNEY, Utah
                                     TOMMY TUBERVILLE, Alabama
                                     JERRY MORAN, Kansas

                     Evan T. Schatz, Staff Director
               David P. Cleary, Republican Staff Director
                  John Righter, Deputy Staff Director
                           
                           
                           C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                               STATEMENTS

                         TUESDAY, MAY 18, 2021

                                                                   Page

                           Committee Members

Murray, Hon. Patty, Chair, Committee on Health, Education, Labor, 
  and Pensions, Opening statement................................     1
Burr, Hon. Richard, Ranking Member, a U.S. Senator from the State 
  of North Carolina, Opening statement...........................     3

                               Witnesses

Shabo, Vicki, Senior Fellow, Paid Leave Policy and Strategy, 
  Better Life Lab at New America, Washington, DC.................     5
    Prepared statement...........................................     9
    Summary statement............................................    38
St. Hilaire-Finn, Marcia, Founder/CEO of Bright Start Early Care 
  and Preschool, Washington, DC..................................    38
    Prepared statement...........................................    40
McManus, Marianne, Vice President, Health & Benefits, IBM, on 
  behalf of the American Benefits Council, Westchester, NY.......    45
    Prepared statement...........................................    46
Milito, Elizabeth, Senior Executive Counsel, National Federation 
  of Independent Business, Washington, DC........................    51
    Prepared statement...........................................    52

                          ADDITIONAL MATERIAL

Statements, articles, publications, letters, etc.
Casey, Hon. Robert:
    100 Days Letter..............................................    83
    ACP Letter...................................................    89
    CLASP Letter.................................................    93
    MCH Letter...................................................    98
Kaine, Hon. Tim:
    Management Professionals Letter..............................   100
    Interfaith Paid Leave Statement..............................   127
    Network Lobby Letter.........................................   129
Hassan, Hon. Maggie:
    AAUW Letter..................................................   131
    NARAL Letter.................................................   134
    NCJW Letter..................................................   137
Murray, Hon. Patty:
    MomsRising Letter............................................   139
    NPWF Letter..................................................   143
    NWLC Letter..................................................   153
    PLUS Statement for the Record................................   163
    Testimony from A Better Place................................   178

                         QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Response by Vicki Shabo to questions of:
    Senator Casey................................................   182
Response by Marcia St. Hilaire-Finn to questions of:
    Senator Lujan................................................   182
    Senator Murkowski............................................   184
Response by Marianne McManus to questions of:
    Senator Murkowski............................................   184
Response by Marcia St. Hilaire-Finn to questions of:
    Senator Murkowski............................................   185
Response by Elizabeth Milito to questions of:
    Senator Murkowski............................................   185

 
                    PAID LEAVE FOR WORKING FAMILIES:
                 EXAMINING ACCESS, OPTIONS, AND IMPACTS

                              ----------                              


                         Tuesday, May 18, 2021

                                       U.S. Senate,
       Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room 
106, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Patty Murray, Chair 
of the Committee, presiding.
    Present: Senators Murray [presiding], Casey, Kaine, Hassan, 
Smith, Rosen, Lujan, Hickenlooper, Burr, Cassidy, Braun, 
Romney, and Tuberville.

                  OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MURRAY

    The Chair. Good morning. The Senate Health, Education, 
Labor, and Pensions Committee will please come to order. Today, 
we are having a hearing on paid family sick and medical leave 
and what having paid leave options would mean for workers and 
families across the Country.
    I would like to thank Ranking Member Burr for working with 
me to hold this bipartisan hearing. Senator Burr and I will 
each have an opening statement, and then I will introduce our 
witnesses. And after they give their testimony, Senators will 
each have 5 minutes for a round of questions.
    Before we begin, I do want to walk through the COVID-19 
safety protocols in place. And I, again, want to thank all of 
our Clerks and all our staff who have worked really hard to get 
this set up and to help us all stay safe and healthy.
    We will be conducting this hearing following the same COVID 
protocols we have used in the past. Committee Members are 
seated at least 6 feet apart. Some Senators are participating 
by videoconference. And while we are unable to have the hearing 
fully open to the public or media for in-person attendance, 
live video is available on our Committee website at 
help.senate.gov.
    Given the new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control 
and Prevention and the Office of Attending Physician, I will be 
working with Senator Burr, our Committee Members, and staff 
going forward to follow the new guidance. Over the next few 
days, we will discuss with member offices, the Senate Rules 
Committee, and the Sergeant at Arms staff the best way to now 
operate our hearings going forward for Senators and staff.
    For those in need of accommodations, including closed 
captioning, you can reach out to the Committee or the Office of 
Congressional Accessibility Services.
    Paid leave is an issue that I have been focused on since I 
first got into politics. When I came to the Senate in 1993, the 
first bill we worked on was the Family and Medical Leave Act, 
which provided job-protected, unpaid leave to workers across 
the Country. It was a hard-fought victory for families. But, 
even then, it was clear that bill was a first step, and we have 
been fighting since then to take the next one.
    Today, we are the only developed Country in the world that 
does not guarantee paid leave. Nearly one in four mothers 
return to work within 2 weeks of giving birth. One in five 
retirees are forced to leave the workforce earlier than planned 
to care for an ill family member, and four of five private 
sector workers have no access to paid leave.
    The numbers are even worse for workers who are paid the 
lowest wages, workers who are disproportionately women and 
people of color. Nineteen out of 20 of these workers have no 
paid family leave. And studies show that while workers with 
disabilities may be more likely to need paid leave in order to 
care for their own health, they are less likely to have it 
since they are disproportionately part-time or low-wage 
workers.
    When this pandemic struck, we saw just how costly this has 
been for workers, businesses, families, and our Country. 
Millions of workers were forced to choose between the well-
being of themselves, their coworkers, and their families, or 
their paycheck. Millions were infected. Millions more, 
especially women and workers of color, were forced out of their 
jobs in large part due to lacking paid leave or quality 
affordable childcare options. That is a tragedy that we cannot 
afford, we cannot repeat, and we know we need to address.
    Last year, at the dawn of this pandemic, Congress included 
an expansion of paid leave in the COVID relief legislation. 
Now, that language was not permanent and it was not nearly as 
comprehensive as it needed to be, but it was impactful. One 
estimate shows it cut infections by 15,000 a day in April of 
last year.
    As we look to learn all the lessons of this pandemic and 
make sure we are better prepared for future public health 
emergencies, one lesson is crystal clear: our Country needs a 
comprehensive national paid sick, family, and medical leave 
policy.
    We cannot rebuild a stronger and fairer economy if workers 
are forced to choose between their and their families' health, 
or their paycheck. That is why I have joined Senator 
Gillibrand, who has long been a champion on this issue, in 
reintroducing the Family Act to provide paid family and medical 
leave to all workers.
    It is why I reintroduced my Healthy Families Act with 
Congresswoman DeLauro, so workers across the Country can earn 
paid sick days and put their health first.
    It is why I am going to do everything I can to get the paid 
leave policy President Biden proposed in the American Families 
Plan across the finish line.
    President Biden's proposal would create a national, 
comprehensive paid family and medical leave program so workers 
can take paid time off to bond with a new child; care for a 
loved one who is aging, ill, or has a disability; deal with a 
loved one's military deployment; find safety from sexual 
assault, stalking, or domestic violence; heal from their own 
serious illness; or take time to deal with the death of a loved 
one.
    Providing paid leave is not radical. It is commonsense. It 
is basic decency, and it is a public health necessity. Several 
states, including my home State of Washington, have already 
taken action to guarantee access to paid leave. It is well past 
time we make the same guarantee to all families in our Country.
    When I spoke on the Senate floor back in 1993 about the 
need to pass the Family and Medical Leave Act, I shared the 
story of a friend of mine. Her employer told her she could 
spend time with her son, who was diagnosed with leukemia, or 
she could keep her job, but not both. That is an impossible 
decision no one should ever have to make.
    While providing unpaid leave was a step forward, the fact 
that in our Country today, amid a pandemic no less, people are 
still forced to choose between a paycheck they need to make 
ends meet and taking time to care for themselves or their 
families, welcome a new child, or even grieve a lost one.
    It is unconscionable, and it is unacceptable. It is bad for 
families, as any working mom or dad or anyone who cares for a 
family member with a disability knows all too well. And, it is 
bad for our economy as a lack of paid leave means employees 
lose wages; businesses lose workers.
    Studies have shown providing paid leave improves employee 
recruitment, retention, productivity, and morale, overall 
business performance and profitability, and can reduce pay 
inequity for women and workers of color, which is why, exactly, 
it is far past time to make progress, and it is far past time 
we make paid leave a right for all, not a privilege for some.
    I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today about 
how important this is, and I hope to work with my colleagues on 
both sides of the aisle to finally make it happen.
    With that, I will turn it over to Ranking Member Senator 
Burr for his opening remarks.

                   OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BURR

    Senator Burr. Good morning, Madam Chair, and thank you for 
scheduling this hearing. Welcome to our witnesses. It is also 
my hope that, as the COVID guidance continues to evolve, that 
we will soon return to hearings that have witnesses and Members 
here in person, and I pledge to work with the Chair to 
accomplish that.
    As a father, a husband, a grandfather, and a son, I 
understand the need to balance family life with the workplace. 
I support, and I believe most people support, being able to 
take time off of work when they are sick, their family member 
is sick, or after the birth or adoption of a child.
    I also support and encourage the idea of paid leave for 
workers. During my time in Congress, I have cosponsored bills 
to help Americans earn more paid leave, such as the Working 
Families Flexibility Act, which would allow private sector 
employers to offer all employees who work overtime to choose 
between monetary compensation or comp time, just like the 
Federal Government allows.
    There are great benefits to providing paid leave. It helps 
attract talent, improve retention, increase employees' health 
and wellness, and it increases employee engagement.
    However, there are big questions of disagreements 
surrounding paid leave. Is it mandated? Who pays for it? Who 
gets it and for what reason? Many of my colleagues are lawyers 
or have never had a job outside of government. It shows in some 
of the policy proposals they pursue. It is easy to come up with 
good ideas and tell someone else to pay for it. As my friend, 
John Boehner, used to say, everyone wants to be Santa Claus.
    As we look at paid leave proposals, no matter how well 
intentioned, we cannot just say to the private sector, now you 
need to pay for our extremely generous, brilliant ideas. Some 
large businesses currently provide paid leave and are not 
looking for a new Federal mandate, but instead want a 
commonsense approach to help them deal with the varying 
requirements across different states.
    However, there are others that endorse a Federal mandate. I 
am skeptical this is a selfless act and worry that this is a 
form of corporate rent-seeking where they are trying to impose 
costs on their smaller competitors to drive them out of 
business. Most small businesses already offer some form of paid 
leave because most people agree if someone is sick, they should 
not be at work.
    But, a costly new mandate imposing a one-size-fits-all 
policy of paid leave on small business cannot be easily 
absorbed and could force business to cut jobs, not add jobs. If 
Washington wants to come up with the idea, Washington needs to 
pay for it with tax credits, subsidies, grants, at least for 
small business.
    The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 provides eligible 
workers 12 weeks of leave, but it does not have to be paid for.
    In 2017, thanks to Senator Fischer of Nebraska, Congress 
provided tax credits to encourage eligible employers to provide 
paid leave. I supported Senator Fischer's employer credit as 
part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. This tax credit has now been 
extended through 2025. It provides a credit for eligible 
employers ranging from 12.5 to 25 percent of wages paid to 
employees for up to 12 weeks of family and medical leave. 
Employers must provide at least 50 percent of the wages. 
Senator Fischer deserves a tremendous amount of credit for 
pressing us to include that into the law.
    Also, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, 
bipartisan legislation, supported by both sides of the aisle, 
provided businesses with fewer than 500 employees payroll tax 
credits for paid leave related to COVID-19 pandemic. These tax 
credits have been extended through September 2021.
    Let's talk about the private sector leave programs. Job 
creators want talented workers and want to provide benefits for 
those workers. The private sector has many creative ideas to 
provide paid leave, such as paid time off purchase plans that 
allow workers who want more leave to purchase additional paid 
time off either through employer flex credits or salary 
reductions with pre-tax dollars.
    Others are providing short-term disability insurance to 
provide employees income security due to time off for injury, 
illness, or even pregnancy.
    Flexibility for the employer and the worker makes it work 
for all involved.
    State governments are coming up with paid leave plans of 
their own. For example, Senator Murray noted, Washington State 
provides a family and medical leave program funded through 
premiums paid by the worker and the employer with the worker 
paying the larger share of the premium. Small businesses with 
fewer than 50 workers are not required to pay the employer 
premium.
    There is a lot of bipartisan interest in the Senate 
surrounding paid leave, including expanding the Fischer tax 
credits I have already mentioned. But, we need to remember that 
we are really not good at running businesses from Congress. The 
one-size-fits-all approach does not work on issues, especially 
paid leave. So, instead of pushing our brilliant ideas with 
arbitrary decisions made by Congress or bureaucrats in 
Washington, we should make sure we give business the 
flexibility to help employers make paid leave work. This is an 
important issue.
    Madam Chairman, I thank you for holding this hearing. I 
look forward to what our witnesses have to say.
    The Chair. Thank you very much.
    I will now introduce today's witnesses.
    Vicki Shabo is a Senior Fellow for Paid Leave Policy and 
Strategy at New America's Better Life Lab, where she works 
closely with policymakers, advocates, researchers, and business 
leaders on policy design and strategies to advance paid family, 
medical, and sick leave for workers and families.
    Welcome. Thank you for joining us today.
    Next, I would like to introduce Marcia St. Hilaire-Finn, 
who is the Founder and Owner of Bright Start Early Care and 
Preschool in Northeast Washington, DC, which has been in 
operation since 2002.
    Welcome. Thank you for being here.
    Next, Marianne McManus is the Vice President of Health and 
Benefits at IBM and recently served as Chair of the American 
Benefits Council Board of Directors.
    We are glad to have you here today.
    Finally, I would like to introduce Elizabeth Milito. She is 
the Senior Executive Counsel to the National Federation of 
Independent Business and has served in her role since March 
2004.
    Thank you for joining us today.
    We will begin with Ms. Shabo for your opening statement.

STATEMENT OF VICKI SHABO, SENIOR FELLOW, PAID LEAVE POLICY AND 
    STRATEGY, BETTER LIFE LAB AT NEW AMERICA, WASHINGTON, DC

    Ms. Shabo. Thank you so much, Senator Murray, and thank you 
for your tireless leadership on paid leave well before the 
pandemic and for this last very difficult year. And thank you 
so much, Senator Burr, for having me here today, as well.
    The pandemic has shown us nothing if not that we must 
address holistically how we care for ourselves and one another. 
I want to touch briefly on paid sick days, paid family and 
medical leave, and FMLA.
    First, paid sick days. In March 2020, just 25 percent of 
workers in private firms and nearly 70 percent of low-wage 
workers did not have a single paid sick day at their jobs. 
These are disproportionately workers in food service, retail, 
janitorial services, many of the same workers who were on the 
frontlines of this pandemic as essential workers.
    For these and others, just 2 to 3 days away from work 
jeopardizes their ability to buy groceries for a month, pay 
gas, pay utilities. Seven and a half days risks a month's 
mortgage or rent.
    For many, multiple sources of structural racism and 
economic inequality create health disparities that layer on top 
of layer--less access to paid sick days, creating multiple 
barriers to closing health and even educational equity gaps.
    Fortunately, when COVID hit, as you mentioned, you and your 
colleagues created the first ever paid sick time standard, 
committing public funds to preventing the spread of the virus. 
COVID emergency paid sick leave is estimated to have prevented 
more than 15,000 cases per day nationwide. But, that emergency 
paid leave requirement for some businesses and some workers 
expired at the end of 2020, and now we have reverted to no 
guaranteed paid leave, even as the virus continues to ravage us 
in some parts of the world, and also in spikes here, and as 
people need access to vaccines.
    Access to paid sick days is associated with better 
preventive health, lower rates of community disease spread, 
fewer workplace injuries, and more efficient use of healthcare 
resources. And, as I prepared for this hearing today, I 
marveled at the amount of research that has been amassed over 
the past several years as more and more experience with paid 
sick days has been had in states and cities.
    Access to paid sick days correspondingly is not associated 
with negative job consequences, business consequences, job 
loss, price increases, or reduced employee benefits.
    The Healthy Families Act, which would allow workers to earn 
up to seven paid sick days each year, is a key solution and 
would replicate the paid sick time that Federal contractors 
have been obligated to provide since 2017.
    Notably, since the pandemic hit, three new states have 
adopted paid sick days laws, joining nearly a dozen others in 
two dozen localities in creating baseline earned paid sick day 
standards. Yet, everyone else is left behind. It is time to 
change that and guarantee paid sick days to all working people.
    On paid family and medical leave, COVID also brought home 
workers and families' precarious situations when babies and 
children need care or a serious personal or family illness 
strikes.
    In March 2020, just as the pandemic hit, one in five 
private sector workers, just one in five, had access to paid 
family leave through their jobs, and there are huge 
disparities.
    Thirty-eight percent of higher-wage workers had paid family 
leave, but just 5 percent of low-wage workers did.
    Just two in five had access to employer-provided temporary 
disability insurance for a personal medical leave lasting weeks 
or months. And, again, we see the disparities replicated.
    Overall, these numbers mask dramatic and growing 
inequalities. Over the past 10 years, paid family leave access 
for high-wage workers climbed by 20 percentage points. For low-
wage workers, just two. That is unacceptable.
    The Country's failure to address paid leave has 
macroeconomic consequences in terms of reduced GDP and lower 
labor force participation.
    It costs families an estimated $22.5 billion annually in 
income, or more than $9,000 for a typical family who needs 3 
months of leave, which means less money circulating in local 
economies and communities, as well as hardships within 
individual households.
    Lack of paid leave reduces mothers' earnings and means 
hundreds of thousands of dollars lost in older workers' income 
and retirement savings.
    It means more public dollars spent through Medicaid for 
nursing homes and more resources for SNAP and other public 
assistance programs.
    Too often, critics asks, how can we afford a national paid 
leave program? But, the truth is that we are bearing enormous 
unaffordable and unsustainable consequences of the status quo. 
The comprehensive paid family and medical leave proposal in the 
American Families Plan, the Family Act, and Chairman Neal's 
Building an Economy for Families Act all present workable paths 
forward. They reflect models from 10 states, including 
Washington and Washington, DC, and would make a public 
investment in paid leave for all working people, no matter 
where they live, where they work, their job, or their serious 
personal family and medical need.
    Finally, the FMLA. And I know I am running short on time, 
so I will try to wrap up. The Family and Medical Leave Act, 
which offers job protection and health benefits continuation, 
coverage is 56 percent of the workforce, meaning more than four 
in 10 workers are left out of job protection. This is 
disproportionately Black and Latino workers, low-wage workers, 
and single parents. And now, with the pandemic's effects on 
employment for these very same groups, coverage is likely to be 
even lower.
    Congress must expand job protection and must do so to match 
any paid leave program it creates so that workers can use the 
paid leave that will be made available. And Congress must never 
create paid leave protections that merely align with today's 
FMLA or we will simply replicate the same inequalities and 
inequities and the same disparities that we have now.
    I leave you with this. This hearing is titled with the 
words Working Families in it. Paid leave rewards work. It 
strengthens people's attachment to the workforce. It promotes 
employee retention. It allows people to care for themselves and 
their loved ones.
    But, at the end of the day, it is really about values, like 
love, responsibility, and care and dignity.
    It is about people, like April Kimbrough, who lost her job 
and her home when she had to go care for her son with kidney 
cancer.
    People like Felix Trinidad, who died 8 years ago of stomach 
cancer because he did not have a sick day and then had to work 
through chemo at his grocery store. He left behind a wife and 
two small children.
    It is people like Ms. St. Hilaire-Finn, who we will hear 
from, and business owners, too, like Sarah Piepenburg, who fell 
behind on her own home and business payments in order to 
provide paid leave to an employee who had broken both arms.
    Paid leave must be an essential element of economic 
recovery, and there is no time to lose.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Shabo follows:]
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                    [summary statement vicki shabo]
                              Introduction
          Paid leave policies like those adopted in states and 
        cities are needed at the national level; the costs of inaction 
        and lost potential are high. Broader access to paid leave would 
        have helped during the pandemic and will help as people re-
        enter the workforce.

