From xxxxxx <[email protected]>
Subject The Rich Already Have Paid Leave. Meet One of the Activists Behind the Fight to Make it Universal.
Date November 17, 2021 1:05 AM
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[Advocates have overcome opposition from conservative Democrats to
secure four weeks of paid leave in the House budget bill, but more
obstacles remain] [[link removed]]

THE RICH ALREADY HAVE PAID LEAVE. MEET ONE OF THE ACTIVISTS BEHIND
THE FIGHT TO MAKE IT UNIVERSAL.  
[[link removed]]


 

Sarah Anderson
November 8, 2021
Inequality.org
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_ Advocates have overcome opposition from conservative Democrats to
secure four weeks of paid leave in the House budget bill, but more
obstacles remain _

People hold signs during a rally for paid family leave in 2016., Seth
Wenig/AP

 

For Ruth Martin, the fight for paid leave is both professional and
personal.

As Senior Vice President of MomsRising, she’s helped mobilize more
than 870,000 contacts
[[link removed]]
between the group’s members and lawmakers to advocate for paid leave
and other pro-family benefits in the Build Back Better legislation.

As the daughter of a cancer patient, she’s seen up close how the
lack of paid leave benefits ravages families.

“I lost my mom to lung cancer in June,” Martin said at a recent
Capitol Hill rally
[[link removed]]. “Losing
a parent is devastating. And losing a parent during a pandemic is
worse. And losing a parent without paid leave is absolutely
horrendous.”

During her mother’s illness, Martin had paid leave benefits through
her employer, but her three siblings who live near her mother’s home
did not.

“As you know, lung cancer spreads quickly,” Martin said. “My
brother who lived with my mother would still have to go to work
because he didn’t have paid leave. And it was so terrifying to have
to wonder what was going to happen while he was gone.”

President Biden had proposed 12 weeks of paid leave in his Build Back
Better agenda to allow workers to care for newborn babies or other
loved ones or for personal illness. Then conservative Democrats
stripped the benefits entirely from the initial House bill, claiming
that the world’s richest country cannot afford a benefit that nearly
every other country offers their workforce.

But an outcry from MomsRising, Family Values at Work, and many other
advocacy organizations succeeded in shoehorning four weeks of paid
leave back into the legislation.

Now even this modest proposal is in jeopardy.

West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin continues to insist that paid leave
be addressed through bipartisan legislation, rather than through the
Democrats-only budget reconciliation process. He aims to strip these
benefits before the legislation is finalized.

The absence of a national paid leave system is one of many drivers of
our country’s skyrocketing inequality. The larger your paycheck, the
more likely you are to have these benefits.

Among the highest-earning tenth of the U.S. private sector workforce,
95 percent have access to some form of paid sick leave, according to
Bureau of Labor Statistics data
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Among the lowest-earning tenth, just 33 percent have that access. In
the highest-wage group, 43 percent have paid family leave, compared to
just 6 percent in the bottom group.

The lack of paid leave creates a vicious cycle for families struggling
to get by. In the event of pregnancy, illness, or family medical
emergency, people who are already earning less than a living wage may
have no choice but to drop out of the workforce entirely.

Under the House legislation, a worker whose employer doesn’t provide
paid medical or family leave can apply for up to four weeks of wage
replacement for time off during a one-year benefit period. Workers
making $15,000 or less a year would receive the highest wage
replacement rate — 90 percent — but they will have had to have
earned at least $2,000 in the two years prior, as well as some level
of income in the period immediately preceding the leave.

The plan cuts off wage replacement for those earning more than $62,000
a year. People with higher incomes can submit requests for paid leave,
but their earnings would be replaced only up to that level.

After numerous delays, the House is expected to vote on the Build Back
Better legislation as early as next week. Then it will be the
Senate’s turn. Since every Democrat’s vote will be needed for
passage, Manchin’s opposition means the paid leave provision faces
an uphill battle.

Whatever happens with this round, the fight will continue.

“We need paid leave in this country for the moments that break our
hearts and the moments that fill us with joy,” said Martin of
MomsRising. “And no one should risk losing their last moments with
their parents because they have to clock in and clock out for work.”

Sarah Anderson directs the Global Economy Project at the Institute for
Policy Studies and is a co-editor of the IPS web site Inequality.org.
Follow her at @SarahDAnderson1.

 

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