NEW YORK (AP) — More working U.S. parents than ever are celebrating their first Mother’s Day with hard-fought access to paid time off to care for newborns. But the majority still have to forgo pay to care for newborns or other relatives, even as efforts to expand paid parental and family leave gain traction.
Bipartisan groups in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have revived efforts to expand paid family leave to more workers and took the initiative to introduce legislation this year. In the absence of federal law, 13 states and the District of Columbia have adopted paid family and medical leave laws, which provide employees with the right to paid leave to care for newborns or other dependents.
However, according to the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 27% of civilian workers in the U.S. receive paid family leave. Workers who can least afford to take unpaid leave are also the least likely to have access to paid leave: According to the BLS, only 14% of workers in the lowest wage category of 25% receive this benefit, compared to 48% of them in the top 10%.
For families without paid leave, babies “go to daycare at two weeks old.” They don’t even have vaccinations. They do not have regular feeding habits. Mothers are giving up breastfeeding much earlier than they would like,” said Elizabeth Gedmark, vice president of the nonprofit advocacy group A Better Balance, during a recent virtual federal paid family leave advocacy conference organized by the WK Kellogg Foundation.
According to the World Policy Analysis Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, the United States is one of only seven countries – and the only developed country – that does not have a nationwide paid maternity leave policy.
Caitlyn Householder has become an advocate for a universal paid family leave law in Pennsylvania since she was forced to quit her job as a clothing company supervisor five years ago when she learned she was pregnant shortly after she was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins B -Diagnosis had been diagnosed. Cell lymphoma.
The Ellwood City, Pennsylvania, housekeeper was barely able to drive herself to work because of excruciating pain in her leg, and it quickly became clear that her employer would not allow her enough time for her medical needs.
“They showed their true colors,” said Householder, who shared her story through Children First, an organization advocating for the bill in Pennsylvania.
The homeowner’s husband, an oil rig worker, also does not receive paid parental or family leave to care for her and her children. Most of the time, Householder took her baby and stepdaughter with her to radiation treatments. When her husband stayed away from work, such as because Householder couldn’t hold their baby for 24 hours after radiation, it meant she lost hundreds of dollars in income. During the most challenging months, the family fell behind on their mortgage payments.
The Pennsylvania House and Senate are considering legislation that would provide up to 20 weeks of paid family leave through a payroll tax. The proposed measure has bipartisan support, but some Republicans have vocally opposed it because of the cost to taxpayers.
Disagreements over funding for family leave programs have posed a hurdle in other states and have long frustrated efforts to pass federal law. Democrats generally favor funding such programs through payroll taxes, while many Republicans favor tax incentives to encourage employers to offer, but not require, paid leave.
In January, a bipartisan House group led by Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, and Rep. Stephanie Bice, a Republican from Oklahoma, released a four-part framework to expand paid family leave to more workers, including funding state programs or greater tax relief for compact businesses.
In a statement, Bice said the group was “excited by the momentum and will continue to work together to craft legislation that can get across the finish line.” In an interview with The Associated Press, Houlahan said she was sanguine that the legislation could be introduced this year. Although any measure would fall compact of a federal paid leave law, Houlahan said it reflects years of effort to find common ground on measures that would extend the benefit to as many workers as possible.
Colorado’s benefits took effect Jan. 1, four years after the state’s paid family and medical leave program passed by vote after an attempt to pass a bill through the Legislature failed. The law gives most Colorado workers the right to take up to 12 weeks of paid leave to care for a newborn and meet other family needs.
The novel benefits came too overdue for Carrie Martin-Haley’s family. Neither Martin-Haley, a compact business owner in Denver who gave birth to her son in September 2023, nor her husband had paid leave, so Martin-Haley had to give up her dream of opening a brick-and-mortar store at her company, Summit Sustainable Goods.
“It was hard to take,” said Martin-Haley, who shared her story through Small Business Majority, an advocacy group that advocates for federal paid family leave. “With the lack of sleep and everything that comes with parenthood and all the uncertainties, finances should be the last thing on the totem pole.”
Female labor force participation in the U.S. is at historic highs, but changes like paid parental leave often come after long-fought campaigns by mothers.
Keenan Manzo of Dallas, a mother of three who has worked as a Southwest flight attendant for 18 years, said she started a Facebook page for corporate mothers after she had her first child 11 years ago to seek support for paid leave and other policies to mobilize. She said paid leave often takes a backseat to other priorities like higher pay, but support grew as women shared stories about returning to work early and having difficulty pumping during flights, sometimes because impatient passengers knocked on the toilet cubicles.
In a contract ratified by the Transport Workers Union in April, Southwest flight attendants finally received paid parental leave – up to eight weeks for birthing parents and two weeks for non-birth parents. John Samuelsen, president of TWU International, called the benefit a first for an industry with a long history of sexism against flight attendants, most of whom are women.
“I fought so hard. “I’m tired of having kids, but I still get emotional when I think about the mothers who come after me and have this reprieve,” Manzo said.
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Savage is based in Chicago.
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