There are moments when you can almost feel the ground shift beneath you. When then-Sen. Al Gore took to the Senate floor to describe his 6-year-old son Albert’s terrifying 1989 accident, it was a pivotal moment not just for the Gore family but also for the country.

Paid leave could provide a key component of caring for Maine’s aging population. By 2030, 28 percent of our population is expected be 65 or older, and almost two-thirds of those are expected to need long-term services and supports.

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.

“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.

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.

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 state Department of Labor made an economic case for establishing a paid family and medical leave fund in a report issued with nine partner organizations on Wednesday.

OUR Walmart estimates that approximately 60 percent of Walmart associates work part time, just like Bartlett. So while the paid leave policy is a major improvement for full-time associates, the policy will not be applicable for the majority of employees.

This morning, the Franklin County Board of Commissioners voted to approve a new Paid Family Leave program to allow employees time to provide parental care immediately following the birth or adoption of a minor child, and to care for a covered family member who has a serious medical condition.

When Congress passed the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) nearly 25 years ago it was meant to be the first — not the only — step toward greater financial stability for millions of American families.

Missouri state officials, on both sides of the aisle, are stepping up and serving as a model for how parental leave strengthens families and benefits employers.

Working people in New York state will ring in the new year with an important new right on the job: up to eight weeks of paid family leave (increasing to 12 weeks by 2021).

Patients with cancer whose workplaces offered paid medical leave had better physical and financial health, and were more likely to complete their treatments, according to a recent study conducted by the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN).

[O]ur leaders often ignore a less visible, but pressing need aging Americans face: caregiving. This usually falls to family and loved ones. About 44 million Americans provide care each year for adult family members and friends, often on top of work and other family obligations.

Any company serious about addressing sexual harassment in the workplace should care about the women’s leadership gap. And anyone trying to close that gap must put paid time for caregiving at the top of their to-do list.

In addition to raising the minimum wage, initiating a new government insurance program called Family and Medical Leave Insurance, or FAMLI, would also help Vermonters to improve their ability to support their families.

In October 2017, the ASBC came out with their own research showing that companies who invested in promoting family-friendly benefits, flexibility, fair living wages, cultivated inclusion, engaged with communities, for example, could improve retention of quality employees, earn better results from contractors and vendors, and attract fast-growing numbers of consumers who want to buy from values-based organizations.

Zero Weeks, [Ky] Dickens’ fourth feature-length film, is a stark and poignant look at the consequences of inaction on paid leave in the U.S.

Many fathers who take on roles stereotypically reserved for mothers find themselves fighting the same battles working mothers have fought going back decades, including the legal ones: in December 2016, Carlson sued CVS, claiming it had violated federal family leave law and demanding back pay, damages and attorneys’ fees.

The question of whether parents should spend time bonding with their newborns was answered experimentally, through neuroscience and psychology. Likewise, the question of whether businesses and societies should provide paid parental leave is being answered experimentally, through an economic experiment in California.