          Paid leave policies are tremendously popular in 
        representative surveys of individuals and small businesses.
                Part I: Urgency Exacerbated by COVID-19
          Women, low-wage workers and people of color have been 
        disproportionately harmed by COVID, and are those least likely 
        to have access to paid sick time and paid family and medical 
        leave--many also have caregiving responsibilities. Personal 
        stories of working people and small business owners illustrate 
        the harm of the status quo and the need for expanded access to 
        paid leave
      Part II: Disparate Access, Deep Needs and the Interventions
                          That the U.S. Needs
          Paid Sick Days: Access to paid sick days is 
        disparate, has increased due to state and local policies and 
        yet 30 million people are still left behind. FFCRA paid sick 
        days prevented COVID spread, which is just the most recent 
        evidence on the multiple positive individual and community-wide 
        effects of paid leave for health, economic security, and the 
        use of health resources. There is no evidence paid sick days 
        laws cause harm or negative job or economic consequences. 
        Congress should enact a paid leave standard like the Healthy 
        Families Act.

          Paid Family and Medical Leave: Access to paid family 
        leave and short term disability insurance is too low and vastly 
        unequal, with significant consequences for individuals, 
        families, businesses and the economy. State paid family and 
        medical leave programs show the elements of paid leave that are 
        needed and that will result in positive outcomes. Congress 
        should enact a comprehensive national paid family and medical 
        leave program.

          FMLA: The FMLA excludes more than four-in-ten workers 
        by conservative estimates, and that was before the pandemic 
        likely circumscribed coverage even more. Job protection and the 
        continuation of health benefits need to track the paid leave 
        benefits Congress enacts and Congress must not enact a paid 
        leave policy that replicates the inequities of FMLA and should 
        expand job protection to parallel paid leave benefits. Congress 
        should also allocate greater resources to outreach and 
        enforcement.
                     Part III: Concluding Thoughts
          Work, family and care challenges are ubiquitous and 
        affect more than just the individuals who are struggling. 
        Congress should act boldly to enact new policies that will 
        directly touch people's lives in multiple ways.
                                 ______
                                 
    The Chair. Thank you very much.
    We will turn to Ms. St. Hilaire-Finn.

  STATEMENT OF MARCIA ST. HILAIRE-FINN, FOUNDER/CEO OF BRIGHT 
         START EARLY CARE AND PRESCHOOL, WASHINGTON, DC

    Ms. St. Hilaire-Finn. Chair Murray, Ranking Member Burr, 
and Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to 
testify today. My name is Marcia St. Hilaire-Finn. I am the 
founder and owner of Bright Start Early Care and Preschool in 
Washington, DC. and a member of the Main Street Alliance, a 
national network of more than 30,000 small business owners.
    Launched with just two employees, my business had three 
locations and three employees by the end of the summer. Thirty 
years ago, I came to the U.S. from the eastern Caribbean island 
of Dominica for a career in nursing. I started Bright Start in 
2002 after seeing there was no nearby childcare center to fit 
my unique schedule and provide quality care for our daughter.
    Early on, to attract the best employees and despite the 
cost, we provided 1 week paid sick time and 2 weeks paid 
vacation. I have since added partial health insurance and more 
paid and unpaid leave and vacation time. As a result, we have 
extremely low turnover and our children benefit from being with 
the same staff.
    But, even with a business model that relies on private pay 
and higher fees, I cannot meet my employees' full needs. Many 
other small businesses are from industries and places where it 
is even harder. Small employers generally do not have the 
capital to provide paid leave on their own. That is why most 
small business owners support a national paid family and 
medical leave program and commonsense national standards for 
sick days. As a registered nurse and childcare provider, I know 
firsthand the benefits of paid sick days that let employees 
stay home and out of the workplace where they may spread 
disease.
    DC was the second city in the Country to pass a paid sick 
day law. We had no trouble with the new policy, which is the 
typical business experience. Studies of cities with sick paid 
policies found that most business owners have few difficulties 
and support the program once it is in place.
    When sick days are not enough, I have had employees who 
needed more time off--several to welcome a new baby, and two 
for cancer treatment. I held their jobs for them and cobbled 
together what I could. After they exhausted their 4 weeks of 
paid time off, I provided unlimited unpaid leave. When needed, 
I arranged for partial advances on their salaries. These 
employees said they recovered more quickly just knowing they 
could take care of themselves with a job to come back to. They 
returned even more energized. But, I have also had several 
staff members who took less time than needed because they could 
not afford unpaid leave.
    Our paid leave policy was the right decision, but not an 
easy one. While these employees were out on leave, I paid for 
their leave and additional staff. That is why I strongly 
support a paid family and medical leave program in the 
District. We now have access to a public insurance option with 
small, predictable costs and up to 8 weeks paid leave. If an 
employee needs to take leave, the program pays their wages so I 
can use that money for overtime for an existing employee or 
new, temporary hire.
    The DC program also provides an expanded family definition, 
which better meets the needs of today's families, and the 
public administration of the program takes that task off small 
business. Overall, this helps level the playing field for small 
businesses with larger companies.
    Then came COVID. Last fall, I had to close one center for 
10 days to quarantine our staff when we had an exposure. 
Families First was a lifeline. I could have kept paying for 
staff while they were out all at once because of our public 
health measures. I could not have afforded this on my own.
    While Families First was essential, it has challenges and 
should not be the model for a permanent paid leave solution. 
Tax credit programs rely on businesses applying for and 
administering the program. For willing, well-connected business 
owners with payroll and H.R. services, this can work. But, a 
typical small business, like mine, does not have these support 
systems. Public programs are easier for both employees and 
small employers and should be the model for national paid 
leave.
    This past year has been one of the most difficult ever for 
my business and for most small businesses, particularly 
childcare centers across the Country. We have been given a 
wake-up call. We need bold investments in our care 
infrastructure to get on the path not just to recovery, but 
resilience.
    Thank you for the time and attention. I look forward to 
answering your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. St. Hilaire-Finn follows:]
             prepared statement of marcia st. hilaire finn
    Chair Murray, Ranking Member Burr, and Members of the Committee:

    Thank you for the opportunity to testify today and share my 
frontline experience on the urgent public investments needed for paid 
sick, family and medical leave. And thank you in particular to Chair 
Murray for your strong leadership and commitment to expanding our 
Nation's care infrastructure.

    My name is Marcia St. Hilaire-Finn, and I am the founder and owner 
of Bright Start Early Care and Preschool in Washington, DC. I am also 
speaking today as a member of Main Street Alliance, a national network 
of more than 30,000 small business owners who, like me, are eager to 
share their perspectives on critical public policy issues, especially 
as we try to transition from relief to recovery amidst the most 
challenging public health crisis of our lifetime.

    I have grown my business from a home-based day care with five 
employees to a successful business on track to have 3 locations and 36 
employees by the end of June. From the start, I have been very 
intentional about the choices I have made for my employees' 
compensation and benefits. With my business based in the District of 
Columbia, I have experienced firsthand the roll out of the District's 
sick days and paid leave legislation. So I can share clear before-and-
after pictures of these paid leave programs from a small business 
perspective. During this pandemic, we experienced several COVID 
exposures, needed to temporarily shut down, and made use of the 
Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) to help us through that 
time.
    Why I Started My Business . . . and Offer Good Benefits to Staff
    Thirty years ago, I came to the United States from the eastern 
Island of Dominica to pursue a career in nursing. Several years later, 
as the mother of a young daughter, I searched for a child care center 
in my neighborhood that would fit my unique schedule and provide 
quality care, but couldn't find one. So, in 2002, I decided to start my 
own small business in my basement, launching Bright Start Early Care 
and Preschool.

    I opened Bright Start with the idea that to provide the care our 
children deserve, the caretakers should be fairly compensated, which 
includes access to paid time off. During the early days of Bright 
Start, we provided 1 week paid sick time, and 2 weeks paid vacation 
time--well above industry standards at the time. This was an 
intentional and conscious choice on my part to attract the best and 
brightest employees, despite the additional cost burden. Providing 
good, competitive benefits has created a virtuous cycle. We experience 
exceptionally low turnover, which saves us in recruitment and training 
costs. But just as importantly, our children benefit from the 
continuity and know-how of our staff.

    As all parents can appreciate, caring for children is truly a labor 
of love--but it's also grueling work! That is why it's so important 
that my employees are able to take care of themselves and their 
families.

    As I have grown my business, I have been able to add additional 
benefits--and now provide partial health insurance coverage, another 
week of paid leave in addition to sick and vacation time and unpaid 
leave. My business model, which relies on a large portion of fully 
private pay parents and higher fees, makes my employee compensation 
choices possible. Yet even with this model, I have not been able to 
meet the full needs of my employees. And many other small businesses 
operate in industries and locations where a high-road business model is 
less feasible. Small employers generally don't have the capital and 
scale to provide paid family and medical leave on their own.

    That's why I, along with a strong majority of small business 
owners, support a national paid family and medical leave program and 
common sense national standards for earned sick days.
                      The Case for Paid Sick Days
    As a registered nurse and child care center owner, the benefits of 
paid sick days are clear. Paid sick days help ensure employees stay 
home to take care of themselves or their family when they're sick and 
out of the workplace so that other employees and our customers can stay 
healthy. Without access to paid sick days, employees who handle food, 
provide childcare or care for the elderly are posing serious risks of 
spreading illness to others. The costs to our employees, families, and 
economies are huge. Paid sick days are a common-sense solution.

    In 2008, Washington, DC. was the second city in the country to pass 
an ordinance mandating businesses to provide a minimum number of paid 
sick days based on the size of their business. We were already 
providing above the mandated rate and had no trouble implementing the 
new law--which is in fact the typical business experience. Like all new 
programs, some businesses need help with initial planning and 
implementation. But studies of cities with sick day policies find that 
most business owners experience few difficulties and have high levels 
of support for the programs after they are in place.

    Small business owners also support a national program. A 2017 Main 
Street Alliance survey of nearly 1,800 small business owners in 17 
states found that 64 percent of respondents supported a nationwide paid 
sick days minimum standard like the Healthy Families Act.

    This increased to 73 percent when just looking at women small 
business owners and business owners of color.
                 Paid Family and Medical Leave Coverage
    But sick days are not enough. Over the past two decades, I have had 
numerous employees who needed to take additional time off to care for 
themselves or a loved one. Several employees had the joy of welcoming a 
new baby into their families. And two employees have had to deal with 
the shock of cancer diagnosis and take time for surgery, treatment, and 
recovery.

    In the interest of their health and well-being, the onus was on me 
to offer family and medical leave through whatever means possible. I 
committed to hold their jobs open for them and cobbled together what I 
could. After they exhausted their 4 weeks of paid time off, I provided 
unlimited unpaid leave, and when it's been needed, I've arranged for 
partial advances on their salaries so they can at least pay some bills.

    They have since told me that they believe they recovered more 
quickly just knowing they could take care of themselves and having that 
peace of mind that they had a job to come back to. They truly felt 
valued and came back to work even more grateful and energized. By the 
same token, I am also well aware that I've had several staff members 
who took less time off than they needed because they couldn't afford 
unpaid leave. If they had more paid time available, they and their 
families would have benefited from not rushing back to work.

    Our four-week paid leave policy was the right decision for me as a 
small business owner--but certainly not an easy one. While these 
employees were out on leave for those 4 weeks, I was paying for their 
leave and additional staff to cover their positions.
             DC Paid Family Leave Program a Stepping Stone
    That is why I was an early and strong supporter of the District of 
Columbia Paid Family and Medical Leave program. Instead of 
unpredictable spikes in payroll costs that fall on us as the employer, 
we now have access to a public insurance option with small, predictable 
costs I can plan for. Should an employee now need to go out on leave, 
the program will pay their wages so that I can use what I would have 
spent on their wages to pay for overtime for an existing employee or 
hire a temporary employee.

    Last July, DC launched its Paid Family Leave (PFL) program, which 
offers up to 8 weeks of paid parental leave to bond with a new child 
(``parental leave''); up to 6 weeks of paid family leave to care for a 
covered family member (``family leave''); and up to 2 weeks of paid 
medical leave to care for the employee's own ``serious health condition 
(``medical leave'').

    Between this and our existing leave policy, we have the security of 
knowing that we can access up to 12 weeks of paid leave should we need 
it. Before implementation of this program, we could only offer 4 weeks 
at Bright Start and had to limit family leave to immediate family 
members.

    The DC program provides an expanded family definition, which better 
meets the needs of today's families. In addition, the public 
administration of the program takes that task off small business, which 
makes it easier for us as well. Overall, this helps level the playing 
field for small businesses with larger companies.
               Emergency Paid Leave to Help Battle COVID
    Then came COVID. Last September, I had to close one of our centers 
when we had a coronavirus exposure. We shut down for 10 days to 
quarantine our full center staff as a recommended precaution.

    Thankfully, the FFCRA program was a lifeline for my business and my 
employees just when I needed it. Having access to this emergency paid 
leave through FFCRA meant I could continue to pay my entire staff--18 
people at the time--even though they couldn't work because of the 
public health measures we took. My employees could continue to collect 
their checks and I could feel confident that making the right decision 
to protect others would mean my employees wouldn't miss rent or food on 
the table.

    We've been fortunate to have only one instance where we needed to 
close down our center, but it's reassuring to know FFCRA will be there 
if and when it happens again. I certainly would not have been able to 
pick up the full cost of my staff going out on sick leave all at once. 
It has also been great to be able to offer the added incentive of paid 
days off through FFCRA for my employees to get and recover from 
vaccinations without them having to draw down their own paid sick days. 
For us as a business with a payroll service, applying for the FFCRA tax 
credits was easy and went smoothly.

    As we managed our way through COVID exposure, like countless other 
small businesses have, I kept thinking to myself, ``Why are we one of 
the only countries without a national paid leave program? If there is a 
silver lining to this crisis, it should be that we've been given a 
wake-up call to pass a robust and permanent national paid leave 
program.'' And here we are, with that very question before us. It just 
doesn't make practical or moral sense to me why we wouldn't!

    While FFCRA was an essential program, it was put together hastily 
in the midst of a crisis. As a result, the program had its challenges 
and should not be the model for a permanent paid leave solution.

    One major issue small businesses had with FFCRA was simply finding 
out about it. Tax credit programs rely on businesses to apply for and 
administer the program. For willing business owners, who are well 
connected and monitor program availability and supported with H.R. and 
payroll services to administer the programs, this can work. However, a 
typical small business does not come equipped with these support 
systems. Public programs like Unemployment Insurance are easier for 
both employees and small employers to access and administer benefits 
and should be the model for any national paid leave program.

    The vast majority of small business owners agree. As part of the 
same Main Street Alliance survey, small businesses that were not able 
to provide family and medical leave to their employees overwhelmingly 
identified a social insurance program as what they most needed to be 
able to provide this benefit (79 percent selected this option, while 
only 8 percent identified a tax credit).
             For My Small Business, Care IS Infrastructure
    This past year has been one of the most difficult ever for my 
business. The same can be said for the majority of small businesses--
particularly child care centers--across the country. It was challenging 
not just because of COVID-19, but also the hidden longstanding crises 
that COVID exposed--the total lack of care infrastructure that allows 
people the freedom to work and take care of their families.

    As a child care provider I've known this crisis intimately for many 
years. Not only as a small business owner with employees myself, but in 
talking to our parents about how hard it is to balance the 
accessibility and affordability of child care, and needing to take time 
off to heal or care for elderly parents without losing their paychecks.

    During the course of the pandemic we did what we could to keep our 
doors open, while operating safely, because we knew how critical 
providing child care was in this crisis--for the essential workers, and 
parents across the country who were struggling to work full time in 
their day jobs and also substitute as full-time teachers for their kids 
at home. As early learning professionals, we've always understood child 
care was essential; now the rest of the country does, too.

    In the same way that the recently enacted American Rescue Plan 
addressed the immediate crisis of the pandemic for small business, our 
employees, and our customers, we now need bold investment in our care 
infrastructure--from paid leave to child care to elder care and 
everything in between--if we are to set ourselves on the path not just 
to recovery, but resilience. We've ignored and underinvested in these 
critical supports for far too long. In the same way I need good roads 
and bridges to get to and from work, my employees and I need a care 
infrastructure that provides time to heal for employees when they need 
it, as well as affordable and accessible child care. We can't ``build 
back better'' if we don't address these longstanding gaps that have 
been holding our economy back and prolonging the pandemic-induced 
recession.
     Promising Paths Forward on Comprehensive, Permanent Paid Leave
    That is why we at Main Street Alliance are encouraged by the scale 
and broad focus of the Biden-Harris administration's proposed American 
Families Plan as well as House Ways and Committee Chair Richard Neal's 
Building an Economy for Families Act. Both build on the bicameral 
Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act (FAMILY Act), sponsored by Sen. 
Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, which had stood alone as the 
only comprehensive, universal paid leave program offered at the Federal 
level.

    As incredulous as it may seem, until now no American president has 
ever proposed a national, permanent comprehensive paid family and 
medical leave program. The United States remains one of the few 
countries in the world that doesn't guarantee paid leave. As a provider 
myself, I am heartened to see both proposals call for investments in 
affordable, quality child care along with tax policies that support 
working families. Moreover, COVID has underscored the need for a 
national paid sick leave policy to help workers and their loved ones 
quickly recover from short-term illness and prevent the spread of 
disease.
                            Care Can't Wait
    While Bright Start has grown to currently a team of 24 employees 
serving 76 children (with a dozen more staff set to join this summer), 
over the years it took a patchwork of ad hoc workarounds to manage 
sick, family, and medical leave for my staff--sometimes with government 
support, mostly without. And businesses smaller than my own, with 
thinner operating margins, could not have resorted to absorbing the 
cost burdens of providing leave the way I did on multiple occasions to 
protect the health and well-being of my workers.

    With the ongoing pandemic and Main Street still on the path to 
recovery, paid leave is not an ``extra''--it's an essential must-have 
to the survival of our country's 30 million small businesses and the 
health of small business owners, employees, and customers alike.

    Small businesses like mine have been calling for these investments 
for years. Recently organizations representing thousands of small 
businesses sent a letter to Congress calling for urgent action on paid 
leave and investments in our care economy. Small business owners 
overwhelmingly support national paid leave--even before the pandemic 
made it abundantly clear--for numerous reasons:

          More than ever, small businesses and their employees 
        need a program that allows owners and workers to take time from 
        work for health reasons--whether to care for themselves and/or 
        their loved ones or to quarantine or isolate and avoid 
        spreading COVID-19. Multiple studies point to the public health 
        benefits of paid sick time protections when it comes to 
        combating contagious diseases.

          Small businesses can't afford paid leave on their own 
        like many larger businesses can. Small businesses generally 
        lack the capital and the scale to provide paid leave, even when 
        owners want to provide that benefit. Moreover, private insurers 
        generally do not offer affordable, adequate paid leave policies 
        to small businesses. As a result, as of 2019 only 14 percent of 
        workers in firms with 99 or fewer employees had access to 
        employer-provided paid family leave, compared to 29 percent of 
        workers in firms with 500 or more employees.

          Our businesses benefit when employees can take time 
        to care for their families and return ready to work. Paid leave 
        helps reduce turnover and boost employee morale and loyalty, 
        increasing productivity and cost savings for our small 
        businesses. Paid leave makes good business sense.

          Paid Leave is a matter of racial and gender equity. 
        The racial wealth gap means employees and business owners of 
        color like myself have less of a financial cushion for taking 
        time off, but they also have more limited access to paid leave. 
        And, with most caregiving still falling to women, paid leave is 
        an important gender equity measure for business owners and 
        employees alike. These facts have been further heightened 
        during the pandemic. With higher rates of COVID-related 
        illnesses, death, and business closures, the need for paid 
        leave is higher than ever in Black and brown communities. A 
        robust, permanent paid family and medical leave program is 
        essential for supporting Black-and brown-owned businesses, 
        their employees, and the communities they serve.

          Addressing workforce shortages. Over the past year 
        women have left the workforce in droves--and the lack of paid 
        leave and child care was a major contributing factor. Closing 
        these care infrastructure gaps will be a major factor in 
        addressing our current labor shortage. We can't afford not to 
        use every tool in our toolbox to support a rebounding and 
        growing economy.

