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With the Electoral College officially selecting Donald J. Trump as the next President of the United States, many are now wondering what changes may take place upon his inauguration. Particularly relating to employment, you can expect to see many changes including family leave time for workers.
Trump has proposed a plan which would give women who recently gave birth (note, not all new mothers) 6 weeks of partial paid leave through an expansion of unemployment. While this may initially sound great, upon inspection of the plan there is much to be desired. The first issue arises from the source of funding for the program, which is supposed to be unemployment. This is a social service that is grossly underfunded as is, without adding the element of maternity leave. Because of the lack of funding, it is estimated that women on this plan would only receive approximately 30% of their weekly wages.
Other glaring issues with the program include the length of time offered. Six weeks is far below the recommended minimum of 12 weeks for parental bonding time after a child is born/adopted. This brings us to the next issue – the coverage would only be available to women that just gave birth. This means that fathers and adoptive/foster parents are ineligible to the benefits.
There are alternatives to Trump’s proposed plan, including a bill sponsored by Connecticut Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro and New York State Senator Kirsten Gillibrand called the FAMILY Act. The acronym stands for the Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act and would require all employers (regardless of company size) to provide employees (regardless of age/duration of employment) with 12 weeks of paid leave for various reasons. It would not only provide coverage to women that just gave birth, but also to new fathers, adoptive parents, foster parents, or people needing to take time off for their own serious medical condition/to care for a family member with a serious medical condition. In contrast to Trump’s plan which would be through unemployment, FAMILY would be run by a new office of the Social Security Administration. It would be funded by small contributions by employees and employers as a payroll deduction. This may be concern upon first hearing about the plan, but the deduction is extremely minimal – 2 cents for every $10 earned by the worker. It would enable participants in the program to make up to 66% of their regular weekly wages during their time away from work. Both insurance benefits and administrative costs would be covered by the contributions. In order for the plan to work, all employees would be required to participate in the contribution if the bill is passed (you can’t opt-out). If people were able to opt-out, the structure of the funding would be changed drastically, making the deductions too great for those that want to participate.
The FAMILY Act had been gaining support in Congress and was expected to pass under a Hillary Clinton administration. However, now that Republicans will be controlling both the White House and Congress, the bill will most likely be facing bigger impediments than it did previously.
In order to encourage opponents of the paid family to support the policy, a non-profit organization called PL+US intends to put the pressure on nay-sayers. IN addition to a possible political action committee, PL+US will be launching a campaign highlighting companies with excellent paid leave policies – as well as highlighting companies with the worst leave policies.
Currently, the only national family leave program is The Family & Medical Leave Act of 1993, which provides up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to certain employees to care for themselves or a family member in the event of serious illness. However, the fact that the leave is unpaid is not the only problem with the program. It also comes with many stipulations which leaves a majority of workers ineligible for the time off. The first requirement for an employee to be eligible for leave is that they must work for a “covered employer”. Covered employers are those which a) employ at least 50 people for 20 or more workweeks in the current or preceding calendar year (private sector) or b) are a public agency (regardless of how many employees). The next qualification is that the employee must have worked for the employer for at least 12 months, and given at least 1,500 hours of service during the past 12 months. Finally, the employee must work at a location where the employer has at least 50 employees within a 75-mile radius. In some situations, the FMLA leave may be taken intermittently as needed.
While it is impossible to say at this point what may happen in the coming year, one thing is clear – big changes are coming to family leave laws. Hopefully, they will be for the better.
Sources:
https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/benefits-leave/fmla
https://www.aegislawfirm.com/documents/family-act-fact-sheet.pdf