The American Rescue Plan Leaves Out a Key Equity Tool: Paid Leave
By Jesse Mermell
The American Rescue Plan, which was signed into law last week, will do a lot of good for a lot of people. Expanded food stamps and rental assistance, support for small businesses, and aid for states and municipalities are all desperately needed. Survival checks will temporarily tide over many families. Expanded unemployment benefits will help millions of Americans make ends meet. But the plan is missing significant components that will be crucial to a just and equitable recovery from the overlapping crises our nation is living through. One of them is paid family and medical leave.
While the American Rescue Plan does include a voluntary tax credit for businesses offering paid leave because of COVID, it fails to institute a nationwide paid family and medical leave program at a time when workers need access to that safety net more than ever. Right now, only a privileged few are able to take time off to rest and recover without fear of financial ruin if they fall sick with COVID, or if they must step away from work to care for a family member. Without a federal paid leave program, those vulnerabilities will remain and an equitable recovery will be near impossible.
The debate around paid leave is one I know well. In 2017 and 2018 I was part of a small group of leaders from across the Massachusetts political spectrum who came together to craft the details of a paid leave program here in the commonwealth. That program went into effect here in January of this year, and ensures that workers in Massachusetts are able to take paid time off when they start a family, if they get sick, or if a loved one gets sick.
Throughout the months of back-and-forth that went into developing the program, I talked to countless workers and business leaders about the need for statewide paid leave. I connected with workers who rushed back to jobs after giving birth, or who worked through serious illnesses because taking time off meant facing eviction or not having enough money for food. I heard from CEOs like Newton’s Beth Monaghan, head of InkHouse PR, who voluntarily implemented paid leave at her company several years back, and saw her bottom line improve because of increased productivity and reduced turnover. I talked to small business owners who desperately wanted to offer their valued employees a paid leave program, allowing them to compete with larger companies already including paid leave in their benefits package, but who couldn’t afford it at their limited scale.
All of this was in a world before COVID. Now we can see the need for — and benefits of — paid family and medical leave in even more stark relief. The people most likely to be helped by paid leave (BIPOC workers, women, and low wage earners) are also those who have been most negatively impacted during the pandemic.
Here in Massachusetts, workers finally have access to paid leave, but only a handful of other states have passed similar laws. Most workers around the country are unprotected. For our economy to truly recover, and for our path forward out of this time of crisis to be fair and just, all workers in all states must have access to paid family and medical leave. As we celebrate the significant progress that will come from the American Rescue Plan, the calls for the next package to include paid leave are clear. The Main Street Alliance, and organization that advocates for small businesses, has called for “a permanent, comprehensive, sustainable paid leave program.” Congresswomen Ayanna Pressley and Rosa DeLauro led 96 House members in sending a letter to the White House advocating for paid leave. The National Partnership for Women and Families is making the case for paid leave to be built into the next stimulus bill.
For all there is to like about the American Rescue Plan, much work remains. Here in Massachusetts, we are used to being the breeding ground for progressive policies like health care reform and marriage equality that ultimately go national. Congress should make paid family and medical leave the next example on that list by putting a federal paid leave program in the next recovery bill, and getting us that much closer to an equitable America.
Jesse Mermell (@jessemermell) was a candidate for Congress in MA-04 in the 2020 Democratic primary.