          Economic Recovery on Main Street. For small 
        businesses and Main Street economies to recover, we need more 
        customers spending on Main Street and the safe return of our 
        labor force. Comprehensive paid family and medical leave 
        programs have been shown to significantly increase mothers' 
        attachment to the workforce and caregivers' participation in 
        the labor both short and long-term. Paid leave dollars go back 
        into the local economy, boosting consumer demand at small 
        businesses, as working people spend their leave to cover 
        basics.

          Business owners support paid leave. A national survey 
        of 600 small business owners found that two-thirds supported 
        the U.S. having a national policy for paid family and medical 
        leave. Support for paid leave by the owners is also not a 
        partisan issue, with 80 percent of Democrats, 55 percent of 
        Republican, and 53 percent of Independent owners in favor of a 
        national policy for paid family and medical leave. Over 1,600 
        small business owners have added their names to state and 
        Federal campaigns calling for comprehensive paid leave.

    The time has come for Federal lawmakers to put in place a robust 
permanent paid family and medical leave program. From our experience 
with existing state programs we have learned that policy details matter 
to small businesses and our employees. We need a program that:

          Covers all businesses, families and individuals, 
        including freelancers and the self-employed and business owners 
        themselves;

          Increases financial security by providing wage 
        replacement to enable employees to take time off and meet their 
        expenses;

          Is sustainably and responsibly funded to make the 
        program affordable for businesses of all sizes, and affordable 
        to use by workers of all incomes;

          Provides leave to care for parents, children, 
        spouses, domestic partners, and other family;

          Is publicly administered to ensure ease of 
        administration by small business; and

          Includes extensive outreach to ensure small business 
        owners and our employees can learn about and access the 
        program.

    In order to successfully overcome the COVID-19 crisis and thrive in 
the future, small businesses need a comprehensive, sustainable, and 
affordable paid leave and care foundation now more than ever. As 
Congress considers a long-term economic infrastructure and recovery 
package, a national, permanent paid leave policy and program and 
investment in our care economy must be a priority. Care infrastructure 
is not just what small business employees and owners deserve, it is 
vital to keeping our entire communities safe and our economy resilient.

    Paid leave is an essential component to ensuring more small 
businesses are able to make it back to profitability and to leveling 
the playing field for small businesses in the long run. We must never 
be unprepared for a crisis like this again.

    Thank you for your time and attention. I look forward to answering 
any questions you may have.
                                 ______
                                 
    The Chair. Thank you very much.
    We will turn to Ms. McManus.

    STATEMENT OF MARIANNE MCMANUS, VICE PRESIDENT, HEALTH & 
  BENEFITS, IBM, ON BEHALF OF THE AMERICAN BENEFITS COUNCIL, 
                        WESTCHESTER, NY

    Ms. McManus. Good morning, Chair Murray, Ranking Member 
Burr, and esteemed Members of the Committee. I am Marianne 
McManus, Vice President of Health & Benefits at IBM. I am 
responsible for overseeing global benefits design, strategy, 
and delivery, along with corporate health and safety guidance 
across IBM, globally.
    Today, I am here on behalf of the American Benefits Council 
to communicate our support for Federal paid leave legislation 
so that all workers in the United States have access to robust, 
paid family, sick, and medical leave benefits.
    At IBM, we have long recognized the vital role these 
benefits have in the lives of our employees and continue to 
believe that paid family, sick, and medical leave are 
essential. This past year, the COVID-19 pandemic underscored 
just how critical paid leave policies are for our workforce's 
health and well-being, particularly as it becomes increasingly 
mobile and remote.
    Our challenge is not in providing paid time off benefits to 
our employees. Instead, the challenge is created by the 
patchwork of inconsistent state and local laws, the speed at 
which new regulations are changed and introduced, and the 
volume of requirements applicable to nationwide operations 
around the Country.
    IBM and our fellow council member companies all agree that 
we are most successful in recruiting and retaining top talent 
when our employees do not have to choose between their careers 
and caring for their health and their families. But, due to 
varying state and local mandates, we inevitably have different 
processes that employees must follow and different benefits 
depending on where they work.
    Today's policy model does not allow for consistent and 
uniform benefits for all employees. This is not just a matter 
of the unnecessary costs and administrative burden for 
employers. It is a matter of fundamental fairness and equity 
for employees. It can be overwhelming and confusing for 
employees to determine which laws apply and what benefits they 
are already entitled to.
    Here is a concrete example of the challenge. Prior to the 
pandemic, an IBM employee in San Francisco could be covered by 
as many as four laws simultaneously addressing the duration and 
amount of paid leave available to them for their illness or the 
illness of a covered family member: The state paid sick leave 
law, the city's paid sick leave ordnance, the state paid family 
leave law, and the Federal Executive Order on paid sick leave. 
During the height of COVID-19, that employee was covered by two 
additional laws: both the state's and the city's public health 
emergency paid sick leave law.
    The challenge posed by having to navigate six, or even 
four, different applicable laws simultaneously is significant 
for employers and employees alike. We recognize that not all 
workers have access to generous paid leave benefits and that 
there are challenges for many small businesses or certain types 
of employers in providing these benefits.
    The Federal Government's essential role in filling the gaps 
nationwide for organizations of all types and sizes can be done 
while building on effective employer benefit programs.
    In our view, a Federal legislative solution that provides 
employers a single set of standards nationwide would advance 
employee equity while eliminating confusion for employees and 
cumbersome compliance burdens for employers. A Federal solution 
should offer all employees consistent benefits regardless of 
where they live or work.
    At IBM, we believe this era of technology and innovation is 
powered by our employees' hard work and creativity. We strive 
to provide our workforce with the flexibility and benefits they 
need to do their best work.
    The best outcome for the American workforce would be a 
balanced solution as I have described today--one that allows 
employers to offer innovative and competitive benefits that are 
valued by their employees in a consistent, equitable manner, 
nationwide.
    We applaud the Committee for focusing on this challenge, 
and I thank you again for the opportunity to testify. I look 
forward to answering your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. McManus follows:]
                 prepared statement of marianne mcmanus
    Good morning Chair Murray, Ranking Member Burr, and esteemed 
Members of the Committee. I am Marianne McManus, Vice President of 
Health and Benefits at IBM Corporation. I am responsible for overseeing 
global benefits design, strategy, and delivery, along with Corporate 
Health & Safety across IBM globally. I am here today on behalf of the 
American Benefits Council (``the Council'').

    The Council is a Washington, DC.-based employee benefits public 
policy organization. It advocates for employers dedicated to best-in-
class solutions that protect and encourage the health and financial 
well-being of their workers, retirees, and families. Council members 
include over 220 of the world's largest corporations. Collectively, 
Council members either directly sponsor or administer health and 
retirement benefits for virtually all Americans covered by employer-
sponsored plans. IBM has been a longtime member of the Council and, 
most recently, I served as the chair of the Executive Board of 
Directors.

    Specifically, I am here to communicate our strong and enthusiastic 
support for a Federal paid leave program that builds on private-sector 
solutions. Council member companies agree that we are most successful 
recruiting and retaining top talent when our employees are confident in 
their ability to take paid time off when they need it. Furthermore, 
paid leave is good for business. According to an E&Y study entitled 
``Viewpoints on paid family and medical leave: Findings from a survey 
of US employers and employees, March 2017,'' showed that employers 
offering paid leave benefits overwhelmingly saw a positive effect when 
it came to operating outcomes.

    We recognize the important role paid leave benefits have in the 
lives of our employees and agree that paid family and medical leave, in 
addition to sick leave, are essential. This past year, the COVID-19 
pandemic underscored the vital role paid leave policies serve for the 
health and well-being of our workforce. Let me say it unequivocally on 
the record that IBM and the Council believe that all workers in United 
States deserve access to paid leave benefits.

    We recognize that not every U.S. employer has the ability to offer 
the same level of paid leave that IBM provides to our workforce. At 
IBM, we have a long history of providing flexible time off to employees 
as part of a generous and competitive benefits package. As a large, 
multi-national employer with employees in all 50 states and operations 
in over 170 countries worldwide, we understand the value of a 
comprehensive and uniform paid leave policy. Our benefit programs are 
generous and expansive: Our regular full time and part time U.S. 
employees receive a minimum of 15 days of paid vacation; up to 26 weeks 
of short term disability benefits; specifically, all eligible employees 
can receive up to 13 weeks of short-term disability benefits at 100 
percent pay and another 13 weeks at a minimum of two-thirds of their 
pay; up to 12 weeks for all new parents at full pay; paid care leave at 
full pay for family care, marriage, or bereavement ranging from 3 days 
to 4 weeks depending on the use; in addition to a minimum of 56 hours 
of paid sick leave annually. We also offer long-term disability 
benefits for eligible employees.

    In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we quickly pivoted and rolled 
out enhanced paid time off offerings, which include additional paid 
sick leave for illness or the need to quarantine; paid leave to care 
for an ill family member; and up to 4 weeks of emergency paid care 
leave for parents and caregivers for emergency family back-up care. 
These benefits were renewed for 2021. IBM also offers employees paid 
time off and flexibility to get vaccinated, should they choose to do 
so.
            Administrative and Complex Compliance Challenges
    It is important for this Committee to be aware of the significant 
challenges facing nationwide companies who support paid leave but are 
required to navigate a maze of increasingly complex, inconsistent, 
administratively burdensome, and overlapping paid leave mandates across 
the country. Meeting compliance and reporting obligations is inherently 
time consuming and can be confusing for even the most knowledgeable 
benefits professionals. Council member companies typically have 
nationwide operations in numerous states and localities, making it 
increasingly difficult to offer and administer consistent and uniform 
paid leave benefits to employees wherever they work. Variations among 
state and local paid leave laws, such as employee eligibility rules, 
qualifying absences, benefit duration and amount, and ability to 
coordinate statutory and company benefits make the administration and 
compliance burden overwhelming for nationwide employers. One of the 
most widely used and valuable resources the Council offers its members 
is a National Paid Leave Atlas, which identifies detailed requirements 
imposed by the various state and local paid leave laws. This type of 
summary is an essential tool for nationwide employers to keep track of 
requirements and ensure compliance. This is not just a matter of 
administrative cost and burden for employers. It is also a matter of 
fundamental fairness and equity for employees, particularly in light of 
increasingly mobile and remote workforces.
                          Impact on Employees
    The numerous state and local leave laws have a significant adverse 
effect on employees and their families. Employees who previously 
received benefits at no additional cost from their employers in some 
cases must now pay an employee contribution, imposed by some state 
programs, for those same benefits. Employees who previously enjoyed a 
user-friendly experience in going directly to their employer to request 
benefits in some cases must now go to the state agency administering 
the applicable Paid Family and Medical Leave Program in addition to 
their employer. That places an unnecessary burden on employees who are 
already facing a challenging situation dealing with personal and family 
obligations. Furthermore, when the required time off is related to a 
medical condition, the employee may also incur additional cost if the 
treating health provider charges for copies of records or completion of 
additional forms. This often results in pay cycles being out of sync 
(e.g., the employer benefit is approved in a week; but state benefits 
may take several weeks to be approved) and causes unnecessary stress 
for the employee. To simplify this process for employees, IBM has, at 
added cost to the company, implemented private plans in most 
jurisdictions.

    We want the Committee to understand that our challenge is not in 
providing paid time off benefits to our employees. Instead, the growing 
challenge is created by the patchwork of inconsistent and increasing 
number of state and local laws, the speed at which new laws and changes 
to existing laws take effect, and the sheer number of requirements 
applicable to IBM's operations around the country. Moreover, 
compounding these challenges is the need to coordinate IBM benefits, 
which are frequently more generous, with these state and local 
mandates.

    The burden of compliance and the range of different requirements 
mean that the resources designated for such programs are applied to 
navigating administrative complexities rather than program design and 
execution, which add value and enhance employee engagement. By 
contrast, standardizing inconsistent and competing requirements could 
encourage more companies to voluntarily provide paid sick leave and/or 
paid family and medical leave benefits to employees regardless of 
whether they are required. One-size-fits all mandates are not the right 
solution for employers that already offer rich, generous benefit 
programs.

    Rather than referencing general challenges posed by the various 
requirements across the country, let me be specific. Because IBM is a 
Federal contractor, we comply with the Federal Executive Order 
establishing paid sick leave, as well as all state and local laws on 
paid sick, family, and medical leave. As noted in the Council's 
National Paid Leave Atlas, as of July 1, 2021, there will be 16 states, 
the District of Columbia, and roughly 21 counties or municipalities 
with paid sick leave requirements, and the list is growing each year. 
Two other states have paid time off requirements, which allow the paid 
time off to be used for sick leave or for any other reason. These laws 
also vary in requirements, including eligibility criteria, differences 
in waiting periods, rate of accrual, accrual and use caps, qualifying 
uses, covered family members, ability to frontload (provide all time 
off up front), and notification requirements--making it nearly 
impossible for an employer to craft a uniform and consistent policy for 
its national workforce.

    In the wake of COVID-19, at least three states and 12 counties or 
municipalities passed public health emergency paid sick leave laws to 
supplement their regular paid sick leave laws and address employee 
needs due to the public health emergency. Likewise, IBM created its own 
paid time off program in response to the pandemic while also complying 
with all other applicable requirements imposed by the varying state and 
local laws.

    There are also six states, plus the District of Columbia, that have 
paid family and medical leave laws, with three more states that have 
passed such laws to take effect in the near future.
    Before COVID-19, an IBM employee could be covered by as many as 
four different laws simultaneously addressing the duration and amount 
of paid leave available to them for an illness or the illness of a 
covered family member (not to mention the Federal Family and Medical 
Leave Act, which covers unpaid leave in similar circumstances).

    For example, an employee working on a Federal contract in San 
Francisco would be covered by (1) Executive Order 13706, (2) the 
California Healthy Workplace, Healthy Family Act, (3) the San Francisco 
Paid Sick Leave Ordinance, and (4) the California Paid Family Leave 
Law, all of which may have different eligibility, time off qualifying 
reasons, duration, covered family members, reporting and record keeping 
requirements. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, that same 
employee also would have been eligible for leave under two other leave 
laws: San Francisco's Public Health Emergency Leave and California 
Supplemental Paid Sick Leave. While all of the laws provide that the 
most generous provisions apply, it requires significant time and 
resources to identify the most generous entitlement and ensure 
compliance with all applicable requirements. For employees, it can be 
overwhelming and confusing to determine which laws apply and to which 
leaves they may be entitled.

    IBM's workforce is not alone in this predicament. For employees at 
similar companies, navigating the complexities and rules across these 
differing programs is deflating and stressful. For nationwide 
employers, the burden of administering the numerous state and local 
paid leave mandates is significant. According to a survey conducted by 
Mercer \1\ of nationwide employers, associated administrative expenses 
will typically range from 8 percent-20 percent of total leave costs. 
Employers need to have sufficient staffing to administer all the 
nuances of the varying paid leave requirements and may need to spend 
substantial resources to gain access to a more robust administration 
assistance system. In fact, the Mercer study also shows that 66 percent 
of employers experienced an increase in resources in the last 5 years 
to handle state and local paid leave mandates.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\  All data from: Mercer, Survey of Absence and Disability 
Management, 2021

    We would speculate that, given our own challenges--despite our 
significant resources and sophisticated H.R. systems--it must be far 
more burdensome and costly for smaller companies or companies with 
fewer resources. This labyrinth of leave requirements can overwhelm 
employers, leading to non-compliance. Significantly, the new normal of 
multiple applicable leave mandates and processes is transforming the 
traditional role of employers as the single point of contact for 
employee benefit programs and can negatively impact the employee 
experience.
                  Key Features of a Paid Leave Program
    Predictability and flexibility are important in a paid leave 
program for both employees and employers. It is important for employees 
to understand available benefits in advance as well as how to 
seamlessly apply for those benefits. Employees should not be required 
to contribute a portion of their paycheck to fund paid family medical 
leave benefits if they already receive those benefits at no additional 
cost. Employers should be permitted to efficiently administer a uniform 
benefits program that matches the specific needs of its workforce. The 
current model is not ideal for a national employer who wants to offer 
consistent and uniform benefits that employees may access in a user-
friendly way.

    Both before and during COVID-19, IBM has continually sought 
feedback from our employees about how they are doing and to determine 
their needs. We design our benefit programs accordingly and customize 
leave benefits to address employee priorities. For example, in response 
to employee feedback, we added paid care leave to support IBMers and 
their families through personal and family situations. Paid care leave 
can be used to care for a family member, celebrate a marriage, or for 
bereavement. Family care, one aspect of paid care leave, is typically 
covered by paid family and medical leave laws, yet marriage and 
bereavement leave are not. Our focus continues to be addressing the 
particular needs of our employees whether or not a particular leave 
type is required by law.

    We recognize that not all workers have access to generous paid 
leave benefits, and gaps remain that need to be filled. All workers in 
our country should have access to robust paid leave benefits. The 
Federal Government plays an essential role in filling the gaps in leave 
benefits nationwide and can do that while preserving effective employer 
plans at the same time.
                 The Need for Uniform Federal Standards
    In our view, the dual concerns of enabling employee equity with 
respect to paid leave benefits and eliminating administrative and 
compliance burdens created by inconsistencies in the various state and 
local leave laws should be addressed through a Federal legislative 
solution. We believe that any Federal solution should consider as a 
starting point the Council's Statement of Principles on Paid Leave [see 
Appendix 1.] These principles outline a common-sense approach for 
building on the generous leave programs already provided by the 
Council's national employer members. Those companies are at the 
forefront of innovative benefit solutions for their employees. The goal 
of ensuring access to paid leave programs for all workers on an 
equitable basis cannot be realized without leveraging private sector 
solutions.

    As such, IBM strongly supports a Federal legislative solution that 
would provide employers the flexibility to offer a paid leave program 
that meets a single set of standards for employees nationwide. If this 
can be established, employers could offer paid leave programs that meet 
uniform criteria while satisfying compliance requirements throughout 
the country. This would also offer employees nationwide consistent 
benefits regardless of where they work or live. This approach would not 
be new or novel. Congress has made possible both flexibility within 
certain parameters for different employers and workforces as well as 
Federal uniformity for employers who operate in more than one state, in 
the design and operation of their health and retirement plans.

    This proposed national approach to paid leave provides the kind of 
flexibility required for employers to ensure their paid leave policies 
address employees' specific needs and priorities, while also reducing 
costs and eliminating administrative complexity.
                                Outlook
    We remain optimistic about the prospects for a Federal legislative 
solution that can achieve two important goals: create an environment 
where all American workers gain access to paid leave benefits and 
enable nationwide employers to provide uniform and consistent benefits 
to their employees while relieving the administrative and compliance 
burdens imposed by inconsistent state and local laws. Most recently, 
President Biden's American Families Plan and the Building an Economy 
for Families Act released by U.S. House of Representatives Ways and 
Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, are important steps forward in 
this dialog. The acknowledgement of a need for a Federal solution is 
significant, and we are encouraged that Chairman Neal's discussion 
draft recognizes the important role of employer plans.

    We similarly applaud the bipartisan commitment of the leaders of 
the HELP Committee to thoughtfully gather information and perspectives 
from a range of stakeholders in order to craft a Federal solution that 
meets the Nation's needs. IBM and The American Benefits Council stand 
ready and eager to support you in this important effort.

    Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today. We are 
committed to working closely with Congress and the Biden administration 
to find a balanced solution that allows large employers to continue 
providing innovative and competitive benefits to their employees. I 
look forward to answering any questions you may have.
                               Appendix I

                       American Benefits Council

                 STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLES ON PAID LEAVE

          American Benefits Council member companies recognize 
        the importance of paid family and medical leave and paid sick 
        leave benefits and they provide generous paid leave to their 
        workforces.

          Paid family and medical leave programs are important 
        for workers so they can meet the needs of parenting, care for a 
        member of their family who is ill or address their own illness.

          Paid sick leave is an important public health and 
        safety measure because it helps ensure that individuals who are 
        ill do not feel compelled to come to the workplace, where they 
        might infect co-workers and members of the public.

          The American Benefits Council supports Federal 
        legislation to expand access to paid family and medical leave 
        and paid sick leave consistent with the following principles:

                Y  Employers must have the ability to treat workers 
                equitably. Similarly situated workers for the same 
                employer should expect their eligibility to receive 
                paid leave, and the benefits and administration of the 
                leave program, to be consistent wherever in the United 
                States they live or work.

                Y  Federal standards for paid leave programs must 
                ensure that employers operating in more than one 
                jurisdiction are not subject to the cost and 
                administrative burden of complying with various state 
                or local paid leave requirements that may be 
                inconsistent or even contradictory.

