For many Americans, when it comes to starting a family, “there is no plan. The plan is just to not get pregnant,” says Lai Yi Ohlsen, Arizona State University computer science senior.
“But it happens, and when it happens, there is no plan,” Ohlsen says.
In the United States of America there is no government-sponsored paid family or medical leave program, and with little to no support from the government for people starting families, what is ideally a joyous occasion can be transformed into a tragic ultimatum.
“It’s always been presented to me as a choice,” Ohlsen says. “You have your career first and then you have your child or you have a child and then have your career.”
Since 1993, The Family and Medical Leave Act has guaranteed employees up to 12 weeks unpaid leave, but due to a number of exemptions, the FMLA only covers about 60 percent of American workers. To be eligible, a person must work for an employer with 50 or more employees, have worked for the employer for at least 12 months, and have worked at least 1,250 hours during that 12 month period.
“Even those who are eligible… the number one reason they say they don’t take the FMLA leave they’re entitled to, is because it’s unpaid,” says Rachel Lyons, Government Affairs Manager for the National Partnership for Women and Families.
According to a 2012 Department of Labor survey, 1 in 4 mothers who are employed and give birth return to work within two weeks. Unless a person can personally afford to take off time, they may be forced to return to work before they feel ready.
“I had planned on coming back to work after having the baby,” says Paula Gepner, a Phoenix mother who, after five months working for her employer, was ineligible to receive maternity leave. “I was thinking I would need three months. Now that it's been three months, I'm not ready. This is such a vital time in his life, as far as development and bonding.”
When Gepner found out she was having a baby, she says her main concern became supporting her child.
“I spent the little money I had saved, and then some, to move into my own apartment. After borrowing money for bills and then getting some friends and strangers to help via GoFundMe, I was out of money and had to move in with friends,” she says.
While some people are fortunate enough to receive paid time-off and others are content either having a career or having a family, there are millions of Americans in situations similar to Gepner’s, where a balance between work and family is unattainable.
The Benefits of Reform
Three states — California, Rhode Island, and New Jersey — have paid leave programs in place that are paving the way for a national bill.
“You’re going to see more and more wins in the states and that’s creating a climate of voters who overwhelmingly support these issues, across demographics, across party lines, and more and more of them saying to politicians, ‘you want my vote, you support this,’” says Ellen Bravo, Executive Director of Family Values @ Work.
The Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act (FAMILY Act), which was introduced in the House of Representatives in December 2013, would provide workers up to 12 weeks of partial income when they take time for their own serious health condition. This includes: pregnancy, childbirth, or adoption recovery; taking care of a sick child, parent, spouse or domestic partner, and would be funded by small employee and employer payroll contributions.
The FAMILY Act model reduces the burden on individual employers to provide paid leave, exponentially increasing the amount of people with access to paid leave, which only 13 percent of the workforce currently has access.
The new program would adjust California and New Jersey’s social insurance programs to fit a larger scale, Lyons says. The social insurance programs differ from the FMLA, which is incumbent on the employer to provide benefits.
The FAMILY Act is especially beneficial to young workers entering the job market. “Social insurance also enables you to take leave if you are a younger worker as long as you’ve accrued the time,” she says.
The passage of a paid family and medical leave policy would fundamentally change the way people work by providing economic security for workers, “many of whom feel they’re one major illness away from not being able to pay the rent,” Lyons says.
For many, paid leave would mean better. Bravo said that one of the things small business owners say they most need is for people to have money in their pockets. When people have money in their pockets they are more likely to spend money on things like fixing their cars or houses.
Providing paid leave for workers also increases the likelihood they will return to their original employers after having a child, reducing turnover costs, and yielding economic benefits for both employers and employees, Lyons says.
A national paid leave policy “would mean lower infant mortality, lower maternal mortality, higher rate of kids getting vaccinations and well baby visits, longer breastfeeding, and much better outcomes for mothers health and kids learning,” Bravo says.
The Future of Paid Leave
Despite the increasing need for a government-sponsored paid leave program in the United States, lawmakers still have not made a major policy change regarding the issue.
Both parents are working in more than 60 percent of households with children today. In 1965, that number was 40. For women with children under the age of 5 today, more than 60 percent are employed, in 1970, that number was 30, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Although the structure of most American families has changed drastically since then, legislation has not changed to accommodate the obligations of most parents having to work and raise a family.
“The hesitation that members of congress might have for passing a national paid family medical leave act is because they don’t think their constituents want it. They have not heard that there is a desire for something like this,” Lyons says.
“They might also have heard from the organized business lobby who says that this will have a detrimental impact on business, which we know to not be the case,” Lyons says.
The United States is characterized as having a free-market economy, which means the country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners rather than by the government. The government’s hesitation to make any major policy regarding paid leave could be a result of its historically “laissez-faire” system.
It is the duty of those dissatisfied with the current policy on family and medical leave to voice their dissatisfaction, and fortunately for the present generation, Twitter and other advances in communication allow them to do that.
“Twitter is a new medium to Congress,” Lyons says, “so they are very intrigued, they pay attention.”
A new social media tool called Wetweet.org allows users to enter in their zip code and send a tweet on various subjects to their member of Congress.
It is going to take a lot of pressure from supporters for lawmakers to make a major policy change on paid leave, Lyons says. “Contacting your member of Congress and your state and local legislators is incredibly effective.”
Like so many other movements in the U.S. that fought for reform in the government, the fight for paid leave has already won the support of the people, now it is lawmakers’ job to listen.
