Working People Need Access to Paid Leave
By Emily Andrews, Sapna Mehta, and Jessica Milli
Bonding with a new child, recovering from a serious illness or injury, or caring for a sick partner or an aging parent—these are some of life’s most important moments. Almost everyone will experience a caregiving need at some point in their lives. But despite the universal need for care, the United States does not guarantee working people any paid time away from work, and many employees aren’t even entitled to unpaid leave.
In the absence of a federal policy, 13 states and Washington, D.C. have established state paid family and medical leave programs. Under these programs, working people can take time to welcome a new child, care for an ill loved one, or recover from their own serious medical illness or injury while receiving some pay. Workers can also use many of these programs to address needs related to military deployment or domestic or sexual violence.
Utilizing data from the Worker Paid Leave Usage Simulation Model (Worker PLUS), we estimate the current need for leave in those states that do not have established paid family and medical leave programs; the extent to which the need for leave goes unmet in these states; and the economic losses that families incur as a result of unpaid or partially paid leaves. This report presents our overall findings in these states; we also provide state-level estimates in the Appendix. While workers face an unmet need for leave even in states with paid family and medical leave programs due to work requirements, employer carve-outs, and other barriers to leave-taking, this report focuses exclusively on where the largest unmet need for leave exists: in the 37 states that have not passed paid family and medical leave policies.
