NEW SOLUTIONS FOR BALANCING WORK AND FAMILY

By Donna Lenhoff, General Counsel at the
National Partnership for Women & Families

Some days, finding the balance between the needs of your family and the demands of your job can seem like an impossible task. Sixty-four percent of Americans say that time pressures on working families are getting worse, not better. Concern about time for family needs is only likely to grow. Among both women and men under age 45, 72 percent of men, and 63 percent of women say they will probably need to take family or medical leave in the next ten years. 64 percent of women and 68 percent of men also expect to be responsible for an elder relative.

A crucial component of striking the balance between work and family is having access to family and medical leave, so that hard-working women and men won’t have to choose between the jobs they need and the families they love. Family and medical leave is job-protected time off from work to meet important family responsibilities, such as caring for a new baby or a sick parent, spouse, or child. Women’s advocacy organizations around the country have made the availability of such protections a national priority, to ensure that more working Americans can care for their loved ones without the risk of losing their jobs.

Enacted in 1993, the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) was the first national policy designed to help working people fulfill both their work and family responsibilities. Under the FMLA, employers of 50 or more are required to provide up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to employees who need leave for their own serious health conditions, to care for children, spouses, or parents with serious health conditions, or to care for newborns, newly adopted or foster children. The FMLA has been a great success, allowing over 26 million workers since its enactment—an estimated four million working family members a year—to care for their loved ones without putting their jobs or their health insurance at risk, and without detriment to business.

Yet 41 million people—nearly half of the private workforce—are not protected by the federal law. People who work for businesses with fewer than 50 employees are not covered by the FMLA. Neither are many people who work one or more part-time jobs. Also, because the FMLA guarantees only unpaid leave when a new baby arrives or a medical crisis strikes, too many women and men are still unable to take essential time off. In fact, nearly two-thirds of employees who needed but did not take family or medical leave cited lost wages as the reason. States have provided additional legal protections for workers’ family and medical needs, but these vary from state to state.

Not surprisingly, lower-income families have the least access to any compensation during leave, such as paid sick days or vacation time—with devastating implications for the poorest families. According data, nearly one in ten FMLA users is forced onto public assistance while on leave. The problem is so serious that in 1996, the bipartisan Family Leave Commission called for consideration of a “uniform system of wage replacement for periods of family and medical leave” that would be affordable for employers and employees alike.

Surveys consistently find that, regardless of age, race, income, education, or parental status, a large percentage of Americans support paid parental or family/medical leave programs. In a 1998 poll, 82 percent of women and 75 percent of men supported family leave insurance proposals. Similarly, a 2000 poll found that 89 percent of parents of young children and 84 percent of all adults support expanding disability or unemployment insurance as a vehicle for paid family leave.

Despite supportive public opinion, existing public and private responses to provide financial assistance for needed family and medical leave are limited. The major public program to address the problem of unpaid leave is a state—not federal—program called Temporary Disability Insurance (TDI), which provides partial wage replacement to employees who are temporarily disabled for medical reasons, including pregnancy and childbirth. Only five states and Puerto Rico have TDI systems or require employers to offer TDI. These TDI systems help approximately 22 percent of working Americans take medical leave when they need it.

But recently, state legislators, researchers, and activists for women, children, seniors, and working families have been mobilizing behind a range of innovative proposals to make family leave more affordable through family leave benefits. These efforts were aided at the federal level when, in June 2000, the Labor Department adopted a new regulation aimed at making parental leave more affordable. The regulation, which encourages states to provide unemployment benefits to working parents who take time off to care for a newborn or newly adopted child, clears the way for states to consider how best to solve the problem of unpaid leave.

Current proposals for family leave benefits vary from state to state, but all involve providing partial wage replacement for workers on at least some form of family or medical leave, such as parental leave. Some state efforts focus on expanding existing unemployment insurance (as allowed by the Labor Department regulation) or temporary disability insurance programs to cover people on leave, while others would create entirely new programs. Other innovative approaches include allowing employees to use their own sick leave for family medical needs, creating subsidies for new parents who take time off, or offering financial incentives to businesses to provide more generous family leave benefits. California, for example, recently passed a law requiring employers who offer paid sick leave to let employees use some of their accrued sick leave when they take time off to care for a sick parent, child, or spouse. California’s Employment Development Department recently completed a study of extending the state’s short-term Disability Insurance Fund to cover parental leave, as well.

While there have been recent successes on the state and federal level, there are still major challenges ahead. As the movement for family leave benefits picks up speed, well-financed opponents are trying to slow it down. Family leave benefits supporters face the same business interests that strenuously opposed the FMLA. In fact, after failing to prevent adoption of the regulation to allow new parents to collect unemployment insurance while on parental leave, such business groups filed a federal lawsuit to invalidate the regulation. Yet, supporters of family and medical leave are confident that the regulation will stand in court.

Despite a well-organized opposition, the effort to secure family leave benefits is still gaining ground during the last round of legislative sessions. 18 states considered bills, which would have provided family leave benefits or resources to investigate options for meeting this need. The Department of Labor regulation and this recent state activity are indications of real progress on the policy front and evidence that policy makers recognize the crisis faced by many working families. Women’s advocates will continue to build on the momentum created over the past few years, and with the help of America’s working families, will work to solve the problem of unpaid leave.

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