I am petitioning for 12 weeks of paid leave for new parents, with a 60-70% income replacement in the state of Michigan. 

The United States is the only developed country in the world that does not mandate employers to offer paid leave for new parents. New mothers in Finland are entitled to up to three years’ worth of paid leave, while the U.K. grants new mothers up to 39 weeks. These are just two examples of how countries around the world have noticed the value of work leave after birth. The United States does have an old, out of date policy that grants 12 weeks of unpaid leave for new parents, but in our busy world, this will not do. Research has shown time after time the extreme benefits of paid leave for both parents and baby and through this petition I hope you see how important it is for our government to finally make the change to paid maternal and paternal leave.

            The major event or milestone leading to the current status of paid maternity and paternity leave in the United States is the 1993 Family and Medical Leave act (FMLA). The FMLA provides employees with up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job protected leave per year. Leave can be taken for the birth and care for a newborn child, placement with an employee of an adopted of foster child, care of an immediate family member (child, spouse, or parent) with a serious health condition, or medical leave when the employee is unable to work because a serious health condition. Time taken off work due to pregnancy complications can be counted against the 12 weeks of family and medical leave. To qualify for unpaid leave the employee must have worked for their employer for at least 12 months, and for at least 1250 hours over the last 12 months. Additionally, not every employer is required to provide its employees with family or medical leave. This law applies to state, local, or federal governmental agencies, or private businesses engaged in interstate commerce, employing 50 or more employees within 75 miles. (United States Department of Labor , FMLA (Family & Medical Leave), 2018). Returning to work, the employee is protected by the FMLA to receive his or her former job, or to an equivalent job, with equivalent pay, benefits, and other terms of employment. All benefits the employee had before their leave cannot be taken away due to the leave under the “no-fault” attendance policy. Though certain employees may be denied restoration of their jobs if returning them to their former positions would result in substantial economic harm to the employer. A “key” employee, defined as a salaried employee who is among the highest paid ten percent of the employees within a seventy-five mile radius, may not be entitled to reinstatement after leave. The employer must notify the employee that they are a key employee before leave, notifying them that if they leave they might not be reinstated at their current position. (FindLaw, 2018)

            In 2016, there were approximately 3,945,875 births in the United States. The mean age at first birth was 26.6 and 39.8% were born from unmarried mothers (CDC, 2017). 47% of the work force is comprised of women and in 40 % of American households, women are the primary breadwinner. (Shortall, 2015), (United States Department of Labor, Women's Bureau, 2010) In 2017, 33.6 million families, 41% of all families, included children under age 18. Families with at least one member unemployed decreased by 557,000 to 4.7 million in 2017, and 80.5% of families had at least one employed family member. Families managed by women were less likely to have an employed member for the family, (76.8%) than families maintained by men (84.6%) or married-couple families (81.0%). Among the married-couple families, both the husband and wife were employed in 48.3 % of families; in 19.1% of married-couple families only the husband was employed, and in 7.1 % only the wife was employed. 65.1% of mothers with young children, ages 0-6, were part of the labor force, while those with older children, ages 6-17; 75.7% of woman were part of the labor force. In addition, in 2017 92.8 % of all fathers with children under age 18 participated in the labor force. Employed fathers remained more likely to work full time than employed mothers in 2017; 95.7 %  of employed fathers worked full time, compared with 77.2 % of employed mothers. (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2018) The issue of unpaid leave is relevant to the almost 4 million babies born each year, and to the 80.5% of all families with at least one working family member.

Of the 92.8% of working fathers, less than 10% of them take more than a few weeks off of work to spend with their newborn. Research says that new mothers are more likely to breastfeed when the father has paternal leave rather than none at all. (Dwyer, 2013)  Breastfeeding is very beneficial to both mother and baby. The cells, hormones, and antibodies in breastmilk help protect babies from illness. This protection is unique and changes every day to meet your baby’s growing needs. Research shows that breastfeeding can lower the risks of asthma, leukemia, obesity, ear infection, eczema, SIDS and much more for babies. Breastfeeding has also been linked to lowering the risks of type two diabetes, breast cancer and ovarian cancer in women. Breastfeeding also helps a mother's health and healing following childbirth along with helping the mother lose the baby weight. Research shows that if 90% of new mothers’ breastfed exclusively for six months, it could help prevent nearly 1,000 infant deaths. Breastfeeding can also save money; not only for the parent not paying for formula, but also medical costs are lower for fully breastfed infants than never-breastfed infants. Breastfed infants usually need fewer sick care visits, prescriptions, and hospitalizations. (Women’s Health in the U.S. Department of Health an, 2018)

