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.

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.

According to Vicki Shabo, vice president at the National Partnership, the way to fix these patchwork and uneven policies is simple: a national paid leave policy. “It’s another indication in the growing sense that it is time for the U.S. to have national paid leave,” said Shabo. “It’s obviously beneficial to workers, it’s something that is beneficial to employers, and it will be beneficial to the U.S. economy.”

Women make on average 80 cents for every dollar a man makes, says Vicki Shabo, a vice president at the advocacy group National Partnership for Women & Families. Some of that is due to women gravitating toward lower-paying careers or bouncing in and out of the workforce as they balance being caretakers. But statistical analysis says that 38 percent of those 80 cents is unaccounted for, Shabo said.

“An imbalance of power in people in two different positions is a big part of sexual harassment occurring, and I think that there’s probably nowhere that occurs more than in lower-wage jobs,” said ‎Sarah Fleisch Fink, senior counsel for the National Partnership for Women & Families.

“In this past legislative session 31 states had bills introduced,” said Vicki Shabo, vice president of workplace policies and strategies at the National Partnership for Women & Families.

“The distribution of those benefits are skewed towards higher income families, and really paltry for lower income families,” says Vicki Shabo, vice president at the National Partnership for Women & Families. “The overall package is really dismal for working families.”

“This bill is a poorly disguised attempt to take away guaranteed sick days at a time when the evidence that paid sick days standards benefit working people and their families, businesses and communities, as well as our economy and our public health, is strong and growing,” National Partnership President Debra Ness said.

Sexual harassment “often involves an imbalance of power between a perpetrator and the person who is harassed,” said Sarah Fleisch Fink, director of workplace policy and senior counsel for the National Partnership.

Vicki Shabo, vice president at the National Partnership for Women & Families, says that this bill is only a drop in the bucket of support to businesses already taking the lead on this issue. The provision provides “a very small tax credit to businesses that voluntarily provide at least a minimal level, two weeks, of paid family or medical leave,” she said.

“This is really an extraordinary teaching moment for our nation,” said Debra Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families. “We are in an environment where the people coming forward, rather than being attacked or villainized, what we are seeing is that their stories are being accorded gravity,” she said.

“For people who are living paycheck to paycheck or have significant debt, the risks of staying home and losing pay or potentially losing their job are far too great,” said Vicki Shabo, vice president for workplace policies and strategies at the National Partnership for Women & Families.