Published: October 3, 2005
by: Rob Capriccioso
Margaret Ramirez is a single mother living in the rural town of Sandy, Oregon with her 10-year-old son and 18-year-old daughter. She doesn't have a college education.
When her children were younger, Ramirez was employed at a small computer company, earning barely enough for her family to get by. If she or one of her kids got sick, taking a day off from work was not an option. "Going without pay for even a day could mean that the lights wouldn't turn on the next day," says Ramirez.
"Paid leave could have made my life so less stressful," she recalls. "My daughter wouldn't have had so many burdens put on her, and I think we would have been better off."
Seventy-eight percent of employees who have needed but have not taken family or medical leave, said they couldn't afford to take it, according to a 2000 survey by the U.S.
Jessica Gonzales and her husband, Paul, middle-class parents from Midland, Michigan, had a bit more flexibility—but not much—when faced with the need to care for their toddler after an injury two years ago. At 16 months of age, their daughter Hope suffered serious injuries to one hand at her daycare facility. Gonzales, who works for a large communications company, had taken a combination of paid and unpaid time off for the birth of Hope. But her employer wasn't immediately supportive when the injury forced her to take several more weeks off to care for her daughter and to find a daycare situation that she felt comfortable with.
"I was very reluctant to put her back into any childcare facility," explains Gonzales. "When something like this happens, you just feel so guilty—like how could you be so selfish to go right back to work and put your child back into childcare?"
Gonzales, who had worked for the company for 9 years, used up all of her sick leave and vacation time. She asked for unpaid time off, but her boss would not agree. Finally, after a desperate e-mail to the company's corporate office, Gonzales did receive several more weeks of unpaid leave to care for Hope.
Though many federal and state lawmakers realize the dilemma that parents like Ramirez and Gonzales face every day, so far the federal government has taken only partial steps towards guaranteeing workers unpaid family leave. But some state governments, notably California, have taken the lead with new programs to provide paid leave to employees who need time to care for sick family members or a new baby.
With family paid leave initiatives now in place in every industrialized nation besides Australia and the U.S., there are a variety of lessons to be learned about such policies and how they affect working parents in differing economic situations.
Generally, a covered employer is any person engaged in commerce or in any industry or activity affecting commerce, who employs 50 or more employees for each working day during each of 20 or more calendar workweeks in the current or preceding calendar year.
To be eligible for FMLA, an employee must have been employed by the employer for at least 12 months; have been employed for at least 1,250 hours of service during the 12-month period immediately preceding the commencement of the leave; and must be employed at a worksite where 50 or more employees are employed by the employer within 75 miles of that worksite.
Source: U.S. Department of Labor
The Limits of Federal Leave Policy
Under the FMLA (Federal Medical & Family Leave Act), which President Clinton signed into law in 1993, covered employers must grant an eligible employee up to a total of 12 workweeks of unpaid leave during any 12-month period for one or more of the following reasons:
- for the birth and care of the newborn child of the employee
- to care for an immediate family member (spouse, child, or parent) with a serious health condition
- for placement with the employee of a son or daughter for adoption or foster care
- to take medical leave when the employee is unable to work because of a serious health condition.
Because FMLA only applies to companies with 50 or more employees, 42 percent of the American workforce does not qualify.
Jodie Levin-Epstein, Deputy Director of the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), notes that more than 50 million workers have taken leave under FMLA, and that the law is generally regarded as an important step in acknowledging the needs of working families.
"FMLA has been particularly helpful for families with the economic resources to take unpaid leave," she wrote in a December 2004 CLASP policy brief.
State Action
States have moved more quickly than the federal government to develop paid leave programs, with paid leave bills introduced in at least 21 states and Washington D.C. in 2004.
A 2005 National Partnership for Women & Families report ranks the quality and depth of state paid leave policies [1]. No state received an "A" when it comes to family leave policies. Nineteen states received a grade of "F" because they failed to provide any benefits or programs to support parents before and after the birth of a child. "Most states fall somewhere in the middle—doing something, but not enough, for working parents," reports the organization.
California became first state to implement a paid family leave program, on July 1, 2004. The state administers the program [2], with a price tag of approximately $380 million annually. The cost is met through deductions from the paychecks of workers who choose to participate. According to the state's Employment Development Department, the average worker with $31,500 in taxable wages in 2004 paid an extra $25.20 to participate in the program in 2005.
Under the program, workers receive up to 6 weeks of paid leave per year to care for a new child (birth, adoption, or foster) or seriously ill family member, including a child, spouse, parent or domestic partner. The program provides up to 55 percent of wages, up to a maximum of $728 in 2004. The maximum benefit increases each year in accordance with increases in the state's average weekly wage. Businesses with more than 50 employees are required to hold a job for a worker who goes on paid family leave.
Lorna Richardson-Evans and her husband Chad, a middle-class couple from the San Francisco area, were two of the approximately 150,000 parents who participated in California's paid leave program during its first year. When their triplets were born last June, they were each able to take time off from their jobs while receiving a portion of their pay.