                Y  The Federal standards for national employers must be 
                reasonable, affordable and administrable.

                Y  To simplify the administration of paid family and 
                medical leave benefits, the Federal Family and Medical 
                Leave Act definitions and standards should apply.

                Y  Employers that adopt and comply with Federal paid 
                leave standards must be deemed to be in compliance with 
                all state or local paid leave requirements.

                Y  Employers should have flexibility to design and 
                administer innovative paid leave benefits since what is 
                best suited for one company's workforce or industry may 
                not be best suited for another.

                Y  Federal paid family and medical leave legislation 
                should protect and build on private sector solutions 
                that would allow employers to provide coverage either 
                through self-funding and/or private insurance.

                Y  Paid family and medical leave programs should be 
                designed, operated and funded by the private sector for 
                maximum efficiency and to ensure that payroll taxes 
                needed to fund existing government programs are not 
                diluted in order to finance new governmental programs.

                Y  Federal, state and local governments should address 
                gaps in access to paid leave benefits for workers not 
                covered by private sector employer plans to ensure that 
                workers are protected from the hazards to health, 
                family and income that may result from a lack of paid 
                leave.

          To minimize disruptions in union workplaces, Federal, 
        state or local paid leave legislative changes should defer to 
        the collective bargaining process and not require any party to 
        a collective bargaining agreement to reopen negotiations of the 
        agreement or to apply until the existing agreement is 
        renegotiated by the parties or expires.
                                 ______
                                 
    The Chair. Thank you very much.
    We will turn to Ms. Milito.

   STATEMENT OF ELIZABETH MILITO, SENIOR EXECUTIVE COUNSEL, 
  NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS, WASHINGTON, DC

    Ms. Milito. Thank you, Chair Murray and Ranking Member Burr 
for inviting me to speak today. I also thank the other 
Committee Members and staff who are in attendance.
    My name is Beth Milito, and I am an attorney in the 
National Federation of Independent Business Small Business 
Legal Center. NFIB is a member-driven organization that 
represents about 300,000 small and independent businesses 
across the Country.
    Small businesses employ nearly half the Country's private 
sector workforce, and when small businesses succeed, 
communities and local economies succeed. Consider the very type 
of small businesses you frequent--pizza parlor, auto shop, dry 
cleaner, hair salon. Some have employees that are strictly full 
time; others, strictly part time or hourly. Some have both.
    These are the typical NFIB members who employ five to ten 
individuals. Only about 12 percent have a human resources 
professional. The business owner or spouse is often the H.R. 
point person. Over 50 percent of NFIB members still do payroll 
in-house.
    I describe our membership to illustrate one of the key 
points of my testimony: there is no such thing as a one-size-
fits-all policy that works for every business or every 
industry.
    I understand the good intentions behind various proposals 
to mandate leave. But, NFIB and its members have long opposed 
leave requirements for two reasons: inflexibility and cost.
    First, innovation and flexibility are critical to small 
business survival. The COVID-19 pandemic showcased small firms 
that thrive by innovating, pivoting, and adapting to their new 
circumstances. Small firms depend on flexibility not only to 
boost sales and manage business operations, but to establish 
employee benefits, which includes paid time off.
    The majority of small businesses provide flexible, mutually 
beneficial arrangements that allow employees time off when 
necessary in a fiscally responsible way. Small business owners 
recognize the value of providing paid leave to employees since, 
after all, small businesses need to bid for and retain talent 
just like all other firms. And, to the extent that they can, 
small businesses provide paid leave voluntarily to remain 
competitive and attract talent.
    Currently, finding qualified workers is the No. 1 cited 
problem for small business owners, surpassing taxes and 
regulations. And one of the primary ways in which small 
business attract and retain workers is by providing flexible 
leave policies that fit the needs of their employees and the 
businesses.
    To the extent that small firms do not offer paid leave, 
this reflects the reality that some small firms simply cannot 
financially afford to offer this benefit. If you can only 
afford to give your workers 10 days of paid time off and the 
government mandates 5 days of paid sick leave, then your 
employees have only 5 days left for vacation.
    This leads me to my second concern with leave mandates. 
Leave, paid or unpaid, is not a free benefit for employees. The 
unanswered question with a leave mandate is, who is going to 
pay? There is a cost with these proposals and not all business 
owners can absorb the cost.
    In a small business with a finite amount of resources, this 
means less money available for wage increases, health 
insurance, and hiring additional employees. It also means more 
time and money devoted to complying with workplace laws.
    I mentioned earlier that small business owners typically 
have few administrative staff and little human resources 
experience. Nearly all leave proposals, paid or unpaid, would 
impose recordkeeping requirements, including leave tracking, 
accrual, notification, documentation, and reporting.
    When one state considered and adopted a paid leave proposal 
a few years ago, the legislative record was replete with 
opposition from small businesses. And consider this submission 
from a small business owner.
    Quote, we compete in a world market and everything the 
state or Federal Government does burdens us with more and more 
unfettered mandates that make us less competitive in world 
markets. So, now I have fewer employees. And since there is not 
enough income after all of my employment costs are met, I end 
up not getting paid anything for my family for all the work 
that I do.
    I could go on and on, but the bottom line is that we 
farmers do not make enough to subsidize all the wonderful 
benefits that you would like to see employees entitled to. I 
have workers asking for work, and there is plenty for them to 
do. But, at the high costs that the state requires me to pay, I 
have to limit the number that I can hire.
    It may seem great to mandate more benefits to employees, 
but the hidden costs are fewer jobs.
    Small businesses generate 40 percent of U.S. economic 
activity. So, the fundamental truth is, we need small 
businesses to stay alive in order to maintain a healthy 
economy.
    Fourteen months after the outbreak of the pandemic, the 
small business economy remains fragile, and mandated leave laws 
represent a significant challenge for small businesses. 
Mandates are generally not flexible, nor affordable.
    On behalf of the small business owners of NFIB, thank you 
again for inviting me to appear before the Committee.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Milito follows:]
                 prepared statement of elizabeth milito
    Thank you to Chair Murray and Ranking Member Burr for holding this 
hearing and inviting me to speak today. I also want to thank the 
Committee Members and staff who are attending today.
                              Introduction
    My name is Elizabeth Milito, and I work in the National Federation 
of Independent Business's Small Business Legal Center. NFIB is a 
member-driven organization that represents about 300,000 small and 
independent businesses. NFIB members define our neighborhoods, fill our 
communities with character, create local jobs, and homegrown economic 
opportunity for small businesses owners and their employees alike: 
local hardware stores, independent restaurants, florists and barbers, 
plumbers, paper companies, roofers, landscapers and mechanics, fitness 
and retail boutiques. These are NFIB members.

    Small businesses employ nearly half the country's private sector 
workforce. \1\ When small businesses succeed, communities succeed. A 
strong, vibrant small business eco-system supports local tax bases, 
governments, and schools. It is estimated that 67 cents of every dollar 
spent at a local small business is reinvested into the community. \2\ I 
trust you all recognize and value the importance of small businesses in 
your states.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\  Frequently Asked Questions, Office of Advocacy, U.S. Small 
Business Administration (October 2020), available at Frequently Asked 
Questions About Small Business, 2020 (sba.gov).
    \2\  SCORE (November 2019), available at Infographic: How Do 
Americans Support Small Businesses? SCORE.

    I describe our membership and the importance small business has on 
our economy to illustrate one of the key points of my testimony and 
what I think often gets lost in the public policy discussions in 
Washington, DC, when it comes to labor and business issues: there is no 
such thing as a ``one-size-fits-all'' policy that works for every 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
business or every industry.

    Consider the varied types of small businesses you frequent--pizza 
parlor, auto shop, drycleaner, hair salon--some have employees that are 
strictly full-time, others strictly part-time or hourly. Some have a 
combination of both. Perhaps others are seasonal employers. Small 
businesses face complex issues that are unique to them, and when 
solutions to perceived problems are put in place by government, 
policymakers too often paint business with a broad brush and fail to 
consider the unique structure of Main Street employers.

    I am mindful of the well-meaning sentiments behind leave mandates 
and sympathetic to those who have suffered the hardships that might 
lead to proposing leave mandates. NFIB believes, however, that 
inflexible and costly leave mandates inadvertently affect the 
livelihood of many and should be considered in the context of the 
impact on this country's economic environment and the flexibility many 
employees receive from their employers in difficult situations.

    Small business owners can and do offer support to employees in 
their lives away from work, whether it is for their own care or to care 
for a parent, child, or other family member, or to incentivize an 
employee to get vaccinated, but they must have flexibility in creating 
a policy that works for both the employees and the business. Time-off 
for sick and family issues is currently worked out in small businesses 
across the country every day without government intervention. Mandates, 
whether paid or unpaid, drive up costs and force businesses to cut 
jobs.

    NFIB has long opposed inflexible or mandated leave requirements for 
a variety of reasons. But today, I would like to focus on three 
concerns of NFIB and its members: (1) small businesses' fight to 
survive during the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted problems with well-
intentioned mandates; (2) flexibility, not mandates, is the key to 
making small businesses employers of choice in our communities; (3) 
leave proposals generally impose inordinate complexity and costs on 
small businesses.
         Small Business Concerns About Mandated Leave Policies
        1. Small Businesses Fight for Survival During COVID-19: 
        Problems with Well-Intentioned Mandates

    In February 2020, employment rates were at historic highs and the 
coronavirus was still novel. Within 4 months, COVID-19 had economically 
devastated our country. It hit hardest the small businesses that are 
both critical to our economy's growth and vulnerable to disasters.

    Whether it was a winery in Oregon, a theater in San Diego, a coffee 
shop in Boston, a restaurant in Michigan, a summer camp in Virginia or 
a hotel in New Jersey, coronavirus was devastating. According to a 
Harvard Business Review study, the vast majority of small businesses 
had less than two months of cash on hand to deal with the pandemic's 
economic shocks. The median business with monthly expenses over $10,000 
generally did not even have enough cash to cover 2 weeks of their 
spending. As a result, the outbreak left few, if any, small businesses 
unscathed. \3\ Furthermore, the policy responses did not always work 
out as planned. As of September 2020, Yelp had estimated that 66,000 
small businesses will never reopen, and in the food-service industry 
alone, 110,000 businesses, \4\ or 17 of all U.S. restaurants, have 
closed, according to a survey from the National Restaurant Association. 
\5\ The Federal Reserve more recently reported that the pandemic 
resulted in a business closure rate about one-quarter to one-third 
above normal with ``130,000 excess firm exits.'' \6\ In short, the 
small business half of the economy was significantly damaged by the 
COVID-19 pandemic.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \3\  A Way Forward for Small Businesses, Harvard Business Review 
(April 13, 2020), A Way Forward for Small Businesses (hbr.org)
    \4\  Yelp Economic Impact Report (September 2020), available at 
Yelp: Local Economic Impact Report (yelpeconomicaverage.com)
    \5\  National Restaurant Association press release Restaurant 
Industry in Free Fall; 10,000 Close in Three Months. National 
Restaurant Association (December 2020).
    \6\  Business Exit During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Non-Traditional 
Measures in Historical Context, The Federal Reserve (April 2021) 
(``Taken together along with some prudent guesswork, our sector-level 
results suggest economywide excess establishment exit--that is, exit 
above and beyond pre-pandemic rates--was likely below 200,000 
establishments during the first year of the pandemic, implying an exit 
rate about one-quarter to one-third above normal.''), available at 
Business Exit During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Non-Traditional Measures in 
Historical Context (Federalreserve.gov).

    The NFIB Research Center has conducted a series of surveys over the 
last 14 months assessing the impact the pandemic has had on small 
business owners. These surveys have shown that many small businesses 
are still struggling to survive as economic conditions and business 
restrictions remain serious since the national emergency declaration 
concerning the COVID-19 outbreak. \7\ Owners continue to adjust 
business operations with 12 percent of small business owners reporting 
that they will have to close their doors if current economic conditions 
do not improve over the next 6 months. As the small business half of 
the economy emerges from the public health crisis, it is critically 
important that small firms have a solid foundation from which to 
operate and invest in their business. Relief efforts by the 
Administration and Congress have allowed many to remain afloat, but 
there is still work ahead.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \7\  NFIB Covid Small Business Survey 17 (April 23-28, 2021), 
available at Covid-19-17-Questionnaire.pdf (nfib.com).

    The best path for small businesses to recover is to get as many 
Americans vaccinated as possible, and quickly, so Main Street can fully 
reopen. In the meantime, some small businesses may continue to need 
economic assistance in the form of grants, such as the recently opened 
Restaurant Revitalization Fund, or tax incentives, such as the Employee 
Retention Tax Credit, to survive. The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) 
was extremely popular with small business owners with 73 percent of 
NFIB members receiving a PPP loan in 2020. \8\ Outside of some initial 
implementation and funding concerns, the PPP was very effective in 
helping small employers maintain payroll as well paying for other 
eligible expenses that were critical in business operations.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \8\  Covid-19-17-Questionnaire.pdf (nfib.com).

    But there have also been COVID-19 related programs that have made 
life more difficult for small business owners. The paid sick and family 
leave mandate enacted within the Families First Coronavirus Response 
Act, and specifically targeted at small business owners, was 
challenging for many small business owners. Nearly half of small 
employers have had employees take COVID-19 related sick leave or family 
leave, however, only 41 percent of those have claimed the available tax 
credit to reimburse those expenses. \9\ The terms and conditions of the 
mandate are complicated, and the credit is difficult to claim for many 
small employers who have to navigate both programs themselves. 
Moreover, the IRS continues to experience delays in processing employer 
reimbursement for FFCRA leave. \10\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \9\  NFIB Covid Small Business Survey 17 (April 23-28, 2021), 
available at Covid-19-17-Questionnaire.pdf (nfib.com).
    \10\  IRS Statement about Form 7200 Payments. Internal Revenue 
Service.

    The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are ongoing. While some 
businesses have largely recovered from the initial decline, others 
continue to lag. \11\ Whether business closures become permanent, will 
depend in part on policy responses. At a time when small businesses are 
confronted with the worst pandemic in more than 100 years, Congress 
should not saddle them with a costly new mandate that will further 
damage the fragile economic recovery.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \11\  The Effects of COVID-19 Pandemic on Small Businesses, U.S. 
Small Business Administration (March 2021), available at The Effects of 
the COVID-19 Pandemic on Small Businesses (sba.gov).

        2. Small Businesses and Employee Benefits: Flexibility Makes 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Small Businesses Employers of Choice in Our Communities

    The term employer of choice is often associated with big 
corporations that have access to Cadillac employee benefit programs and 
seemingly endless resources to throw around, but the reality is that it 
does not have to be that complex or challenging. Small businesses have 
demonstrated time and again that being an ``employer of choice'' means 
becoming an employer that potential and existing employees want to work 
for. Small businesses do this by offering competitive compensation and 
investing in employees and their communities.

    Unfortunately, however, mandated leave proposals often envision a 
one-size-fits-all mandate that would handicap businesses' ability to 
attract workers at a critical time. Across the Nation, small business 
owners are seeing a growth in sales but are stunted by not having 
enough workers. Finding qualified employees remains the biggest 
challenge for small businesses and is slowing economic growth. Owners 
are raising compensation, offering bonuses and benefits to attract the 
right employees.
    The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index rose to 99.8 in April, an 
increase of 1.6 points from March. \12\ The Optimism Index has 
increased 4.8 points over the past 3 months since January but a record 
44 percent of owners reported job openings they could not be filled. 
\13\ Finding qualified workers is the number-one-cited problem for 
small business owners, surpassing taxes and regulations. \14\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \12\  Small Business Economics Trends. NFIB (April 2021)
    \13\  Jobs Report and Jobs Data from the NFIB Small Business 
Research Center, NFIB (April 2021)
    \14\  SBET-Apr-2021.pdf (nfib.com) (April 2021).

    One of the primary ways in which small businesses attract and 
retain talented workers is by providing innovative benefits like 
flexible leave policies, designed specifically to fit the needs of 
their employees and their businesses. The majority of small business 
owners already include paid leave in their compensation package. 
According to an NFIB national small business poll, a majority of small 
business owners indicated that they already provide flexible leave. 
Most small employers (73 percent) offer paid time off (PTO) to the 
majority of their full-time employees, and 67 percent of them offer 2 
weeks or more of leave. \15\ The number of days offered is dependent on 
an employee's length of service in 76 percent of small businesses 
offering the benefit. \16\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \15\  NFIB National Small Business Poll, Employee Compensation and 
Small Business (2016), available at http://www.411sbfacts.com/files/
NFIB-SBP-Emp-Compensation2017-v2.pdf.
    \16\  Id.

    Most small business owners work hard to ensure compliance with 
employment and labor laws in a workplace that treats employees fairly, 
but their informal and unstructured nature and more limited financial 
resources require greater flexibility in creating policies and 
solutions. Indeed, small businesses are leaders in flexible working 
arrangements, a key benefit for many of their employees.
    Studies have shown that small businesses are more likely to allow 
employees to change starting and quitting times, work some regular paid 
hours at home occasionally, have control over when to take breaks, 
return to work gradually after childbirth or adoption, and take time 
off during the workday to attend to caregiving or other family or 
personal needs without loss of pay. \17\ Flexible work arrangements 
like these directly correlate with increased employee satisfaction. 
\18\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \17\  Workplace Flexibility: Information and Options for Small 
Business, U.S. Department of Labor Women's Bureau (2015), available at 
https://www.dol.gov/wb/WorkplaceFlexibility-508-FINAL.pdf.
    \18\  Workplace Flexibility Survey--Strategic Use of Flexible Work 
Arrangements, Society for Human Resource Management (2014), available 
at https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/trends-and-forecasting/research-and-
surveys/pages/2014-workplace-flexibility-survey-strategic-use-of-
flexible-work-arrangements-(fwas).aspx.

    During times of emergencies like now, flexibility is even more 
important than ever before. NFIB is monitoring the current situation 
and working to support our members. \19\ We have been providing them 
with the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) guidance 
to prevent workplace exposure, which includes the recommendation that 
employers maintain flexible policies to allow employees to stay home to 
care for themselves or a sick family member. \20\ Employers must be 
prepared for emergencies, as CDC advises, but employers cannot be 
saddled with more mandates and costs. A better solution is to reduce 
regulations and lower taxes so that employers can weather storms and 
adopt flexible policies.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \19\  https://www.nfib.com/content/legal-compliance/healthcare/how-
small-business-can-prepare-for-coronavirus/.
    \20\  https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/guidance-
business-response.html.

    In summary, expanding leave mandates has two results that impact 
flexibility in the workplace. Mandating uniform leave policies for all 
employers cuts off an avenue through which small business owners can 
shine through unique programs that benefit their businesses, their 
customers, their employees, and ultimately their communities. In 
addition, leave mandates increase costs for small employers, which 
almost always limits the flexibility of small businesses to provide 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
benefits that many employees already enjoy.

        3. Small Businesses and Mandated Leave: The Complexity of 
        Compliance and Unforeseen, Unintended, and Hidden Costs

    Small businesses depend on predictability to stay competitive. 
Mandated leave policies, however, further complicate compliance with 
workforce laws for employers and raise costs on businesses. Mandated 
leave is not a free benefit for employees; mandated leave comes with a 
cost that businesses will have to shoulder and will eventually be 
absorbed by the employer, employees, and customers. In a small business 
with a finite number of resources, this translates into less money 
available for wage increases, health insurance, and hiring additional 
employees.

    Small businesses, which are the backbone of our economy, are 
especially vulnerable to the impact of labor mandates. Small firms 
typically have few administrative staff members and little human 
resources experience or regular access to legal counsel. Only about 12 
percent of small businesses have a human resources professional or 
dedicated employee who handles personnel matters. \21\ In the vast 
majority of small businesses, all ``HR'' matters are handled by the 
business owner or an employee who handles back office and 
administrative tasks. This means that the recordkeeping and reporting 
requirements mandated by leave proposals will fall more times than not 
on the business owner. About 50 percent do payroll in-house. \22\ 
Adding a Federal leave mandate to existing state and local labor and 
employment law requirements would complicate an already difficult legal 
and regulatory environment for small businesses and would expose these 
businesses to legal challenges.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \21\  NFIB National Small Business Poll Business Structure (2004), 
available at http://www.411sbfacts.com/files/bizstructurepoll[1].pdf.
    \22\  NFIB National Small Business Poll Tax Complexity and the IRS 
(2017), available at NFIB: The Voice of Small Business--National Small 
Business Poll (411sbfacts.com).

