Sec. 2. Findings and purpose
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Congress finds the following: In nearly two-thirds of families with children, all adults in the household work. Three in four caregivers have worked at a paying job at some point during their caregiving experience. Without paid family and medical leave, many workers are unable to take time away from work to care for newborn children, ill or aging parents and relatives, or themselves. Both women and men need to be able to take time off work to participate in early care of their children, in the care of seriously ill family members, and to address their own serious health conditions.
Yet, a mere 12 percent of workers in the United States have access to paid family leave through their employers, and fewer than 40 percent have access to short-term disability insurance provided by their employer to use for their own illnesses. Many workers cannot afford to take unpaid time off work to provide care. According to the Department of Labor, nearly half of workers who qualified for leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993
(FMLA)in 2011 were unable to take the leave because they could not afford to take time off without pay. Six in ten workers who took partially paid or unpaid leave reported difficulty making ends meet; half of these workers were forced to cut their leaves short due to financial constraints. Only 12 percent of all workers had access to paid family leave in 2012 and it was available to only 4 percent of individuals working in the lowest paying jobs. Workers who lack paid family leave face lost wages or even job loss when they miss work because of their own illness or to care for an ill child or parent. In this way, access to paid leave plays a critical role in families’ efforts to maintain employment and economic security. Caregiving has a high value but also comes at a high cost for family caregivers. The estimated value of unpaid family care provided in 2009 was $450 billion. Caregivers face financial, physical and emotional hardships, and in many cases their careers, incomes, and retirement security suffer because of their family responsibilities. Working caregivers should not have to risk their family’s economic security to fulfill their caregiving obligations. The average worker age 50 and older who leaves the workforce to care for an elderly parent loses more than $300,000 in earnings and retirement income. The population over age 65 is expected to double within the next few decades. The number of people with chronic conditions is expected to reach 157 million by 2020. Many of these individuals will at some point require family care, and for older workers still in the workforce, many will need time off at some point to address serious health conditions. Ensuring working family caregivers have paid family leave to care for ailing elders could drive down Medicare costs by decreasing recurrences of ailments and re-admittance into hospitals. Many workers are forced to quickly return to work after the birth or arrival of a child because they have no access to paid family and medical leave. Only half of new mothers take paid leave of any duration after the birth of their first child, and among women with less than a high school education the figure is less than 20 percent—a rate that has not changed in half a century. When new mothers have no choice but to return to work without taking leave, children can experience a variety of negative outcomes including higher rates of infant mortality, lower rates of breastfeeding, lower rates of immunization, and a higher incidence of maternal physical and mental health concerns. California’s paid family leave insurance program has increased the number of weeks of leave that women take after childbirth, with larger effects among women in jobs that do not provide paid leave. A nationwide paid family leave program would address the persistent sex discrimination in the utilization of leave benefits and reduce the disparity between women and men regarding who takes time off from work to fulfill caregiving duties. This disparity is driven in part by the fact that men continue to earn more than women, and, as a result, it often makes more economic sense for women in two-parent families to take unpaid leave and forgo their lower salary. Many men would like to be more involved in caregiving and report greater work-family conflict than ever before. In California, men’s use of the State’s paid family leave insurance program to care for a new child has doubled since the program’s implementation. Paid family and medical leave promotes families’ financial security and independence, increases worker retention, and promotes savings for taxpayers. Women who take paid leave after a child’s birth are more likely to be in the labor force in the 9 to 12 months after a child’s birth and to earn higher wages in the year following their child’s birth. Both men and women who take paid leave after a child’s birth are less likely to receive food stamps and public assistance in the year following a child’s birth. Without paid medical leave, workers who are ill or injured may return to work before being fully recovered, thus making them susceptible to a relapse or recurrence, and potentially placing additional burdens on the health care system. When a job requires physical stamina or ability, individuals who return to work too early may put themselves or others in jeopardy. A social insurance model of providing paid family leave pioneered by the states of California and New Jersey has worked well for workers, their families, and employers. Between 2004 and 2012, Californians took more than 1.4 million leaves to care for a family member or bond with a new child. Between 2009 and 2012, more than 100,000 New Jersey workers filed eligible claims for family leave. The overwhelming majority of California employers report that the program had a positive or neutral effect on their business. Researchers conclude that some employers experienced cost savings by coordinating their own benefits with those offered through the State paid family leave program. Employers and employees benefit when workers have access to paid leave. Social Security is one of the Nation’s primary social insurance systems and it provides retirement assistance and disability benefits. When Social Security was created in 1934, most families had a stay at home caregiver. That is no longer the case. For the first time in the Nation’s history, half of all workers in the United States are women. The system needs to be changed to reflect the realities of today’s workforce and provide workers with income when they need leave from work due to the birth of a child or a serious health condition. When workers can care for themselves and their loved ones, employers experience positive impacts. More than four times as many worksites covered by FMLA reported positive effects on employee productivity, absenteeism, turnover, career advancement and morale, as well as the business’ profitability as reported negative effects in the Department of Labor’s 2012 survey on the FMLA. It is the purpose of this Act— to help working families, including single working parents and dual-earner families, afford to take time away from work to provide care for a family member and be good workers; to provide workers with a reasonable level of wage replacement during time away from work for a serious health condition, for the birth or adoption of a child, for the care of a child, spouse, or parent who has a serious health condition, for the care of an injured servicemember, or for qualifying exigencies arising from the deployment of a servicemember; to address sex discrimination, promote the goal of equal employment opportunity for women and men, and to provide relief when employers violate the law; and to accomplish the purposes described in paragraphs (1), (2), and
(3)in a manner that accommodates the legitimate interests of employers.