            There are few arguments to paid leave. Most commonly people are worried that it would be an economic burden to the government and businesses. This is a perfectly rational fear but it is just not true. Paid leave in some cases is fully paid for by the employees. This paid leave program cost individual employees less than one dollar a week. In New Jersey, family leave is completely financed through worker payroll deductions. Workers in New Jersey contribute .09% of their taxable wages for their first $32,000 with the maximum yearly deduction of $29. (Devlin, 2015) This may lead some people to complain because either they are not having children or they possibly have already had children, so this program would not benefit them. Again, that is not true. The more programs we have to help new parents, the more babies that will be born. Currently, to keep the population stable in America, each women needs to have 2.1 lives births, currently we are at 1.86 births per women. With the programs that we currently have, we are disincentivizing working women from having children. We are forcing working women to go back to work sooner than they can, some even still bleeding and in pain because businesses are concerned about their bottom line. (Shortall, 2015) But businesses have nothing to worry about, most studies have found that there is little to no economic impact on businesses who pay for family leave. Research done in California, where there is a state law mandating paid family leave, found 89% of businesses reported either positive or no negative effects on productivity, turnover (93%), and morale (99%). (Dishman, 2016)

            There are many stakeholders in this issue. Stakeholders include: parents, children, women and family groups such as The National Partnership for Women and Families, business owners, and the national and state government. Currently the most powerful group is either the business owner or the national and state government. They are the ones who have the most voice. Big businesses have more say over what happens because they pay more taxes and have the means to make their voices heard. This can change if parents and expecting parents across the country call for a change, our voices together will show the government that this is an issue that needs their involvement.

            This is an issue that affects everyone. Our country cannot grow when policies we have discourage American men and women from having children.  Without Americans wanting to have children here, America will no longer be able to compete with much larger and stronger nations. 23% of new working mothers in America will be back on the job within two weeks of giving birth out of necessity. At this time the mothers’ body is still bleeding and the stitches are not healed. (Shortall, 2015) It is not safe to return to work before at least six weeks and even then most mothers are not emotionally able to return. “Every time a woman leaves the workforce because she can't find or afford childcare, or she can't work out a flexible arrangement with her boss, or she has no paid maternity leave, her family's income falls down a notch. Simultaneously, national productivity numbers decline.” Madeleine M. Kunin

 

 

Works Cited
Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2018, April 19). Employment Characteristics of Families Summary. Retrieved from Bureau of Labor Statistics: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/famee.nr0.htm

CDC. (2017, March 31). Births and Natality . Retrieved from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/births.htm

Devlin, D. (2015, Febuary 5). What would it cost to have mandatory, paid parental leave? Retrieved from Fortune: http://fortune.com/2015/02/05/paid-parental-leave-costs/

Dishman, L. (2016, January 28). The Real Cost Of Paid Parental Leave For Business. Retrieved from Fast Company: https://www.fastcompany.com/3055977/the-real-cost-of-paid-parental-leave-for-business

Dwyer, D. (2013, Nov. 21). Three reasons why paid paternity leave should be more common. Retrieved from STATE OF OPPORTUNITY. Can Kids in Michigan Get Ahead?: http://stateofopportunity.michiganradio.org/post/three-reasons-why-paid-paternity-leave-should-be-more-common

FindLaw. (2018). Family and Medical Leave: Overview. Retrieved from FindLaw: https://employment.findlaw.com/family-medical-leave/family-and-medical-leave-overview.html

Shortall, J. (2015, October). The US needs paid family leave — for the sake of its future. Retrieved from Ted Talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/jessica_shortall_how_america_fails_new_parents_and_their_babies

United States Department of Labor . (2018, October). FMLA (Family & Medical Leave). Retrieved from United States Department of Labor: https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/benefits-leave/fmla

United States Department of Labor. (2010). Women's Bureau. Retrieved from Bureau of Labor Statistics: https://www.dol.gov/wb/factsheets/Qf-laborforce-10.htm

Women’s Health in the U.S. Department of Health an. (2018, August 27). Making the decision to breastfeed. Retrieved from U.S. Department of Health & Human Services: https://www.womenshealth.gov/breastfeeding/making-decision-breastfeed