    Understanding and complying with the complexity of a new mandate is 
expensive, both in terms of time and money. According to the Small 
Business Administration, workplace compliance costs small businesses 36 
percent more per employee than it costs large businesses. \23\ Some 
will argue or propose that the solution would be to exempt businesses 
with x number of employees as an attempt to protect small employers. 
There are a few problems here as well. One would be that it could 
discourage growth, hiring, and economic expansion, which is not an 
outcome our country can afford.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \23\  The Impact of Regulatory Costs on Small Firms, SBA Office of 
Advocacy (2010), available at https://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/
The%20Impact%20of%20Regulatory%20Costs%20on%20Small%20Firms%20(Full).pdf
 

    Additionally, whether an employer is subject to the paid leave 
mandate or subject to the unpaid leave mandate, leave laws often impose 
onerous recordkeeping requirements with which small businesses would 
need to comply, including new leave tracking, notification, 
documentation, and reporting requirements. Records would need to be 
maintained to demonstrate compliance. The Family and Medical Leave Act 
of 1993 (FMLA) exempts small employers, those who employ fewer than 50 
employees located within 75 miles of a worksite. We encourage you to 
consider the impact any mandated leave proposals may have on small 
businesses, just as Congress did in 1993 when it chose to exclude the 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
smallest employers from the FMLA.

    NFIB is a member-driven organization. Through NFIB's ballot 
process, members dictate NFIB's positions on Federal and state policy 
matters. And NFIB members have consistently opposed Federal and state 
leave mandates for good reason. The leave mandates impose new costs on 
U.S. employers that would lead to reduced profitability, lost sales and 
production, and lost jobs. In 2015, NFIB's Research Center conducted a 
study to determine the economic impact of the Healthy Families Act. 
Assuming passage and implementation of then-H.R. 932 in 2016, the BSIM 
forecast that the sick leave mandate could result in 430,000 jobs lost 
over a ten-year period. \24\ The cumulative real output lost during 
this period was estimated to be $652 billion. \25\ Job losses at small 
firms would have accounted for 58 percent of all jobs lost, and small 
firms would bear 50 percent of lost output. \26\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \24\  The Economic Impact of H.R. 932 and Mandatory Paid Sick Leave 
on U.S. Small Businesses, NFIB Research Foundation (2016), available at 
https://www.remi.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/320-NFIB-Mandatory-
Paid-Sick-Leave.pdf.
    \25\  Id.
    \26\  Id.

    Ultimately companies and employees should be the ones negotiating 
their leave plans. Many small businesses pride themselves in their 
benefits and position themselves accordingly as ``family friendly.'' In 
a competitive labor market, flexible leave policies are often a benefit 
that small businesses use to stand out and attract workers. But leave 
mandates curtail flexibility in two ways. First, mandating uniform 
leave policies for all employers cuts off an avenue through which small 
business owners can shine through unique programs that benefit their 
businesses, their customers, and their employees. In addition, as 
discussed above, leave mandates increase costs for small employers, 
which almost always limits the flexibility of small businesses to 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
provide benefits that many employees already enjoy.

    A Federal mandated leave program will further complicate the 
patchwork quilt of labor laws that are problematic and confusing for 
employers. In recent years, leave laws have passed in a number of 
states. Some of these state initiatives were funded via payroll 
deductions, only to later be modified to be strictly employer funded. 
Many enacted paid leave mandates additionally incorporate private right 
of action language, which opens small employers up to an increased 
threat of litigation. Nearly all require some form of recordkeeping and 
notice provisions. All leave mandates--paid or unpaid--impose new 
responsibilities on already overburdened small business owners.

    Consider these comments from current NFIB members facing new state 
leave mandates: ``With liability and workers compensation costs going 
up every year . . . we cannot take another mandate that raises the cost 
of doing business. My liability rates went up 22 percent!'' or ``This 
increase in payroll costs would force us to raise our prices, decrease 
existing benefits, or reduce raises. This will hurt our employees; the 
very workers a paid leave mandate would seek to protect.''
    As the economy recovers from COVID-19's economic fallout, NFIB 
recommends that Congress adopt the principle of ``do no harm.'' 
Proposals such as those to more than double the Federal minimum wage to 
$15 per hour, impose paid leave mandates, and create new Federal 
enforcement actions on small businesses will make it even harder for 
Main Street to recover. Making it more expensive to operate a business 
will only serve to hamper the ability of small firms to survive the 
pandemic.
                               Conclusion
    Small business owners get the changing dynamics in the workplace--
they are parents and caregivers, too--and they want to do all they can 
to attract and retain the best employees. But when it comes to 
benefits, flexibility is key for small businesses. Mandated leave laws 
represent a significant challenge for small business owners since 
mandates are generally anything but flexible, simple to comply with, 
and affordable.
    Unlike larger businesses, small firms do not have cash reserves or 
profit margins to absorb the increase in labor costs. Now is not the 
time to saddle small businesses with a costly new mandate that will 
further damage the fragile economic recovery.
    On behalf of all the small-business owners of the NFIB, thank you 
for focusing on this important issue and inviting me to appear before 
the committee. I would be happy to answer questions.
                                 ______
                                 
    The Chair. Thank you.
    We will now begin a round of 5-minute questions of our 
witnesses, and I, again, ask my colleagues to keep track of 
your clock and stay within those 5 minutes.
    Ms. Shabo, let me start with you. The pandemic has 
disproportionately harmed essential workers, and in particular, 
essential workers who are women, people of color, people who 
are paid low wages, and they face higher rates of illness 
because they cannot work from home. And many, especially in our 
low-wage sectors, do not have access to paid sick days and paid 
family leave and medical leave.
    Based on your expertise, how would have a national policy 
ensuring access to paid sick days and paid family and medical 
leave impacted workers and the economy during this pandemic?
    Ms. Shabo. Thank you for that question. I think the 
evidence and the answer is clear that there would have been 
multiple effects.
    First of all, for all of us, COVID would have been reduced. 
We already know that the Families First Act reduced coronavirus 
by 15,000 cases per day, and that is even with a law that only 
applied to somewhere between 25 and 50 percent of the 
workforce. So, imagine----
    The Chair. Because people stayed home and did not impact--
--
    Ms. Shabo. Exactly. Then, survey after survey from the 
Kaiser Family Foundation and the Bipartisan Policy Center has 
shown the number, the share, of workers--and it was 
significant, it was around 30 percent--who lost a job or left a 
job because they were scared of getting sick in their 
workplace. So, some of that obviously had to do with PPE, but 
some of it had to do with lack of access to paid sick time if 
they got sick.
    We know that women, in particular, took paid sick--unpaid 
sick time--sorry, excuse me--unpaid sick time, 
disproportionately, both to care for children who were out of 
school and to deal with the care of a loved one. And that has 
translated, of course, in part, into two million women who left 
the workforce and have not yet gone back.
    We know that especially pregnant women during this time 
faced really terrible choices between being able to continue to 
work and caring for themselves and the health of their 
pregnancy, and, then, what did they do with the newborn when 
childcares were closed. So, myriad problems that could have 
been solved by having a national paid sick days and national 
paid family and medical leave program in place.
    Workers knew that; voters knew that. Asked whether a 
national paid leave program would have helped them through the 
pandemic, an overwhelming majority said yes, and there were no 
divides, really, across party lines because everybody was 
affected by this pandemic and has been affected for years 
before. And, that is why we have seen high levels of support 
for both of these policies, 70 to 80 percent, with very little 
partisan division over the last decade, really.
    The Chair. Thank you. I agree with that.
    Ms. St. Hilaire-Finn, you have run a successful childcare 
and preschool business here in Washington, DC for over 17 
years. Over the course of that time here, Washington, DC put in 
place citywide paid sick days and paid family and medical leave 
programs.
    Based on your experience with the city's paid leave 
policies, tell us how you believe a national paid sick, family, 
and medical leave policy affects childcare providers and other 
small businesses.
    Ms. St. Hilaire-Finn. Thank you, Chair Murray, for the 
question. I think a national program would level the playing 
field for small businesses; that businesses will not have to 
charge a premium for them to afford a national paid leave.
    Also, I think that paid leave would ensure that workers 
stay home when they are sick. As a healthcare professional, we 
see people come to work sick, and many times I have to 
encourage them to stay home. With a national paid leave, they 
would know that they could stay home, concentrate on being 
well, and receive paid--they will not have to choose between 
their health and a paycheck.
    Also, this would--it also helps us to value employees. It 
helps us to retain the best and the brightest. Like has been 
said, most people today are looking for a place where they can 
call home; that they know that when they come in, that they can 
do their best; and when they have to--when they are sick, they 
can stay home and take care of their health.
    The fact that women also bore the most caregiving, paid 
leave would make it easier for women to take care of their 
needs and return to work when they are much better.
    Both programs, paid family leave and paid sick leave, would 
also help boost the economy because a parent staying home when 
they are sick can return and be functional at full capacity, 
providing the best to the economy.
    Thank you.
    The Chair. Thank you very much for that.
    Senator Burr.
    Senator Burr. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    This is fascinating because nobody is opposed to family 
leave. All of our witnesses speak in favor of it. And I heard a 
couple references to the COVID example, and it makes me think 
about the innovators who really responded to something that did 
not exist just a year and 2 months ago. Those small incubator 
companies that came up with diagnostic tests. They came up with 
therapeutic responses. I am not talking about the Pfizers and 
Modernas, big companies, but I am talking about the small ones 
that had the flexibility to work with technology. And, I 
wonder, if they had this series of regulatory mandates, would 
they have even existed then? Would they have been able to 
respond to this?
    In many cases, their employees are made up of employees 
that have chosen to work overtime because they are trying to 
make a company succeed. And, in some cases, they have 
sacrificed pay for some type of stock benefits. Those employees 
with that company have made certain decisions about their 
finances because they want the company to be successful. That 
is their livelihood.
    Marcia, your business is a great model. You serve a very 
special clientele. My grandchildren potentially could be there. 
But, I also remember that downstream from you are the parents 
of these children that are working for a small business that 
may have been represented by NFIB, and that your success is 
reliant on their job and their employment. And if, in fact, 
their employers cannot stay in business, then who is going to 
pay you for the childcare? They are probably going to miss out 
on the educational experience of early childhood learning.
    I have a question to Ms. McManus and Ms. Milito. It has 
been stated today that a national plan is the answer. However, 
national plans do not seem to ever be all they intend to be. 
They do not run so well. Look at Social Security as an example.
    A national solution does not necessarily mean new national 
mandates or new Federal entitlement programs. A national plan 
could mean we make it easier for the private sector to do their 
job, such as providing tax credits for COVID-19 relief. A 2017 
survey showed great support for family leave, but most of those 
surveyed think the employers should provide it, not the 
government.
    My question is this. What could the Federal Government do 
to reduce red tape or provide incentives to make it easier for 
employers to provide paid leave benefits? Let me go to----
    Ms. McManus. Well, thank----
    Senator Burr [continuing]. Ms. McManus first.
    Ms. McManus. Thank you, Senator, for the question. I think, 
as I said in my oral testimony, our view is that what is needed 
is a Federal solution that would provide a sort of level 
playing field for employers and all American workers to have 
access to paid family and medical leave benefits.
    But, we do think that there is lots of room for many 
components to that solution. We believe allowing employers the 
flexibility to leverage private sector solutions and keep doing 
what they have been doing. I think you mentioned incubators, 
right, creative incubators. Allowing employers to continue to 
do that is great.
    We see that there is lots of activity at the state level, 
and that may have a role, as well, to play because we recognize 
that not all employers are IBM, or not all employers are 
members of the American Benefits Council. It may take 
incentives. That may be another tool in the toolbox to help 
employers be able to build the types of leave programs that 
would meet a Federal standard.
    We are in complete agreement. We think it is needed. We 
think all American workers need these types of benefits. And we 
think that building upon what is working today, which is, 
private sector solutions, but having a Federal standard in 
place really would be the most practical way to get at the 
issue.
    Senator Burr. I want to get to Ms. Milito before my time 
runs out. Not all states are California, too, Ms. McManus.
    Ms. McManus. Okay.
    Senator Burr. Ms. Milito.
    Ms. Milito. Thank you very much, Senator Burr.
    Small business owners get the change in dynamics in the 
workplace. They are parents and caregivers, too, and the 
flexibility is key. So, in considering leave proposals, we 
would certainly ask that you consider the impact that a 
proposal would have on small businesses, just as Congress did 
in 1993 when it exempted small employers from the mandate of 
the Family Medical Leave Act, too. And as Congress did last 
March in the Families First Coronavirus Response Act regarding 
expanding the Family Medical Leave Act, that same 50 employee 
exemption.
    Senator Burr, just real quickly, too, you outlined some, 
possibilities in your opening statement, too, which I thought, 
Senator Fischer's tax credits were helpful, too, and there were 
other flexibility arrangements. Expanding comp time, those sort 
of things, that would also be helpful in allowing employees the 
time away from work that they need.
    Senator Burr. I thank you.
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
    The Chair. Thank you.
    We will turn to Senator Casey.
    Senator Casey. Thank you, Chair Murray. I wanted to start 
by asking consent. Madam Chair, I would like to ask unanimous 
consent to include in the hearing record four letters, and 
these letters are from--one is the 100 Day Statement. The 
second is the Center for Law and Social Policy statement; 
American College of Physician statement; and fourth, Maternal 
and Child Health Organization statement. These are four 
statements from roughly 120 experts, organizations, and 
advocacy groups supporting the need for comprehensive national 
paid leave policies.
    The Chair. Without objection.

    [The following information can be found on page 83]

    Senator Casey. Thank you, Chair Murray.
    I wanted to start with a question of access. I will direct 
one or two questions to Ms. Shabo. The access question, I was 
struck by one number. There are so many numbers to contemplate 
here in terms of where we are as a Nation, but one number just 
kind of leaped off the page when I was reading a memo preparing 
for the hearing. It is 20. There is obviously many numbers we 
can talk about, but 20, 20 percent. Twenty percent is the 
percent of private sector workers that have access to paid 
family leave.
    Now, I know we are not only talking about family leave. We 
are talking about leave generally, paid leave generally. But, 
just in that one category of paid leave, family leave, 20 
percent of private sector workers. That is where we are today. 
I do not think anyone can be and is satisfied with that.
    Ms. Shabo, I wanted to start with this question about gaps 
in access that are obviously driven by distinctions between 
what happens to a worker in a low-income--a low-income worker 
and a higher-income worker. We also know that workforces that 
currently lack access to leave are disproportionately women and 
people of color as you and others have testified to. And, as we 
work to create a national approach to these challenges, it is 
critical that these programs reach the people that we hoped 
they would reach and are structured in a way that would allow 
workers to fully take advantage of them.
    In your testimony, you discussed how important it is for 
programs to be designed to encourage take-up and how important 
outreach to workers and families to expand awareness of the 
program. So, if you can talk about that. No. 1, how to design 
paid leave programs; and second, how to conduct public outreach 
to best ensure that workers who need the most will fully 
utilize them.
    Ms. Shabo. Absolutely. Thank you for the question, Senator 
Casey. And I, too, remain very compelled and disturbed by that 
20 percent figure, and in particular by the 5 percent figure 
for low-wage workers, which has only gone up by 2 percentage 
points in the last decade.
    To your question, we know from the state programs, and 
there are now 10, seven of them are in operation. We know that 
there are better and worse ways to design these programs.
    High wage replacement for low-wage workers. The newer 
programs, Washington State, the District of Columbia, 
Massachusetts, and others all have higher wage replacement for 
low-wage workers so that they can afford to take the leave that 
is needed.
    Employment protections. We have talked a lot today about 
the 50 employee carve-out in the FMLA, but what that does is 
disproportionately carve out low-wage workers, workers of 
color, single parents. Particularly in light of the pandemic, 
that will be the case.
    The Families First Act, which included the ability for 
small employers to deny leave to their workers, their parents, 
who needed leave. That, according to the Health and Human 
Services Department disproportionately excluded single parents 
and low-wage parents, as well.
    We need to make sure that job protection is in place.
    We need to make sure that wages are high enough, wage 
replacement is high enough.
    We need to make sure that leave taking is available on a 
gender-equal basis. We know that men are more likely to take 
leave when paid leave programs are in place, particularly when 
benefits replace a substantial share of income.
    On the outreach and education question, we have learned a 
lot about the design of forms, to make sure that application 
processes are clear. So, my colleagues at New America did a 
whole project on that, and others have, as well.
    We need to make sure that there are resources available. 
Outreach to both employers, to help them understand why these 
programs are beneficial to their workers and to them, as well 
as outreach to workers through community-based organizations, 
health centers, and others.
    With the state paid leave programs, what we have seen 
actually is not that there is overuse of these programs, but 
that there is underuse, and it is often because the very 
workers who could benefit most do not know that these programs 
exist.
    Last, just on this point of business that has come up, 
study after study from California, New Jersey, Rhode Island, 
and now New York show that actually businesses, small 
businesses, those under 50, those under 100, are overwhelmingly 
supportive, that they have benefited. They say it is easier to 
navigate the long leaves that their employees might need when 
they need them.
    We know a lot, and there is a lot of work to do to help 
those 80 percent of workers that do not have access to paid 
family leave now.
    Senator Casey. Well, thanks very much. I will submit a 
question for the record, and it will focus on the benefits to 
children, to older workers, as well as people with 
disabilities.
    Chair Murray, thank you for the time.
    The Chair. Thank you.
    Senator Cassidy.
    Senator Cassidy. Yes. Thank you all.
    Ms. Shabo--and again, I have been monitoring two other 
committee hearings, so if I am asking something that someone 
else has asked, I apologize.
    But, I gather that you had financed your paid leave with a 
payroll tax. Now, what we have seen in some states is that, 
say, Google in California is providing a benefit, and when 
California comes and the state provides a benefit, all Google 
does is pull back upon their contribution and allows the state 
to pick up that which formerly Google paid for.
    On net, the patient--excuse me, the patient. I'm sorry. I 
am a doctor, so I always think this way. The beneficiary does 
not get any more money. It is just that which was formerly paid 
by a Fortune 10 company is now being paid by taxpayers. Any 
thoughts about that?
    Ms. Shabo. Yes. I am so glad you asked the question, 
Senator Cassidy. I know this has been a concern for you. I 
think the evidence overwhelmingly shows that in states that 
have adopted paid leave programs, we have not seen the benefits 
be reduced. In fact, Google, Facebook, the tech giants that 
have led on paid leave benefits, have not reduced their 
offerings. Some----
    Senator Cassidy. Excuse me. On net. Just on net. Does the 
beneficiary get the state plus what they were formerly getting 
from the business, or is it that----
    Ms. Shabo. No. I believe----
    Senator Cassidy [continuing]. It is reduced?
    Ms. Shabo [continuing]. Google and Facebook--right. I think 
they self-insure, actually, so they do not draw on the state 
program at all. I--it was----
    Senator Cassidy. What would I be told by others in another 
committee hearing is that there is a reduction in the amount 
that the company puts up, subtracted by the amount that the 
employee would receive from the state program. Are you saying 
that is not true or that you are not sure about that?
    Ms. Shabo. Well, we should look into that and I can get 
back to you on it.
    Senator Cassidy. There was testimony in a Senate Finance 
Committee hearing last year which established that for--and we 
can reference that. I say that because, again, the payroll tax 
that you are suggesting would be highly regressive.
    But, also, I am thinking a lot about how do we bail out 
Social Security and Medicare? If you need to expand payroll tax 
to bail out those two programs, in a sense, you have 
cannibalized the capacity to do so by already raising it for a 
new mandatory benefit. What thoughts do you have about that?
    Ms. Shabo. Well, it is true that the state programs are 
financed through payroll taxes. That is one model that is 
possible for Congress, as well. There is other revenue sources 
that are on the table right now. But, I think, the state 
experience has shown that the very small payroll taxes that are 
levied on employers, employees, or both come back in spades to 
benefit both workers and employers. And----
    Senator Cassidy. Let me just ask, because right now, the 
payroll tax on the employee for Medicare is, like, 7.25, and 
equal amount upon the employer. I gather what you are 
suggesting, though, would be an increase of that amount. So, it 
has been very hard to raise 7.25 to 8.5, for example, with a 
total, twice that if you include the employer's contribution. 
How much do you imagine we would have to increase payroll tax 
if payroll tax was the funding mechanism for a plan such as 
yours?
    Ms. Shabo. I am glad you asked that question. So, the 
Social Security actuaries last year looked at the Gillibrand 
DeLauro bill and estimated that it would be a .62 percent 
payroll tax increase, so less than 1 percent.
    Senator Cassidy. That would be .62 on the employee and 
then----
    Ms. Shabo. No, total.
    Senator Cassidy [continuing]. .62 percent on the employer?
    Ms. Shabo. Social Security actuaries said it would be total 
.62 percent, which is very consistent with where the states are 
in terms of their payroll taxes. And that includes having the 
Social Security cap be the wage base. So----
    Senator Cassidy. The Social Security cap being what? I am 
sorry.
    Ms. Shabo. The wage base for that .62. So, you could bring 
it down even further by using the Medicare cap instead of the 
Social Security cap.
    Senator Cassidy. Now, and to my question of whether or not 
we are cannibalizing our ability to address the shortfall in 
the Medicare and Social Security funds, which are going 
bankrupt within 5 or 6 years or 10 years, depending on which 
fund you are talking about. And, so, this is a clear and 
present danger, if you will. Do you feel as if--I am just 
asking--that the amount that we are putting up to this new 
mandatory benefit would not impede the ability to perhaps 
further raise payroll taxes to bail out these two programs?
    Ms. Shabo. I do not think so, because we are going to be 
looking at people who have higher wages, higher workforce 
participation, more revenues coming into Social Security Trust 
Fund and Medicare as a result of higher wages and more people 
working. So, I think we----
    Senator Cassidy. In a sense, you are dynamically scoring 
this, imagining that there would be--despite raising taxes, 
there would be even more employment, even though typically when 
you raise taxes, you have a fall--you have less employment 
because employers seek increases in productivity to offset the 
increase in taxes?
    Ms. Shabo. Well, yes, and here we are replacing the income 
of people who are working and getting them back into the 
workforce. We are enabling jobs for people who might have to 
leave work otherwise.
    I think this is a different case, and I think the question 
is, how can we afford not to do this. If we were to finance 
through payroll taxes, it would be a small cost for a big 
value, especially for those 80 percent of workers that do not 
have paid family leave right now.
    Senator Cassidy. I will finish with this because I am out 
of time--thank you, Madam Chair--just by saying it does concern 
me that if Google and other big companies are currently 
providing this benefit, and if all--if by increasing or adding 
a mandatory Federal benefit, that would just allow them to 
offload their obligation upon the Federal taxpayers. That is a 
subsidy of the less-well-off for those who are much better well 
off, not the least of which would be a huge company.
    With that, I yield back. Thank you.
    The Chair. Senator Kaine.
    Senator Kaine. Thank you, Chair Murray and Ranking Member 
Burr, and thank you to all of the witnesses. This is a really 
important topic.
    Chair Murray, to begin, I have three letters for the record 
that I would like to introduce. The first one is a letter from 
307 business and management school faculty from 139 
universities. The second is a letter from the NETWORK Lobby for 
Catholic Social Justice, and the third is a letter from the 
Interreligious Working Group on Domestic Human Needs.

