Working People Need Access to Paid Leave

No matter which party holds power in Congress and the White House next year, advocates are hopeful that bipartisan discussions on a potential federal paid family medical leave law will continue. A new study from the Center for Law and Social Policy underscores the need by looking at the impact in the 37 states that do not have paid family medical leave laws. Spotlight recently spoke with two of the study’s authors, Emily Andrews and Jessica Milli; the transcript of that conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

So, just to set the stage on the study, 13 states and D.C. have some kind of laws, and the study is aimed at looking at the impact in the states that do not, correct?

Emily Andrews: Correct.

And before we get to the findings themselves, can one of you talk a little bit about Worker Plus and how you gathered the data?

Jessica Milli: Sure. The Worker Plus Model is a simulation model that was developed for the Department of Labor by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research in partnership with Impact International. And it’s really meant to address some of the gaps in data that existed previously about worker leave-taking behavior—who has the need for leave in a given year, who’s taking leave, what factors affect their decisions to take leave, whether the leave is paid by their employer or not.

The model makes use of data from the 2018 Family Medical Leave Act survey that was fielded by the Department of Labor. And it’s a nationally representative survey that asks workers, in a given year, did you have a need for leave? What type of leave would you need? Did you take it? How long was it? And they built models that kind of explain workers’ behaviors as a function of their characteristics—their age, their gender, their race and ethnicity, where they live, their income level. And those behavioral models were then mapped onto a much larger, more localized sample in the American Community Survey, which allows us to get at the state level, which isn’t possible in the FMLA survey data.

Why don’t we then run through some of the key findings themselves

Andrews: At a very, very high level, we found a deep need for paid family medical lead within these 37 states. We found that out of the 16.5 million leaves taken each year, over 5 million of those, or one third, are taken without pay. And this results in the loss of billions of dollars of wages that has huge economic impact on women, on parents, on families.

We also found that 8 million leaves are needed but not taken each year. It’s almost painful to think about families and parents having to make these decisions about not taking a leave that they need for their own medical conditions or to take care of their families’ medical issues, or to be with a new child.

We also found, and I hope that Jessica can go further into this, that there is a disproportionate impact and harm to women of color specifically. We found higher rates of leaves not taken by Black, Hispanic and Native American women compared with White women, and also found that Black and multiracial women have the highest rates of taking leave without pay. On the gender impact specifically, when we look at wages lost, we found that $34 billion in wages are lost annually due to unpaid or partially paid leave. And women lose nearly $19 billion of that. So, they lose $3.2 billion more than men lose. They have a larger economic impact.

Milli: Putting together the 5 million and the 8 million figures that Emily mentioned about workers who either took leave without pay or had the need for leave but didn’t take it, more than half of the leaves that are needed in a given year by workers are actually either not taken or taken without pay. So, that’s a really striking finding.

The other thing that I wanted to say with respect to the wages lost that we estimated is that I would venture to say it’s a real underestimation of the economic impact of a lack of paid leave for these communities. If you work for pay, this is your average pay, you’re gone for X number of weeks because you’re taking unpaid leave, this is how much you’re losing. But it doesn’t take into account things like employer retaliation on workers if they’re taking leave. So, we can’t capture the economic impact of lost jobs or lack of access to opportunities because certain workers are taking leave and things like that.

Were you able to tell what the biggest reason for a needed leave is—either in the aggregate or with a gender breakdown?

Milli: The leaves needed tend to follow a similar pattern across different populations. The largest category by far was leaves for personal health reasons and then I think parental leave and family caregiving leave were the next two most common.

And you found that the effects of the lack of these policies can be felt far beyond the workplace. I wondered if you could talk about that a little bit.

Andrews: I can kick off on that. The evidence really shows that access to paid family medical leave can improve any number of health and wellbeing indicators, such as health of the mother after childbirth and health of children. It also can reduce racial disparities and wages lost between workers, workers of color and White workers. I’d say there’s also a larger economic benefit. It can reduce employee turnover, increase employee retention and overall increase women’s labor force participation. So, I think on a broad scale, it’s health benefits, it’s maternal wellbeing, it’s family wellbeing, it’s child wellbeing, and it’s an economic argument as well.

And from a health equity perspective too, that’s another big benefit of the paid family leave programs. There are vast disparities in health indicators and metrics by race, especially in the United States. And having programs like paid leave allow workers to take care of their own health needs and their family’s health needs without fear of losing their jobs. There’s research out there that shows when you have access to things like paid family leave, you’re more likely to seek preventative care. You’re more likely to get the care that you need to address health conditions. And so having a more universal paid family leave program could help alleviate some of the existing health disparities that we see in the country.

And you make the point that your findings really underscore the need for a federal solution to this problem, given the geography and the political orientation of many of the states that lack these laws.

Andrews: So, as we note in the paper, geography and regional demographics are key in looking at this analysis. We know that roughly 42% of women of color actually reside in the South and the majority of these southern states are controlled by Republican legislatures. And we also know that for paid leave to pass in the states, Democratic legislators have usually led the efforts. And so, we see this disparity that is clear in the numbers and the solution has to go beyond the kind of state-by-state policy that we have now. It has to be a federal solution to make sure that everyone has access to paid family and medical leave throughout the country. Jessica, any additions there?

Milli: One other thing that I would add to this is that at the national level, we have the FMLA act, right? But that only gave guarantees workers unpaid, job-protected leave. And due to the eligibility requirements inherent in that law, you have to work for a business with at least 50 employees, there’s restrictions on the number of hours you have to work in a given year and things like that. So, when all of that is taken to account, a large portion of the workforce isn’t even eligible for protections. It’s a really huge need at the national level.

And I guess also to make the point, even in the 13 states and the District, not all of those laws are equally effective, correct? Some are better than others.

Andrews: That’s correct. And over the past 20 years, we’ve seen all of these states come online, and we’ve seen states continue to improve their laws, things like expanding the definition of family and increasing reimbursement rates for folks with lower incomes. We can see the progress that’s been made. But yes, some states do have stronger programs where it’s more equitable and accessible for sure, which again points to the need for a comprehensive, universal guaranteed paid leave program from the federal government.