5 takeaways:
➀ Advocates for paid leave have won victories in recent years, but access falls along partisan state lines.Over the past 15 years, about 60 laws have gone on the books to provide paid leave in various forms. Paid leave can be sick days to deal with illnesses, safe days to deal with domestic abuse, or family leave to bond with a new child. Most of those laws were enacted in the mid-2010s, and most are in the nation’s bluest states. Attempts to pass a federal paid leave law – supported on the campaign trail by President-elect Joe Biden – face tough odds in a divided Congress, particularly if Republicans maintain control of the U.S. Senate.
➁ As COVID-19 has accelerated, people exposed to the virus have been urged to stay home, forcing them to walk a financial tightrope. According to the Pew Research Center, 24% of U.S. civilian workers don’t even have paid sick days. Access to other forms of paid leave – family leave, safe days – is far more limited. “Most people don’t actually think about paid leave until they need it, and then they realize that they don’t have any,” Chun-Hoon said.
➂ Access to paid leave helps reduce poverty and inequality. Evidence published in 2019 from a paid family leave program in California showed that the leave decreased the risk of poverty in the prior year by an estimated 10.2% and increased household income over the same period by an estimated 4.1%. Gains were concentrated among less-educated and low-income single mothers. “It really filled a gap among working women,” Dutta-Gupta said, adding, “Paid leave quite clearly reduces poverty, especially if it’s well-designed.”
➃ Initial evidence has found that access to paid leave programs helped dampen the spread of COVID-19. One October 2020 study examined the effect of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, which gave some workers paid sick leave or expanded family and medical leave for reasons related to COVID-19. The study compared COVID-19 case rates in states that already had paid leave laws to those that only gained them from this COVID-specific law. The study adjusted for a range of factors. It found a statistically significant reduction in cases in the states where workers had just gained paid leave.
➄ Access to paid leave varies by racial and income groups. Using data from four different national surveys, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that Hispanic workers have lower rates of paid-leave access and use than white, non-Hispanic counterparts. In addition, there was some evidence of lower levels for Black workers, although the differences weren’t as large. Noting that Black and Hispanic households already have far lower wealth levels than white households, Dutta-Gupta said a lack of paid leave can be significant. “There’s not much of a buffer there,” he said. “The idea that people can go without a paycheck for a week, two weeks – even if it were true for the median household, it’s even less true for communities of color.”
This program was funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and Heising-Simons Foundation. NPF is solely responsible for the content.