    [The information referred to above can be found on page 
100]

    Senator Kaine. When we were prepping for the hearing, I 
just asked my staff, hey, just find what we are hearing from 
Virginians about this; just who is right again, and I just want 
to offer up some thoughts from them.
    Kelly, in Chesterfield County, which is in suburban 
Richmond, she was off work for 6 years to take time out of the 
workforce to care for her two young children, and then she 
started back to work after 6 years.
    ``Our youngest child kept getting sick because she had 
never been in a daycare setting before then.''
    Kelly tried to negotiate with her employer, flex schedule, 
work from home. She was denied. She was forced to use up her 
limited personal time off, which quickly went--which went very 
quickly because of her children's various illnesses, including 
a stay at a local emergency center. As her personal dwindled 
and the prospect rose of having to take unpaid leave, she was 
laid off from her job.
    Shamila, in Fredericksburg, she became paralyzed due to an 
underlying health condition right before COVID hit. She was 
employed full time. She was able to go out on short-term 
disability, but she ended up being hospitalized for over 7 
months and was in a wheelchair. When the short-term disability 
ran out, her job was not able to accommodate her, so she 
applied for unemployment but was deemed ineligible.
    Her husband became her primary caretaker. In the absence of 
paid leave, he used up his paid time off, and then all the 
extra unpaid leave to get her to all her doctor appointments. 
Now they are behind on mortgage payments, son had to drop out 
of college, depleted most of their savings.
    Shamila has been lucky enough to get a new job that allows 
her to work from home, and she is now able to walk, but she 
still faces serious underlying health issues.
    Kind of a different take on this. Amanda, in Norfolk, for 
the most part, she did not need paid sick leave for herself. 
She needed it for other people because she worked in 
restaurants and bars. In those years, she worked with fevers, 
coughs, cold, bronchitis, strep throat, and really just any of 
the other unnamed infections because she did not have health 
insurance during some of those years, so she did not go to the 
doctor unless there was imminent threat to her life.
    At her job, Amanda preps food, makes tea, coffee, folds 
napkins, rolls silverware, serves food, pours drinks, made 
desserts. This is her word. ``If it's going into your mouth or 
across your face, I had my hands on or near it.''
    Working while she was sick was less detrimental to her than 
it was unpleasant, uncomfortable, even dangerous for the people 
that she served.
    Finally, Lee and his husband Randy from Alexandria were on 
vacation in 2018 when they noticed--when Lee noticed lower back 
pain, went to see an orthopedic surgeon.
    At first, the surgeon recommended physical therapy, but 
they needed an MRI that showed a tumor. It kicked off a flurry 
of hospital visits, scans, and appointments with specialists, 
time in the hospital. In the aftermath of this, he had a heart 
attack due to a blood clot.
    But, the good news is both Lee and Randy had paid family 
leave at their employers, and, so, they were able to take care 
of their health without worrying about losing their jobs.
    These are just four of the many stories that I hear. 
Three--two are about the lack of paid health leave causing 
somebody to lose their savings, lose their job; one is the lack 
of paid health leave causing somebody to go to work sick and 
potentially endanger others; and then the fourth is a good news 
story about what paid family or paid sick leave can do.
    My understanding--Ms. Shabo, I will direct this to you. The 
U.S. is the only country in the OACD that does not have 
national paid leave.
    According to a 2014 international labor organization 
report, out of 185 countries and territories with available 
information, only in Papua, New Guinea and the U.S. did not 
have national policies providing paid maternity leave.
    Unpaid sick leave, the U.S. is the only country with a high 
living standard, based on the U.N. calculation of what that 
means, without a national policy guaranteeing workers paid sick 
days.
    What does this say about our values when we are so out of 
step with nations around the world who think it is good for 
workers and also good for the people they serve to not have to 
come to work when they are sick?
    Ms. Shabo. Yes. I mean, this is a question of values. It is 
a question of economics. It is also a question of values. We 
talk a lot about how we care for ourselves. We have just come 
through an unprecedented pandemic where the need to care for 
oneself and one's loved one could not be clearer, and yet 80 
percent of workers do not have paid family leave; 70 percent of 
low-wage workers do not have a single paid sick day. And, we 
are an outlier, as you have said, on paid maternity leave, paid 
parental leave, paid family care leave, and paid sick leave.
    Senator Kaine. Thank you, Ms. Shabo. I am over time. I 
yield back, Chair Murray.
    The Chair. Senator Romney.
    Senator Romney. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    A number of Republicans said--Senator Rubio and myself and 
others have introduced legislation that would provide for paid 
maternity leave, but do so without imposing new costs on 
taxpayers or employers. In our case, we allow people to draw 
from the Social Security fund and then to ultimately pay that 
back through lower benefits down the road at a time when they 
are less in need of the funding.
    You note that this is not a big increase, .6 percent, but 
for a family earning 40--or $60,000 a year, it is $400, and 
that is a big increase for that family earning $600,000 a year. 
And, I mean, it seems like a small percent because when 
government thinks about raising taxes, it is always a small 
percent for us, but it is a very substantial change in the 
living standards of our citizens.
    Why not consider measures that would allow us to provide 
paid maternity leave that do not place additional tax burden on 
employers and employees?
    Ms. Shabo. I assume that question is for me.
    Senator Romney. Yes.
    Ms. Shabo. Well, thank you for the question, and thank you 
for your interest in the issue. I have looked at your proposal 
and appreciate the contribution to the dialog.
    A couple of concerns that I have. First, your proposal 
would cover just leave for new parents, which is only 25 
percent of people who need access to paid leave in a year. Most 
people use it for their own serious health issue. Another 25 
percent or so need it to care for a family member who is sick.
    On the merits itself of the policy, while I appreciate the 
intent, what will happen is that those workers who choose to 
take paid leave when a child is born will then have to work 
longer, and they will take a lifetime benefit cut. So, the 
amount that we are talking about, the small contribution that 
you would make under the Family Act model, would help those 
families who would otherwise lose an average of $9,000 when 
they need to take a paid family or medical leave. They would 
have access to a family leave benefit that would allow them to 
take leave for multiple number of purposes.
    Two, these are the very same people, women in particular, 
low-wage workers, who have lower lifetime Social Security, 
lower earnings, which means lower Social Security benefits. So, 
these are the very people who cannot afford a lower Social 
Security benefit when they get to retirement. And, they may be 
in very physically taxing jobs so that they are not actually 
able to delay taking their Social Security benefits when they 
get to retirement.
    Again, I appreciate the intent, but I worry that the very 
same people who are going to need paid leave when they have a 
new child are also the people who need more robust retirement 
security when they get to that part of their lives. And I do 
not think we need to ask those people to tradeoff against 
themselves. I think we can create----
    Senator Romney. Excuse me.
    Ms. Shabo [continuing]. A program----
    Senator Romney. There is also provision for people to add 
to their working life as opposed to retirement at the same age, 
but a little longer period of time.
    The challenge, of course, is that if every problem we deal 
with is simply by raising taxes, why, we end up burdening the 
American taxpayer. We violate the President's pledge not to 
raise taxes on people earning under $400,000 a year, and we 
depress the economic growth, which allows people to have good 
jobs and rising wages.
    With regards to childcare and the need for kids to have 
childcare, the--broadly speaking, looking at the Democratic 
proposals with regards to childcare, there seems to be a very 
significant bias toward providing childcare and pre-K education 
and so forth, which encourage, if you will, women and men going 
into the workforce as opposed to saying, hey, if one of you 
wants to stay and raise the child, that is acceptable, too. It 
does seem like the Administration strongly prefers getting kids 
out of the home and getting both parents into the workforce.
    I understand there is an economic reality to that, or 
advantage to that, and yet, I also think there is a 
developmental advantage to a child--if a parent, if parents, 
want to have one or both remain home to raise a child, that 
there is a childrearing advantage to that, as well.
    Are you concerned--and I guess I am going to direct this to 
the member of this panel that is responsible for childcare. Are 
you concerned that too much focus on Federal mandates actually 
may be detrimental to the effects on children who might 
otherwise be raised with the intensive involvement and 
investment on the part of the parent, or one of the parents, 
for that child?
    Ms. St. Hilaire-Finn. Thank you, Senator, for that 
question. Yes, I think two things here. For one thing, children 
develop better in an environment where they can engage with 
others besides their family members. Allowing a child to be in 
a setting where they can develop their cognitive and their 
social/emotional skills will allow the parents to go to work 
and not have to worry about their child falling behind by the 
time they are ready for kindergarten.
    Senator Romney. Let me just interrupt here. Your first 
point was that--make sure I understand--you believe it is----
    Ms. St. Hilaire-Finn. Sure.
    Senator Romney [continuing]. Better for a child to be--not 
be in the home, in their neighborhood, with parents--let's say 
a 3-year old or a 4-year old child. They are better being in a 
professional childcare center, approved by the government, than 
being in their home and in their neighborhood?
    Ms. St. Hilaire-Finn. Well, it is more beneficial for the 
child. Children learn better in a setting outside the--with 
Families First, always the family is the child's best teacher.
    Senator Romney. I did not----
    Ms. St. Hilaire-Finn. But, in terms of the child's----
    Senator Romney. I did not realize I was at a disadvantage 
because I was raised by my mom, who stayed home.
    I guess what you describe is a perspective on the part of 
the Administration, which I find contrary to personal 
experience and contrary to the perspective of many parents. I 
would think that, as we think about the policies that we want 
to have with regards to childrearing, that we would give 
authority to the parents to make that decision as opposed to an 
administration to make it for them.
    Ms. St. Hilaire-Finn. Sir, yes. Senator, again, parents are 
the first teachers and the child's preference is to be with the 
family. But, if the family cannot allow to do that, it is 
greatly beneficial for a child to be in a setting where they 
can get the support to develop their social, emotional, and 
cognitive skills. We have--studies have shown that our children 
outside of the family who are in set--in group care setting do 
much better socially, emotionally, and cognitively.
    Senator Romney. Thank you.
    Ms. St. Hilaire-Finn. I know we do not want to defer for 
the Nation to take care of a parent's responsibility, but it is 
a partnership and it helps foster the child's development 
better than just being with the parent.
    The Chair. Senator Hassan.
    Senator Hassan. Thank you, Madam Chair and Ranking Member 
Burr. Thank you to our witnesses, all of you, for being here 
today to discuss a really important issue.
    Expanding access to paid leave would help families across 
Country balance needs at home and at work.
    Madam Chair, before I start my questions, I would like 
unanimous consent to enter into the record letters from three 
advocacy groups supporting paid leave.
    The Chair. Without objection.

    [The following information can be found on page 131]

