White House eyes scaled-back paid-leave program
That legislation would provide two weeks of COVID-related sick leave at full pay and 12 weeks of family and medical leave at two-thirds pay.
The Biden administration is considering a scaled-down version of a coronavirus-related paid leave program.
Advocates want Congress to pass provisions similar to those proposed in Democrats’ HEROES Act, Politico reported. That legislation would provide all workers with two weeks of COVID-related sick leave at full pay and 12 weeks of family and medical leave at two-thirds pay. The program would be short-lived, with a likely expiration date later this year rather than a years-long effort as lawmakers proposed in Build Back Better.
The United States is the only wealthy nation without a federal paid leave policy. An estimated four in five workers lack access to paid family leave, while 60% lack access to paid medical leave. More than two in 10 do not have access to paid sick leave.
COVID — and, most recently, the surging Omicron variant — has called attention to the issue. In the last month, nearly nine million people reported they could not work because they either had COVID or were caring for someone who did, according to the Census Bureau. This is more than in any other wave of the virus.
“It’s clear that we need an intervention now, with another surge providing the highest number of workers affected and not working because of COVID and caregiving,” one supporter said. Advocates are hopeful, particularly given that Congress passed the original emergency paid leave program on a bipartisan basis as part of the Families First bill. Although some Republicans and business groups have expressed support for paid leave in general, they also have raised concerns about the overall cost and its impact on employers.
In the meantime, advocates aren’t giving up on enacting a longer-term paid leave program as part of the Build Back Better push. The temporary program is “only a Band-Aid solution for the longer-term needs that our country has around ensuring every person in the country has access to permanent, paid family and medical leave — both for future waves of COVID and the other pandemic that comes our way, but also for the ongoing needs that we all know people experience day in and day out,” another supporter said.
Labor Secretary Marty Walsh said he “would love to see Congress take up a paid leave bill. We will have paid leave in this country at some point in the future. And someday, people are going to look back and say, ‘Why didn’t we do this earlier?’”