Across our nation, working parents face barriers to staying in the workforce. Lack of access to affordable child care and to paid family, medical and parental leave forces people to choose between taking care of their children or a sick family member and losing their job and their health insurance.
Debra Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families, said in a statement on the anniversary of the FMLA, “As a nation, we have reached an extraordinary moment of consensus and conviction in the national effort to win paid family and medical leave for all. … But the details matter tremendously and key policy principles are essential to ensuring that the national plan we adopt will be affordable, sustainable, inclusive and effective.”
“It’s a public health emergency that we don’t offer more support for parents in this country,” said Darby Saxbe, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Southern California.
“It is past time for Congress to fulfill the promise of the FMLA by passing a national paid family and medical leave plan. But not just any plan will do. Lawmakers should consider the evidence and support the Family And Medical Insurance Leave (FAMILY) Act, the leading paid leave proposal in Congress.”
Access to paid sick leave decreases the probability of job separation, and making coverage universal could substantially reduce medical costs, particularly those paid by public health insurance programs.
About 85,000 California men took paid family leave in California during the 2017 fiscal year, double the number that took paternity leave in 2009, according to the latest figures from the California Employment Development Department.
As part of a coalition led by organizations including the Restaurant Opportunities Center United and the National Employment Law Project, the National Partnership for Women & Families submitted comments today opposing a rule that could cost tipped workers an...
Statement of Debra L. Ness, President, National Partnership for Women & Families
Organization Behind the Family and Medical Leave Act Releases Data Demonstrating the Scope of the Nation’s Paid Leave Crisis in All 50 States
Statement of Debra L. Ness, President, National Partnership for Women & Families
[I]f you have flu symptoms, you should stay home — and if your child is sick, you shouldn’t send him or her to school. Thanks to New York City’s paid sick leave law, we can all do that.
Being on the advisory board of the Workforce Accelerator 2025, the board of the New Hampshire Manufacturing Extension Partnership, the statewide champion of the Manufacturing Sector Partnership Initiative, and former chair of New Hampshire’s Business and Industry Association, I am very much aware of the workforce development challenges facing the state. A paid leave program in New Hampshire would be a workforce driver for the state.
“The Family and Medical Leave Act [FMLA] provides only 12 weeks of unpaid leave around the birth or adoption of a child,” says Vicki Shabo, the vice president for workplace policies and strategies at National Partnership for Women & Families. “So it’s up to employers across the country, including employers in congress like Senators [to decide] whether they offer pay during that time.”
Vicki Shabo, vice president for workplace policies and strategies for the National Partnership for Women & Families, called the paid sick leave program “an extremely welcome sign” and said in an interview that Starbucks had “essentially taken what paid sick leave policies say and extended that to their entire workforce.”
That view is shared by Vicki Shabo, vice president for workplace policies and strategies at the National Partnership for Women & Families, an advocacy group, who said it will primarily benefit workers at companies already offering paid family leave. The new tax credit “just perpetuates the boss lottery,” she added.
Statement of Debra L. Ness, President, National Partnership for Women & Families
The movement may be divided, but there’s still progress, according to Sarah Fleisch Fink, director of workplace policy at the National Partnership for Women & Families. “I think the important thing right now is we’re having the conversation – that some of these experiences that people have faced, are being surfaced,” she said.
Statement of Debra L. Ness, President, National Partnership for Women & Families
Saying the new division is a way to sanction discrimination in healthcare, Debra L. Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families, called it “misguided” and “mean-spirited.”
Statement of Debra L. Ness, President, National Partnership for Women & Families