    Senator Hassan. Ms. Shabo, according to a report by AARP 
and the National Alliance for Caregiving, more than 21 percent 
of adults reported caring for an adult or a child in the 
previous 12 months. The majority of adults who have both a job 
and caregiving responsibilities reported making at least one 
change in their employment, such as cutting back work hours, 
taking a leave of absence, or leaving their job entirely to 
care for a loved one. The demand for caregiving is likely to 
only grow as our population is aging.
    How do you believe that access to paid caregiving leave 
will benefit workers, their families, and our entire economy?
    Ms. Shabo. Thank you so much for the question, Senator 
Hassan. It is interesting that you ask this question. There was 
a study that came out just yesterday in the National Bureau of 
Economic Research showing that when caregivers have access to 
paid family leave, when a spouse has an injury and cannot be 
working anymore, the paid family leave is correlated with more 
workforce retention for caregivers. And that is consistent with 
research from California, as well, which shows labor force 
impact for working family caregivers who have access to paid 
leave, both in the short term and the long term.
    If you think about it this way, you are in a family, there 
is a serious health condition, your child might have a 
disability, your child might get sick, might have cancer, you 
need to be able to be there with them in the hospital. The 
child will recover faster. The child or the person with special 
needs will get the care that they need. The person who is ill 
will get better faster. There are fewer medical complications. 
And the caregiver can either get back to work, or if long-term 
care is needed, they can help find a paid caregiver, and that 
is another piece of the care economy we need to pay attention 
to--paid caregiver to help.
    These are families, these are people who are working 
middle-class jobs, low-wage jobs. They are doing everything 
they can to put food on the table, to keep paying the rent. 
Paid leave is a support that helps that. It helps people be 
financially independent. It helps them continue to work. It 
helps them to have higher earnings over time. And, it is 
beneficial to caregivers, care recipients, businesses who do 
not have to bear the costs of turnover, who do not have to look 
for new workers, and the economy overall.
    Senator Hassan. Well, thank you.
    I want to follow-up a little. As we have discussed today, 
caregiving obligations disproportionately fall to women and can 
impact the number of women in the workforce. This has been 
exacerbated by the pandemic with nearly two million women who 
left work in the last year, still out of the labor force. In 
New Hampshire, an estimated 15,000 workers remained out of work 
in March because of caregiving responsibilities.
    Ms. Shabo, can you discuss how access to paid leave can 
help ensure that more women are able to participate in the 
workforce?
    Ms. Shabo. Absolutely. And this is an issue we saw long 
before COVID. It will be an issue that is with us past COVID. 
Women, in particular, bear disproportionate caregiving 
responsibilities for children and for older adults.
    What I am really concerned about and looking at is we have 
now had this period of time where the gender norms of 
caregiving have now been reinforced by the pandemic. The wage 
gap, cultural norms, expectations, dynamics within families, 
have led to women doing disproportionate caregiving during 
COVID.
    Both women and men actually have provided care, and there 
is really interesting survey data that has come out recently on 
that. But, women are the ones who have disproportionately left 
the workforce or cut down on their hours.
    I am really actually concerned about the biases that then 
get reinforced as employers are then thinking about hiring, 
reinvigorating their workforces. What does that mean for their 
hiring decisions? What are the biases that they then bring as a 
result of this pandemic?
    Access to paid leave that is gender equal will help to 
mitigate some of that. It will help to mitigate the cost that 
employers might fear. But, I think we have to look really 
carefully at this. Retail, hospitality, these sectors that are 
bringing workers back on are bringing women back on in lower 
proportion to their share of the industry workforce.
    Senator Hassan. That is helpful. Thank you.
    One more question for you. With COVID-19 vaccines widely 
available to adults, some workers have cited their lack of 
access to paid time off as the reason for not yet getting the 
vaccine. So, that is why Congress included employer tax credits 
to help cover the costs of providing this leave time in the 
American Rescue Plan.
    Can you explain the importance of employees' access to paid 
leave in order to get the COVID-19 vaccine and how the recent 
tax credits can expand this access to more employees?
    Ms. Shabo. Absolutely. And it was so good to see the Rescue 
Plan expand the purposes for which tax credits can be used. It 
has been good to see the Administration doing outreach to small 
businesses to make sure that they know that those tax credits 
are there for them.
    But, if a worker does not have a paid sick day--and 70 
percent of low-wage workers do not, 25 percent of overall 
workers do not--they might not have time to go get a vaccine, 
and they certainly might not have time to deal with the side 
effects that we hear the second dose especially provides. And, 
if you are fearful about getting that vaccine, that means you 
are--continue to be exposed in your workplace. You might 
continue to put others at risk.
    This is a public health imperative that businesses that are 
eligible for that tax credit use it and that other businesses 
give workers paid sick days for the vaccination.
    Senator Hassan. Thank you, and thank you, Madam Chair.
    The Chair. Senator Tuberville.
    Senator Tuberville. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    As we come out of this pandemic, our small businesses are 
in worse shape than they have ever been, and a lot of them are 
just hanging on by a thread and they need every bit of help 
they can get, from the Federal level.
    Ms. Milito, why is now the time to add on another Federal 
mandate to small businesses who are already struggling?
    Ms. Milito. Thank you, Senator, for the question.
    I would say that small businesses have done all they can to 
keep their employees safe, their customers safe, and their 
communities safe, because it was about protecting the small 
business owner him or herself, too. I would say they played a 
critical role in helping get the coronavirus under control. 
They shut down their businesses, a lot of them. And offering 
leave, whether mandated or not, was the best way to protect 
their employees and their communities there. And they are now, 
once again, being called upon, as Ms. Shabo just talked about, 
to play a role in encouraging their employees to get the COVID 
vaccine.
    At NFIB, we are doing all we can to educate our employees 
about that. But, it is a huge challenge. Senator Cassidy--or 
Casey, sorry. Senator Casey, it was, talked about the public 
outreach, and the employer outreach is so important. I mean, 
our survey shows that claiming those tax credits--I mean, this 
all sounds very easy and very nice, but the reality is it is 
very not. Seventy percent of small business owners did offer 
their employees COVID leave under the Families First, but only 
43 percent have claimed the tax credit out of those 70 percent, 
and the reason is it is too complicated. It is a hassle. And, 
the IRS is now woefully behind in issuing reimbursement.
    These were small businesses that were promised money, and 
now, almost a year later, some of them still have not received 
the reimbursement there.
    Again, it sounds easy, it sounds noble, but it is 
incredibly difficult. But, again, that said, small businesses 
by and large offer flexible paid leave benefits because it is 
the right thing to do, and they continue to do that throughout 
the pandemic.
    Senator Tuberville. Yes. A national paid leave program is 
another huge step, though. Why can't states decide on a paid 
leave program for that works for them, Ms. Milito?
    Ms. Milito. That is a great question, too. Because, for 
larger employers, I can understand the enticement in having--in 
supporting a national paid leave policy that gives an advantage 
and all that.
    But, Ms. Shabo talked about, the benefits of employers and 
I think, states that have paid sick leave--New York, Rhode 
Island, Connecticut. I mean, those are just three states, they 
are blue states, and replicating what those states are doing on 
a national level is just unworkable. I mean, saddling our 
Country right now with another national, Federal entitlement 
program is just something that we cannot afford to do, and 
something--we have asked our members--they would not support.
    Yes, there is overwhelming support for, paid leave 
programs. On paper, it sounds good. But, when you ask how you 
are going to pay for it, support drops dramatically. And a Cato 
study from 2018 showed just how much it drops when you ask 
about, the tradeoffs, higher payroll taxes. People do not want 
that. Giving up raises. People do not want that.
    Senator Tuberville. Thank you.
    Ms. McManus, we certainly appreciate your insight and 
experience dealing with this position from a large company like 
IBM. How would these same policies play out in a small business 
versus a large corporation?
    Ms. McManus. Thank you, Senator, for the question. Yes, I 
think the--the issue for the large employer, as I tried to 
articulate, is that we are in multiple states, and so it is 
enormously difficult for us to--us, IBM, a technology company, 
to keep up with the rapid pace of legislation that is happening 
at the state and local level. And, frankly, we want to provide 
a benefit that is uniform to all of our employees. It should 
not matter what state you work in from an IBM perspective and 
from the Market Benefits Council perspective. These employers 
want to be equitable and fair to all employees.
    Frankly, it is really challenging for employees. They, as I 
articulated in my oral testimony, may be covered by many, many 
different laws, and that leads to a suboptimization in terms of 
how they are using their benefits, which nobody wants. They 
have very generous benefits available to them because they work 
for these large, multi-state companies, but they may not be 
using their benefits to the best of their ability because, 
frankly, it is just too confusing for them.
    We recognize that small business has a different set of 
challenges. But, we actually go back to the fundamental need of 
all American workers to have a level of protection for their 
own medical issues, taking care of their family when that is 
needed to happen, and we think that a Federal standard 
leveraging on what is working now in the private sector is 
really the way to go.
    Senator Tuberville. Thank you. We keep going back to 
talking about Social Security a little bit, about leaning on it 
and another small tax compared to that. You have to remember, 
now, Social Security is almost broke. We have overspent it and 
we have not been very diligent with it. So, I hope that we 
really consider taxing the American people and taxing, our 
small businesses at a very tough time, especially during this 
pandemic.
    Thank you very much.
    The Chair. Senator Smith.
    Senator Smith. Thank you, Chair Murray and Ranking Member 
Burr. And thanks to everybody on our panel today. It is such an 
important topic, and I am just really grateful for the chance 
to hear what you all are saying.
    I am going to direct my questions to Ms. Shabo, and this is 
what I want to talk about. So, earlier this year, I had a 
really interesting conversation with Secretary Yellen about how 
we grow our economy looking forward and what impact workforce 
participation has on our competitiveness. And, one of the 
things that we talked about was the challenges that women have 
faced in employment in the current economic environment.
    She pointed out something really interesting, which is that 
women's workforce participation, the rate of workforce 
participation for women in the United States, has typically 
been higher than in Europe until recently when we began to fall 
behind. And one of the major reasons that we are falling behind 
in women's workforce participation is because of the lack of a 
national family--paid family leave policy in the United States. 
So, as we discussed this, this is really, as we were talking 
about it, an issue of international competitiveness.
    Ms. Shabo, could you just talk a little bit about this? Do 
you agree that a national--lack of a national paid leave policy 
is contributing to lower workforce participation rates and has 
an impact on our overall competitiveness?
    Ms. Shabo. Absolutely. There is many, many studies out 
there, many analyses, that show reduced labor force 
participation among women and among caregivers when paid leave 
is unavailable. There is quantification--a loss of $500 
billion, to the U.S. economy that predated COVID.
    Conversely, if we had a national paid leave program and 
other policies that promote women's labor force participation, 
McKinsey estimates that we could grow our GDP by $2.4 trillion 
by 2030 if we put policies in place now.
    AARP just did an analysis showing that we could add $1.7 
trillion to GDP if we supported family caregivers.
    Obviously, there is some overlap in those two modeling--
models to show that. But, the bottom line is, yes, our labor 
force participation had been dropping prior to COVID. Our 
women's labor force participation is now at nearly a 40-year 
low with women's labor force at levels not seen since the 
1980's.
    Obviously, some of this will be alleviated as the pandemic 
ends, but we have to solve this problem if we want to have the 
kind of competitive economy in the global marketplace.
    Senator Smith. This question is about an abstract question 
all across Minnesota where I talked to business owners across 
the spectrum who were telling me--regardless of what industry 
sector they are in, they are telling me about the significant 
challenges that they are having to find workers to fill the 
jobs that they want to create. This could be in the ag sector, 
in the service sector, in the healthcare sector. This is a 
story across the board.
    We have had--I have heard some of our panelists and some of 
my colleagues suggest that this, a paid family leave policy, 
perhaps, like what we would propose in the Healthy Families Act 
or the Family Act, that we just cannot afford it, that it is 
too expensive.
    How do you square that argument with this competitiveness 
issue that we are talking about, Ms. Shabo?
    Ms. Shabo. Well, I just think there is no data to bear out 
any of these arguments. Paid sick days and paid family leave 
operate a little bit differently.
    But, with respect to paid family leave, we know that the 
certainty that is created by workers having access to paid 
leave benefits both workers and especially small employers.
    We know that in states that have a contributory payroll 
contribution model, this creates the predictability and 
certainty for employers so that they can mitigate their costs 
so that they can hire replacement workers if they need to.
    With respect to paid sick days where there is a direct cost 
to providing the earned benefit to workers, a few days a year 
for sick time, there is no evidence from any state or city that 
this has contributed to job loss or wage declines or inflation 
or the reduction of other benefits. So, I understand the 
theoretical concerns, but these are not borne out by the data, 
and we now have, a decade or more of experience with these 
policies.
    The sort of idea that blue states are somehow different, it 
does not really pan out when you are looking at states that 
have large and diverse economies as the states that have paid 
leave do.
    Senator Smith. I was once the owner of a small business 
myself, and I can appreciate that small businesses are 
different than large businesses. But, I also can appreciate 
that it is almost impossible for a small business to try to 
solve this kind of a problem on their own if they want to offer 
paid family and medical leave, and that is why I think 
solutions like the Family Act or the Healthy Family Act are the 
right solutions. And especially, when you think about the 
significant, dramatic inequity with less than one in three low-
wage workers having access to a single paid sick day, while 
high-wage workers in this Country in the private sector, 94 
percent of them have access to paid family and medical leave. I 
think it really demonstrates the inequity here, also.
    Senator Smith. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    The Chair. Thank you.
    Senator Braun.
    Senator Braun. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Interesting discussion, because running a small business 
for so many years and the idea of paid family leave makes 
sense. And I think it is another thing that if we could just 
afford to do it, it would be nice to have it, and I can see the 
proposal currently out here does not sound like a lot.
    Currently, I think employers and employees split the burden 
of Social Security and Medicare, 7.65 percent each, 15.3. This 
adds a small percentage.
    But, I think my question, since the merits of paid family 
leave is not, in my mind, that debatable, it would be nice if 
we could have it if we could afford it. It does beg the 
question that in the drivers currently of payroll taxes, Social 
Security and Medicare, I think we have 5.5 years before the 
Medicare Trust Fund is depleted. We have been paying into that 
since the 60's. And the Social Security Trust Fund I think has 
got 12 to 13 years. But, to me, you probably would not even 
need to put any more burden on employers and employees if you 
could just bring those two programs into some type of fiscal 
order.
    Healthcare, for instance, is to where we can gain the most 
dividends if we would just embrace competition, transparency, 
get rid of the barriers to entry, get an engaged healthcare 
consumer. You could bring that trust fund probably back into 
solvency quickly.
    Social Security, we know the variables there, too. You are 
going to need to probably raise the age at which you are going 
to be eligible for it, means tested. I do not think you are 
going to get very many people wanting to put heavier burdens on 
employers and employees.
    My question is for Ms. Milito. What do you think, through 
the eyes of the NFIB, not on the subject matter of paid family 
leave, what do we do with the two big issues in the room? Where 
is the NFIB on addressing Social Security and Medicare costs? 
Because it is going to make all the rest of this a moot point 
soon.
    Ms. Milito. Thank you, Senator, for that question. And 
certainly the unfunded liability with regards to Social 
Security is something that our members have expressed concern 
about, and that is why they are very concerned about any 
additional taxes or burdening the Social Security system any 
more with what I, said would be essentially, depending on the 
proposal, a new Federal mandate.
    I mean, again, we all want to be Santa Claus. It is nice to 
come up with these great, robust benefits, as, I think one of 
the witnesses called them there.
    But, the reality is that not all businesses can afford to 
offer the same plethora of benefits. And it sounds nice, but 
they just cannot do it. But, most of them do it because it is 
the right thing to do, and that is how they retain and attract 
the best talent out there. They are competing with IBM, and it 
is hard to do it, but they are managing to do it.
    Again, a big part of our economy is small businesses, so we 
need to consider small businesses and the imposition that a new 
mandate would have on small businesses, both the employers and 
the employees.
    What is it that these small businesses can afford to offer, 
and what is it their employees want? I was talking to a 
business owner last week. He is an HVAC operator, desperately 
trying to hire new employees.
    He is--his candidates are looking for money. That is what 
he said. It is about money. It is about cash. I do not think he 
has candidates necessarily that are coming in asking for paid 
family leave or paternity leave. Not that those are not good 
benefits, but right now, he has, candidates that are asking for 
top dollar. That is what they want, cash in hand. What is your 
bonus at the end of the year? Maybe they are asking about 
vacation time, but they are not asking necessarily----
    Senator Braun. Real quickly before we run out of time. I 
know that the NFIB is behind transparency ideas on healthcare. 
When it comes to Social Security in terms of means testing, 
raising the age, some of the more difficult questions, and we 
got more time for that, does the NFIB have any position on what 
to do with it?
    Ms. Milito. We would be happy to study any proposals, 
Senator, and we would get back to you on that.
    Senator Braun. If we cannot grapple with that discussion, 
to me, it is a moot point on any of the rest. It would be good 
ideas that would be ignoring, what is going to occur with those 
two trust funds being in big difficulty soon.
    Thank you.
    The Chair. Thank you.
    Senator Rosen.
    Senator Rosen. Thank you, Chair Murray. I appreciate this 
hearing. Thank you for everyone for being here today. I really 
appreciate you.
    I really want to talk about making paid leave work for 
small business owners because that is really the crux of what 
we have to do. That is what all these conversations boil down 
to.
    Ms. St. Hilaire-Finn, I am pleased you could join us today, 
really, to offer your views as the owner of your own small 
business, and also, I understand, as a member of the Main 
Street Alliance, an organization of more than 30,000 small 
businesses.
    Myself, I am a member of the HELP Committee, but also the 
Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, and I 
represent Nevada where small businesses make up over 99 percent 
of businesses in my state. And, so, I think it is critical that 
we bring workers and small business together to find these 
pragmatic solutions that provide real relief for working 
families, particularly as Senator Smith talked about, the 
women's labor force, that decline. It is really concerning that 
we lose women's talent in the marketplace.
    You have noted your support for the Healthy Families Act, 
Chair Murray's paid sick leave legislation. I am proud to be a 
cosponsor of that. So, as a small business owner and member of 
the small business advocacy group, can you tell us why you 
think the approach in this specific bill will work well for 
small businesses?
    Ms. St. Hilaire-Finn. Thank you, Senator Rosen. As a nurse 
and as a childcare owner, it is clear that we need a 
commonsense paid sick day standard like the Healthy Families 
Act to ensure that all employees have access to paid sick time 
without losing wages or their job.
    Also, without sick days, workers show up to work sick, 
costing us all more in the long term. Or, they stay at home and 
risk losing their jobs, which costs the economy, as well.
    Paid sick time is a basic, minimum work standard like 
workplace safety or the minimum wage. We all do our part, and 
we will all benefit.
    Also, studies of cities with paid sick day policies have 
been implemented show that small businesses can adapt and 
support the program.
    Senator Rosen. Well, thank you. I really believe that all 
of our communities, what is the backbone for everything in this 
Country? It is our families and how we care for them, so it is 
really important.
    What do you think the Federal Government, how can we 
provide any more useful resources to small businesses about 
offering these paid leave policies, maybe through the SBA or 
Department of Labor?
    Ms. St. Hilaire-Finn. Thank you again, Senator, for the 
question. Most small businesses need extra help finding out 
more about these programs. The typical small business has no 
H.R. department and limited resources, so we need an intensive 
outreach and education effort to reach small businesses way in 
advance of programs being launched. Okay?
    I found out a lot about Families First from Main Street 
Alliance. Engaging small business organizations should be part 
of this effort. This will also help small business compliance, 
and also help ensure that more employees find out about and can 
apply for the program.
    Senator Rosen. Thank you. I appreciate that answer.
    I would really like to turn to some of the benefits of paid 
leave to business. So, Ms. McManus, I am going to direct this 
question to you.
    Again, Senator Smith said we could grow our GDP maybe by 
over $2 trillion if women re-enter the workplace, so I know 
this is going to be important.
    Ms. McManus, I am pleased to see the American Benefits 
Council, that you have a statement on the principles of paid 
leave and that many of your members, of course, do provide paid 
leave to their employees. And I really recognize and appreciate 
the number of employees in this Country that are really doing 
their best to keep their workers, their families, their 
communities safe and healthy. I am really glad you brought this 
perspective here today.
    Can you tell us about the benefits that your members have 
seen from voluntarily offering paid leave benefits, especially 
during the pandemic?
    Ms. McManus. Absolutely. Thank you, Senator, for the 
question.
    IBM has had a long history of commitment to developing 
programs to help employees better manage their work, their 
family, and their personal responsibilities. And, frankly, we 
think that is key to having an engaged and productive 
workforce. And I think that is a shared sort of vision for the 
Council companies, as well.
    Our programs will offer solutions around, dependent care, 
medical care, care to take care of a family member or--and, I 
would point out, as you did, the pandemic. We had to really 
quickly sort of enhance our package in recognition of the 
public health emergency to provide for backup care, for 
example, for folks who are caring for children, schools were 
closed; or, elderly or other relatives who needed care and the 
caregiver could not be available.
    What we saw, which was quite dramatic--we measure 
engagement all the time at IBM, and what we found was our 
engagement score actually went up by 3 percentage points in 1 
year, and that was the year when everyone was traumatized with 
the public health emergency. Why? Because our employees felt 
supported. And when they feel supported and they are more 
engaged, they are better at their jobs, and that is good for 
American business.
    Senator Rosen. Well, thank you. I see my time is expired. 
That is a great note to leave it on. Our workers have families, 
too. Thank you.
    The Chair. Thank you.
    Senator Lujan.
    Senator Lujan. Thank you, Chair Murray and Ranking Member 
Burr for holding this hearing to discuss the importance of 
expanding access to paid leave to support families. And thank 
you to our witnesses today for making yourselves available and 
for making a difference.
    Ms. Shabo, Latinos are typically paid just 55 cents, and 
Native American women just 60 cents for every dollar paid to 
White, non-Hispanic men. This wage gap illustrates the high 
cost women pay for our Nation's leave policy failures, 
especially for unpaid time spent out of the workforce. The 
United States offers little support for working caregivers, 
especially paid family and medical and sick leave. We need a 
national policy now not only to close the wage gap, but to 
boost our economy and recover from this pandemic.
    Ms. Shabo, would enacting a Federal paid leave policy help 
to close the wage gap for women?
    Ms. Shabo. Yes, sir. Great question, Senator. And these 
issues are so inextricably connected. So, women are more likely 
to take leave if they are in a two-parent family or if they are 
part of a larger family with, male siblings and female siblings 
because of the wage gap. That means that they have lower 
earnings over their lifetime. That means they have more work 
interruptions.
    There is an inextricable link, and it would help to close 
the wage gap if we had paid family and medical leave, 
particularly for Latinas.
    Senator Lujan. You stated in your testimony that critics of 
new spending focus on what paid family and medical leave will 
cost rather than on costs already borne by society. Ms. Shabo, 
how many women have lost jobs since the start of this pandemic?
    Ms. Shabo. Four point five million women have lost jobs 
overall, and two million have still not returned to the 
workforce.
    Senator Lujan. You also state that paid leave would 
strengthen our economy. And according to the National 
Partnership for Women and Families, how many jobs could the 
United States add to its labor force by enacting a national 
paid leave program along with affordable childcare?
    Ms. Shabo. Yes. I believe we could add, or what the 
National Partnership estimates, we could add five million jobs. 
Paid leave and childcare are both job creating, job enabling, 
and job enhancing, and that translates into GDP increases for 
the whole Country, as well as greater economic security and 
retirement security for families.
    Senator Lujan. Now, you mention GDP. Nationally, how much 
GPD could we add to our economy if a national paid leave policy 
were in place?
    Ms. Shabo. Pre-pandemic, DOL estimated $500 billion, along 
with other interventions to help close the gender gap in 
occupation and work. McKinsey estimates $2.4 trillion. So, we 
are leaving a lot of money on the table by our unwillingness to 
enact these policies.
    Senator Lujan. I appreciate that. Thank you so much for 
your responses.
    A national paid sick days and family and medical leave law 
would enable millions of working families, including Latinos 
and Native Americans and African Americans, to not have to 
choose between their health and a paycheck.
    I am a proud cosponsor of the Family Act and the Healthy 
Families Act, which together create a national paid leave 
program by providing workers with up to 12 weeks of paid leave 
and seven paid sick days a year.
    However, without these laws, we see huge disparities in 
workers' access to paid leave. Latinos have the highest labor 
force participation rate and are the fastest growing segment of 
the workforce, yet they are the least likely to have access to 
paid sick leave. Fifty percent of Latinos report having no 
access to paid time off, compared to 34 percent of White 
workers. And Native American workers are 100 percent less 
likely to take leave when needed according to the National 
Partnership for Women and Families.
    Ms. Shabo, yes or no. Are workers without paid sick days 
and family medical leave disproportionately African American, 
Hispanic, and Native American?
    Ms. Shabo. Yes, they are.
    Senator Lujan. Ms. McManus, your company provides generous 
paid sick, family, and medical leave benefits. Why did your 
company choose to provide these benefits? And how has it 
impacted your business and workers, especially workers of 
color?
    Ms. McManus. Thanks for the question, Senator. Well, IBM, 
like many employers, decided to offer these benefits because, 
one, we recognize that there is a fundamental need for that, 
people do need time off to take care of themselves and their 
family members.
    Second, we are in a competitive talent market and we know 
that we need to offer an attractive package in order to attract 
the best and brightest to come and work for IBM and the 
companies that I am representing today in the American Benefits 
Council. So, that is another reason.
    I think, I referenced earlier that, we see a huge uptick in 
our engagement, which is really tied to productivity, and also 
to retention, right, to keeping our employees on the job and 
happy, doing their job, doing their best job, by offering these 
types of programs. If we are there when they need us, then they 
really want to stay and they want to do their best job for us, 
so it is really good for the business, as well.
    Senator Lujan. Thank you. And Chair Murray, my time has 
expired. I do have a question for Ms. St. Hilaire-Finn, but I 
will submit the question to just learn more about what this 
would mean to her business employees with the national paid 
leave policy.
    I apologize I could not get to it, but I will make sure I 
submit the question. I look forward to learning from you, as 
well.
    The Chair. Thank you so much.
    Senator Hickenlooper.
    Senator Hickenlooper. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I want to 
thank each of the panelists for the time taken not just to be 
here today, but for all the preparation and for all the work 
they have been doing.
    Let me start. Ms. Shabo, last year, in the midst of this 
coronavirus pandemic, Colorado voters--so this is a state-wide 
voter initiative--overwhelmingly chose to create a state-wide 
paid family and medical leave program. I think, to my 
knowledge, the first state in the Country to do this by ballot 
initiative.
    I thought what was really unusual about this was that the 
support was high all across the state, across all demographics, 
in, highly Republican El Paso County, in highly Democratic 
Denver County, but also with voters in urban and rural areas. 
And I thought I would like to----
    If you could, just speak a little bit more about the 
benefits of paid leave and paid sick days for people who live 
in rural areas, like the eastern plains of Colorado or some of 
the mountain towns of Colorado.
    Ms. Shabo. Certainly. And yes, the Colorado victory is a 
huge testament to the bipartisan appeal of this policy. It has 
been true in polls nationwide and in every state, but Colorado 
was the first test of that at the ballot, and it was wonderful 
to see that happen.
    Colorado also adopted a paid sick days law in the middle of 
the pandemic through the legislature. So, congratulations to 
your state for being a leader, Senator.
    I am glad that you bring up this question of access in 
rural areas. We know that paid sick days--workers are less 
likely to have paid sick days in rural areas. They are less 
likely to have paid family and medical leave. And, yet, the 
distances that rural people need to travel to get to 
healthcare, to visit a loved one, to seek a specialist's 
attention or input, the distances are higher, access to care is 
harder to get. And for parents, access to infant care is more 
difficult because of childcare deserts.
    There is a huge need in rural areas and, that really speaks 
to why a paid family and medical leave program is important not 
just for people, in cities, but, really, across the Country.
    Senator Hickenlooper. Thank you, and I could not agree 
more. And I do--when you see a voter initiative like this do so 
well across all demographics on a bipartisan level, you do 
begin to get a sense that this is an issue that is ready for a 
national solution.
    Ms. St Hilaire-Finn--and I am also a former small business 
owner, and certainly I always--like almost every small business 
owner, I wanted to do right by my employees, but I was always 
cognizant and being aware of the costs of those efforts. Last 
year's COVID relief package, which included tax credits for 
small business owners, middle size business owners who provided 
paid leave, how did that impact your small business costs and 
what lessons to policymakers--what did you learn about how to 
design a national paid leave policy based on your experience 
over this past year?
    Ms. St. Hilaire-Finn. Thank you, Senator, for the question. 
Well, what COVID taught me and I think other small businesses 
is it calls for paid national family leave. We had to cobble 
together different funding to allow families, our employees, to 
take time off, to feel comfortable coming to work and being 
exposed to a virus.
    As a small business, what I learned is that having the 
Family First CARES Act, really helped. It was pretty much a 
lifeline for us, as I alluded to, because without that, I do 
not know how I could reassure my employees that they could take 
time off when we were exposed to the pandemic, that they would 
be--they would have gotten paid, to continue to provide meals 
and shelter for themselves and their families.
    I think what this has taught me is that we need this on a 
national level. We cannot afford to continue to charge high 
fees just because only some can afford it. But, also, on a 
national level, that all business would have access to provide 
paid sick and family leave. So, this is what it taught me more 
so we had been exposed.
    This patchwork of emergency just because of a crisis, we 
should have this on a permanent and everyday level where 
workers, especially low-paid workers, can feel security in 
their jobs and the work that they perform.
    Senator Hickenlooper. Well, we agree on that. I appreciate 
that.
    Again, I want to thank everybody for putting in the time on 
this panel.
    I yield my time back to the chair.
    The Chair. Thank you.
    Senator Burr.
    Senator Burr. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just one last 
question. I will direct it to all of our witnesses, and it is 
really a yes or no answer.
    Federal Government allows its employees to use comp time or 
flex time. In other words, comp time for Federal employees is 
one paid hour off for each 1 hour of irregular or occasional 
overtime that has been worked. For example, if you work on a 
Saturday, which is an irregular time, for every hour you 
routinely would have an hour off, then you may be compensated 
for that time.
    Here is my question. If the benefit is good enough for 
Federal, state and local workers, wouldn't it be fair to allow 
private sector workers to get the same generous comp time 
benefit?
    Ms. Shabo, yes or no?
    Ms. Shabo. No. People should not be required to tradeoff 
time and money. They need both.
    Senator Burr. Marcia.
    Ms. St. Hilaire-Finn. I concur. They need both.
    Senator Burr. Ms. McManus.
    Ms. McManus. Could be part of a solution, not necessarily 
the only solution. I know that was not a yes or a no, Senator.
    Senator Burr. Ms. Milito.
    Ms. Milito. Yes, NFIB supports that flexibility.
    Senator Burr. Well, we are beginning to build a bank of 
solutions. I thank each of our witnesses. I thank the chair.
    The Chair. Thank you, Senator Burr.
    Ms. Shabo, I just had one other question. You alluded 
several times to the millions of women who have left the 
workforce during this pandemic and have not yet returned. 
Oftentimes, that is women of color, women in low-wage 
occupations, as you talked about. Clearly, our economy is not 
going to fully recover from this pandemic unless working women 
recover. To me, that means better childcare and national paid 
leave policies. Can you comment on that?
    Ms. Shabo. I 100 percent agree with you. I think we have 
heard too often, failed to invest in a care infrastructure or a 
care economy that recognizes that people have personal lives 
and people have work lives and they are inextricably connected.
    We cannot go back. We have to go forward, and that involves 
investments in paid leave, investments in childcare, 
investments in home-and community-based care. Just like roads 
and bridges, this is essential for people to get to work, stay 
at work, and be successful.
    The Chair. Thank you.
    I ask unanimous consent to put in the record five letters 
in support of national paid family, medical, and sick leave 
policies from individuals and groups including advocacy groups 
for workers, women, and families, stories from workers around 
the Country.
    Without objection.

