It’s up to the states to take the lead on paid leave

Workers in the United States work hard, but most live with the anxiety that they or someone they love will experience a health problem that they won’t be able to address without losing their income or even their job. And many parents who are welcoming a new child cannot take paid time away from work to concentrate their attention on their growing family. 

A lack of paid family and medical leave harms not just workers and their families but the broader economy by pushing workers out of the labor force and making it harder for them to go back to work when the temporary issue abates.

A federal paid leave program would ensure that workers across the country can continue to support their families when family or medical concerns arise — as they are bound to do. But until the federal government acts, more states need to step up because workers can’t wait any longer. And if the past 30 years have shown us anything, it’s that the market alone won’t provide this support. Only one in four employers currently provide paid family leave, and only one in 20 of the lowest-paid workers benefit from that protection.

Meaningful action at the state level in recent years has improved protections for workers in some regions. This spring, Maryland and Delaware became the newest states to join nine others and the District of Columbia in establishing their own paid leave programs. These programs — in California, Connecticut, D.C., Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Washington — allowed millions of workers to take time off work to care for themselves or loved ones. Still, roughly two-thirds of U.S. workers live in states without a program.

Why are we the only wealthy nation that lacks a federal program? When our federal social insurance system (composed of programs like Unemployment Insurance, Social Security, and Medicare) was established, fewer than 1 in 3 workers were women — and women who worked were mostly women of color, immigrants and women with low socioeconomic status. Policymakers crafting the social insurance system centered the needs of white, male workers with few caregiving responsibilities and pushed female workers’ needs for economic security aside.

Given that nearly every worker today is likely to need to take paid leave at some point in their lives, the lack of paid leave hurts all of us. Indeed, experts across the political spectrum agree that paid leave is crucial to bringing the social insurance system into the 21st century and redressing the inequities baked into our policies. Extending paid family and medical leave to the full workforce is among the key steps that policymakers should consider to assure adequate income across the lifespan according to a recent report from the National Academy of Social Insurance. 

The evidence from states that have these programs make their benefits abundantly clear. In Washington state, the most recent state to implement paid leave, over 290,000 claims were approved in 2020 and 2021, providing income to help families pay their bills while they attended to the needs of a new child, their own serious medical need or the medical need of a loved one. In California, which has the longest-established program, the risk of poverty and infant hospitalizations are down while parental involvement and mothers’ employment levels are up.

California’s paid leave law reduced small businesses’ costs and research in both California and New Jersey showed mothers are more likely to work in the five years after having a child, benefiting not only families’ economic security but states’ economic growth.

In the long run, federal action is needed to ensure universal access to paid leave. A range of different state programs poses challenges for multi-state employers, and, of course, passing a new paid leave law in Pennsylvania won’t help workers in Mississippi. But implementing state programs now allows us to experiment with the policy and make improvements. It also provides models for a strong federal paid leave program in the future.

Most importantly, each time a state passes a paid leave law, it creates positive change in the lives of its workers and the strength of its economy. Our state legislatures are powerful, often overlooked, political bodies. They should all ensure that no worker needs to choose between paying the bills or caring for a loved one.

Alix Gould-Werth is the director of Family Economic Security Policy at The Washington Center for Equitable Growth and Kathleen Romig is the director of Social Security and Disability Policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.