"I was able to focus on my family with no worries of losing my job," says Richardson-Evans. With three babies to nurse, she says that if the paid leave option hadn't been available, she would have been forced to take a leave of absence or quit her job with Verizon Wireless.
Taking the California Model to D.C.
In June 2005, Congressman Pete Stark, D-California, introduced the Paid Family and Medical Leave Act, which, if passed, would provide workers nationwide with up to 55 percent of their wages for as long as 12 weeks [3]. The leave could be used to care for a newborn or adopted child, disabled family members, or to deal with a person's own short-term disability.
The legislation is modeled on the California program, which Levin-Epstein says is beneficial to families and children, especially the poor.
In 2004, a mom who made $52,000 a year and took 6 weeks off would have seen her income drop by $4,368, but would still have made $47,632. A dad making $26,000 who took 6 weeks off would have seen his income drop by $1,650, thus making $24,350.
"It's important to understand that people who make less are actually able to take home a larger percentage of their salary than higher income earners," says Levin-Epstein. "But presumably people who make more money in the first place are better able to account for the loss in funds."
What Role for the Feds?
"It would be great to have some sort of federal policy," says Kim Kruckel, an education coordinator with California's Paid Family Leave Collaborative. "Federal policies often set the standards that inspire states to follow suit."
Still, Kruckel notes that in many cases states have better information on the needs and nature of their workforce and employer base, and may be better able to design programs that work for both. "That doesn't mean that the federal government shouldn't be involved in supporting a stronger, healthier workforce," she says.
Research indicates that a national paid leave policy would be good for kids. According to the Harvard School of Public Health, the education and health of children improves when their parents are able to take paid sick leave. And a government study conducted in Canada found that extended time off for parents with newborns is associated with the successful social and cognitive development of children.
A U.S. Department of Labor study indicates that under FMLA, 80 percent of employers reported that the law had a neutral or positive effect on their profits and productivity. And 85 percent of employees reported either neutral or positive effects when their co-workers took FMLA leave.
New Zealand's New Leave
One reason U.S. federal paid family leave has been slow in coming involves fears that vast amounts of workers would take time off, putting small business owners at risk.
"Virtually all of the firms thought that the New Zealand [law] was a good idea," she reported in her 2004 brief. "Employer support ranged from 'extremely positive,' since it helped avoid premature return to work by employees who were not yet recovered or who had not yet established a new family routine, to 'absolutely' beneficial, since it affirmed the organization's own interest in promoting work-life balance."
Under New Zealand law, eligible employees receive up to 12 weeks of paid parental leave and the program is funded through general government revenues rather than payroll deductions.
When Parents Meet Policy
"Personally, I don't think I would have had to go through the issues I faced with my company if paid family leave was supported more by state and federal lawmakers," says Gonzales, who, two years after her daughter's accident is still recovering from some of the financial setbacks her family faced as a result of her unpaid time off to care for Hope.
"We got up to 3 months behind on some of our bills," says Gonzales. "We made sure we had food on the table for our daughter, and we paid our house note and the car insurance—but our savings was gone.
"We made it through, but it was definitely a big setback," she adds. "I don't know how single parents make it."
Single mom Margaret Ramirez turned to bartending after the computer company she worked for closed down. Each night, she worked from about 6 p.m. until 2 a.m., receiving minimum wage plus tips. She was able to secure child care through a friend for $350 a week until her daughter turned 11, when the challenges of being the nighttime caretaker of her younger brother fell upon her shoulders.
Eventually, Ramirez found this family balancing act unworkable.
"In bartending, there's nothing like unpaid leave, let alone paid leave," she says. "It's just impossible—lots of burdens fell to my daughter because I couldn't afford to take time off."
Which is the main reason, Ramirez says, that she left bartending and now relies on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) to help support her fifth-grade son and her daughter, who will soon enter trade school. She says that it feels better to be at home because she can be more involved with her son's life, yet she dislikes being perceived as what she calls a "welfare mom." "I did not want to do this at all," she explains. "I am a very proud person—I've worked my whole life."
As part of her TANF assistance, she's taking classes on how to interview and write a resume. Her job search to date has been fruitless. "I don't have any great dreams or anything as far as being rich," she says. "I just want to be able to pay the bills and make sure my kids have what they need—that's what I want."
Resources:
- National Partnership for Women & Families [5]
- Center for Law and Social Policy [6]
- California Paid Family Leave [7]
- U.S. Department of Labor [8]
Rob Capriccioso is a staff writer with Connect for Kids.
http://www.connectforkids.org/node/3461
Links:
[1] http://www.nationalpartnership.org/site/DocServer/WhereFamiliesMatter2005Report.pdf?docID=1056
[2] http://www.edd.ca.gov/direp/pflind.asp
[3] http://www.house.gov/stark/news/109th/legislation/pfmlasummary.htm
[4] http://www.clasp.org/publications/work_life_brf1.pdf
[5] http://www.nationalpartnership.org/
[6] http://www.clasp.org/%20
[7] http://www.paidfamilyleave.org/
[8] http://www.dol.gov/%20