    [The information refered to can be found on page 139]

    That will end our hearing for today, and I really want to 
thank all of my colleagues for the thoughtful discussion.
    I want to thank all of our witnesses--Ms. Shabo, Ms. St. 
Hilaire-Finn, Ms. McManus, Ms. Milito--for sharing your time 
and your insights today.
    For any Senators who wish to ask additional questions, 
questions for the record will be due in 10 business days, on 
Wednesday, June 2, at 5 p.m. The hearing record will also 
remain open until then for Members who wish to submit 
additional materials for the record.
    This Committee will next meet in executive session May 25 
at 10 a.m. to consider several bipartisan bills.
    With that, the Committee stands adjourned.

                          ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
                          
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
                               ______
                                 

                         QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

         Response by Vicki Shabo to questions of Senator Casey
                             senator casey
    Question 1. Paid sick leave and paid family and medical leave are 
essential to workers to ensure that they are able to take time off to 
care for themselves and to care for loved ones. Paid leave benefits can 
prevent workers from unnecessarily dropping out of the workforce, help 
increase lifetime earnings and promote a range of positive worker 
outcomes. However, in addition to benefiting workers directly, in your 
testimony you also mention the benefits paid leave can provide to the 
individuals who workers are able to care for when they have paid time 
off, such as their children and older family members. Can you provide 
any additional information about how paid family and medical leave can 
benefit children, older Americans and individuals with disabilities who 
are the recipients of care from family members?

    Answer 1. Thank you for your thoughtful question for the record 
arising from the HELP Committee's May 18, 2021, hearing, Paid Leave for 
Working Families: Examining Access, Options, and Impacts. As your 
question correctly posits, when paid leave is available for a working 
family caregiver, their care recipient also benefits. For example--

    With respect to children:

          New children whose parents have access to paid leave 
        are more likely to be taken to well-baby visits and more likely 
        to be immunized on the medical community's recommended 
        schedule.

          In California, where a paid family leave program was 
        passed in 2002 and implemented in 2004, children are less 
        likely to be hospitalized, less likely to experience head 
        trauma (perhaps because of reduced parental stress) and more 
        likely to have better educational outcomes and fewer behavioral 
        problems in elementary school.

          Child mortality also declines when parents have 
        access to paid leave.

    With respect to older or ill loved ones:

          Children recover more quickly when a parent is able 
        to be with them.

          In California, nursing home utilization declined by 
        11 percent when paid leave became available, meaning care 
        recipients were better able to receive care in their homes 
        presumably from a family member, and public spending on nursing 
        homes via Medicaid was reduced.

          According to the American Cancer Society's research, 
        caregivers who had paid leave were much more likely to be able 
        to help their ill loved ones get to medical appointments and 
        treatments and to provide care for them.

    With respect to individuals with disabilities:

          Access to paid leave means caregivers are better able 
        to meet the needs of their disabled children and older loved 
        ones physically and emotionally and financially.

    Paid leave benefits workers and families' health and economic 
security, businesses' profitability and retention, the economy and 
taxpayers. It is well past time for the United States to adopt a 
comprehensive national policy. I look forward to further questions and 
to providing technical assistance to your staff, the Committee and 
other policymakers as Congress considers the paid leave proposal in the 
President's American Families Plan this summer.
                                 ______
                                 
   Response by Marcia St. Hilaire-Finn to questions of Senator Lujan
                             senator lujan
    Question 1. I agree that paid leave is a matter of racial and 
gender equity. What would it mean to your business and employees if a 
national paid leave policy were enacted?

    Answer 1. I opened Bright Start with the idea that to provide the 
care our children deserve, the caretakers should be fairly compensated, 
which includes access to paid time off. During the early days of Bright 
Start, we provided 1 week paid sick time, and 2 weeks paid vacation 
time--well above industry standards at the time. This was an 
intentional and conscious choice on my part to attract the best and 
brightest employees, despite the additional cost burden. As I have 
grown my business, I have been able to add additional benefits--and now 
provide partial health insurance coverage, another week of paid leave 
in addition to sick and vacation time and unpaid leave. My business 
model, which relies on a large portion of fully private pay parents and 
higher fees, makes my employee compensation choices possible. Yet even 
with this model, I have not been able to meet the full needs of my 
employees. Our 4-week paid leave policy is all we are able to do right 
now. A national paid leave program that provides 12 weeks paid leave 
would allow us to more fully meet the needs of our employees. That's 
why I, along with a strong majority of small business owners, support a 
national paid family and medical leave program.

          Small businesses can't afford paid leave on their own 
        like many larger businesses can. Small businesses generally 
        lack the capital and the scale to provide paid leave, even when 
        owners want to provide that benefit. Moreover, private insurers 
        generally do not offer affordable, adequate paid leave policies 
        to small businesses. As a result, as of 2019 only 14 percent of 
        workers in firms with 99 or fewer employees had access to 
        employer-provided paid family leave, compared to 29 percent of 
        workers in firms with 500 or more employees.

          Our businesses benefit when employees can take time 
        to care for their families and return ready to work. Paid leave 
        helps reduce turnover and boost employee morale and loyalty, 
        increasing productivity and cost savings for our small 
        businesses. Paid leave makes good business sense.

          Paid Leave is a matter of racial and gender equity. 
        The racial wealth gap means employees and business owners of 
        color like myself have less of a financial cushion for taking 
        time off, but they also have more limited access to paid leave. 
        And, with most caregiving still falling to women, paid leave is 
        an important gender equity measure for business owners and 
        employees alike. These facts have been further heightened 
        during the pandemic. With higher rates of COVID-related 
        illnesses, death, and business closures, the need for paid 
        leave is higher than ever in Black and Brown communities. A 
        robust, permanent paid family and medical leave program is 
        essential for supporting Black-and Brown-owned businesses, 
        their employees, and the communities they serve.

          Addressing workforce shortages. Over the past year 
        women have left the workforce in droves--and the lack of paid 
        leave and child care was a major contributing factor. Closing 
        these care infrastructure gaps will be a major factor in 
        addressing our current labor shortage. We can't afford not to 
        use every tool in our toolbox to support a rebounding and 
        growing economy.

          Economic Recovery on Main Street. For small 
        businesses and Main Street economies to recover, we need more 
        customers spending on Main Street and the safe return of our 
        labor force. Comprehensive paid family and medical leave 
        programs have been shown to significantly increase mothers' 
        attachment to the workforce and caregivers' participation in 
        the labor both short and long-term. Paid leave dollars go back 
        into the local economy, boosting consumer demand at small 
        businesses, as working people spend their leave to cover 
        basics.

    Question 2. Ms. St. Hilaire-Finn, you state in your testimony that 
providing paid leave to your employees has had a significant impact on 
the children at your center, and also on family members at home. What 
would a national paid leave policy mean for your workers and the 
children in their care, especially through the lens of child welfare 
and well-being?

    Answer 2. As the mother of a young daughter, I searched for a child 
care center in my neighborhood that would fit my unique schedule and 
provide quality care, but couldn't find one. So, in 2002, I decided to 
start my own small business in my basement, launching Bright Start 
Early Care and Preschool. I opened Bright Start with the idea that to 
provide the care our children deserve, the caretakers should be fairly 
compensated, which includes access to paid time off. Providing good, 
competitive benefits has created a virtuous cycle. We experience 
exceptionally low turnover, which saves us in recruitment and training 
costs. Our average tenure for staff is 7 years--far and above the 
industry standard. With recruitment costs topping 250 percent of an 
employee's annual salary, these small benefits costs end up paying for 
themselves over time.

    As all parents can appreciate, caring for children is truly a labor 
of love--but it's also grueling work! That is why it's so important 
that my employees are able to take care of themselves and their 
families. Over the past two decades, I have had numerous employees who 
needed to take additional time off to care for themselves or a loved 
one. Several employees had the joy of welcoming a new baby into their 
families. And two employees have had to deal with the shock of cancer 
diagnosis and take time for surgery, treatment, and recovery. They have 
since told me that they believe they recovered more quickly just 
knowing they could take care of themselves and having that peace of 
mind that they had a job to come back to. They truly felt valued and 
came back to work even more grateful and energized.

    Just as importantly, our families benefit from the continuity and 
know-how of our staff. We have several staff who have welcomed babies 
to our center, care for them through the program graduation, and also 
welcome other siblings to the program. This continuity of care is 
tremendously valued by our families. This helps our center grow and 
expand. And through this growth we are able to create upward mobility 
for our staff with additional administrative positions benefiting their 
families and our community.
                                 ______
                                 
  Response by Ms. McManus, Marcia St. Hilaire-Finn and Ms. Milito to 
                     questions of Senator Murkowski
                           senator murkowski
    Question 1. Ms. McManus, in your written testimony, you recommended 
that Congress pass legislation that ``preserves effective employer 
benefit programs and provides employers a single set of standards 
nationwide would advance employee equity and consistent benefits while 
eliminating the cumbersome compliance burdens.'' Could you be more 
specific about what nationwide standards would work for our Nation's 
employers--both employers like IBM that provide paid leave benefits and 
those (especially small employers) that do not, and what compliance 
burdens should specifically be avoided?

    Answer 1. As discussed in both written and verbal testimoneys, we 
at IBM recognize the important role paid leave benefits have in the 
lives of our workers and agree that paid family and medical leave as 
well as sick leave are essential for workers needing personal or family 
care. IBM and the American Benefits Council (the ``Council'') support a 
Federal legislative solution that would provide employers with the 
flexibility to offer a paid leave program that meets a single set of 
standards to employees nationwide while also expanding access to paid 
leave. Any Federal solution should account for the generous leave 
programs already provided by nationwide employers who are at the 
forefront of innovative benefit solutions for their employees.

    While we cannot speak on behalf of small employers or other types 
of employers, we recognize that small businesses and nationwide 
companies may need different options as part of a broader Federal 
solution and there is not a one-size-fits-all remedy for all employers. 
Large corporations with locations in multiple states who already offer 
generous and comprehensive paid sick and family and medical leave 
benefits are looking for a single set of nationwide standards that 
will:

          Provide all employees across the U.S. with access to 
        a consistent, minimum amount of essential paid sick leave and 
        paid family and medical leave benefits.

          Enable nationwide employers to offer uniform paid 
        leave benefits, along with uniform processes to obtain those 
        benefits, to employees regardless of where they work--ensuring 
        fundamental fairness and equity for employees nationwide.

          Provide relief to employers who already provide a 
        specified level of paid leave benefits from the patchwork of 
        inconsistent state and local laws and their cumbersome 
        administrative demands

          Reference the Federal Family and Medical Leave Act 
        (``FMLA'') as a framework for establishing a single set of 
        nationwide definitions and standards. The FMLA is attractive 
        because medium and large employers understand and have been 
        complying with the FMLA for more than 25 years.

          The essential point is that a Federal standard be 
        available throughout the US, and employers with employees in 
        more than one state who meet that standard should benefit from 
        relief from inconsistent, different state or local 
        requirements.

          The significant compliance burden that must be 
        avoided for nationwide employers is the challenge and 
        complexity of administering the numerous state and local paid 
        leave mandates. In the Council's recent informal poll of large 
        employers on state paid leave laws, 45 of 66 (68 percent) 
        nationwide businesses characterized the administrative burden 
        imposed by multiple state and local paid leave laws as ``very 
        significant,'' with an additional 18 (27 percent) calling it 
        ``somewhat significant.''

    Thank you again for the question and we look forward to working 
with the Congress and Administration toward a solution so that all 
workers in the United States have access to robust paid family, sick, 
and medical leave benefits.

    Question 2. Ms. St. Hilaire-Finn, you testified that the District 
of Columbia Paid Family and Medical Leave program was beneficial to you 
as a small employer and to your employees. This program requires all 
employers to contribute 0.62 percent of the wages of each of its 
covered employees to the Universal Paid Leave Implementation Fund. Has 
the Main Street Alliance done any recent survey of its members to 
determine if that level of contribution is affordable for the majority 
of the Alliance's small business members? If so, what were the results?

    Answer 2. Main Street Alliance (MSA) has not asked that specific 
question to our membership. However, MSA's own surveys and other 
surveys do show strong small business support for paid leave--even when 
it includes a shared contribution from business owners and their 
employees.

    MSA's latest national Survey (2020) of 600 small business owners 
showed widespread support, across party identification, for a national 
paid family and leave program.

          Among Democrats, 80 percent favor and 9 percent 
        oppose

          Among Independents, 52 percent favor, and 33 percent 
        oppose

          Among Republicans, 55 percent favor, and 33 percent 
        oppose

    MSA's last major survey (2017) of nearly 1,800 small business 
owners in 17 states found:

          64 percent of respondents supported a nationwide paid 
        sick days minimum standard like the Healthy Families Act. This 
        increased to 73 percent when just looking at women small 
        business owners and business owners of color.

          Small businesses that were not able to provide family 
        and medical leave to employees overwhelmingly identified a 
        social insurance program as what they most needed to be able to 
        provide this benefit (79 percent selected this option, while 
        only 8 percent identified a tax credit).

          When asked about how best to pay for a PFML social 
        insurance program, the overwhelming majority of respondents, 76 
        percent, view the funding of such a program as a shared 
        responsibility, with a joint employer and employee 
        contribution. Eleven percent thought the program should be an 
        employee-only contribution. Three percent believed just the 
        employer should contribute, and 10 percent noted another source 
        of funding for the program.

    As a small business owner myself, I find the costs of the DC paid 
leave program negligible, especially when compared to the costs of 
having an employee out for an extended period (without a leave program 
when one is covering both the employee and the costs of a replacement 
worker all at the same time) or when compared to the costs of losing a 
valued employee.
    Question 3. Ms. Milito, you testified that NFIB opposes paid leave 
mandates because they drive up costs and result in lost jobs, 
burdensome paperwork requirements, and higher costs. Can you inform the 
committee about the impact to NFIB's small business employer members in 
states that have enacted paid leave laws?

    Answer 3. NFIB members have consistently opposed new paid leave 
mandates at the state level due to cost and compliance difficulties. 
For states that enacted such laws our members have done their best to 
comply to the fullest extent of the law but have continued to 
experienced difficulties with both compliance and cost.
    Question 4. Ms. Milito, you also testified that our Nation's small 
business owners recognized the need for flexible hours and to be 
``family friendly'' as they compete for employees. Has NFIB any data to 
show what percentage of our Nation's small businesses are providing 
family friendly leave policies in states that have not enacted paid 
leave requirements?
    Answer 4. Small business owners understand the importance of a 
flexible workplace. The vast majority of small businesses already offer 
paid time off (PTO), time that can be used for any type of leave, to a 
majority of their full-time employees. According to a 2016 NFIB small 
business poll, 73 percent of small business owners offer their full-
time employees paid time off, and 67 percent offer 2 weeks or more of 
leave--without government mandate. \1\ Seventy percent of firms with 
one to nine employees report offering the benefit, compared to 87 
percent and 83 percent of firms with ten to 19 employees and firms with 
20 to 249 employees respectively. \2\
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    \1\  Employee Compensation and Small Business, NFIB Small Business 
Poll (2016), available at NFIB-SBP-Emp-Compensation2017-v2.pdf 
(411sbfacts.com).
    \2\  Id.
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    [Whereupon, the hearing was adjourned at 11:57 a.m.]
    
                                [all]