Editor’s note: This commentary is by Tanya Byker, an assistant professor of economics at Middlebury College whose research falls under the categories of labor and development economics and focuses on the interrelated choices individuals make about education, work and parenthood.
[A]t Middlebury College, when faculty members like me give birth, we are provided up to 12 weeks leave at full pay and a full semester without teaching responsibility, also at full pay.
But we are the exception. In 2018, only 7 percent of the lowest-earning workers in the country had access to any paid family leave at all. Most workers without access to paid family leave may use sick or vacation days to cobble together leave for family care. That isn’t enough, and the disparities are stark; 90 percent of the highest-earning workers have access to paid sick days (an average of nine days), while just half as many lowest-earning workers have access to paid sick days (an average of only six days). In other words, the majority of low-income workers don’t even have a few paid sick days, which might help a little when they are without family leave.
Studies have shown that the state paid family leave policies adopted by California and New Jersey increased leave-taking among lower-wage women, although lower-wage women still did not take paid leave at the same level that higher-wage workers do. Why? Surveys in those states found that lack of job protection and insufficient wage replacement are barriers for lower-income women, and the reasons many don’t take the paid leave to which they are entitled. As a result, many low-income workers are paying into a paid leave fund they do not feel they can afford to utilize.
The paid family leave bill (H.107) advanced by the Vermont Senate on Wednesday (and the similar bill passed in the House in April) addresses these issues directly. First, it links job protection to paid leave with the “right to reinstatement in the first available suitable job.” An even stronger protection would ensure workers their original or an equivalent position upon their return, but this is a start. Next, it provides nearly full wage replacement to lower-income workers. A sliding scale whereby replacement rates decrease for workers above the Vermont livable wage would allow the program to increase access to leave for workers at various income levels at a lower cost.
One of the main strengths of the bill is its potential to reduce disparities in access to – and use of – paid leave, narrow income inequality, and facilitate low-income women’s participation in the labor force. Supporting new parents of all incomes – and their children – would benefit our state and our society.
As the bill makes its way to the governor’s desk it is important to highlight another of its strengths: It asks all people who face risks over the course of their working lives (as many of us do) to come together to share the cost of providing paid family leave that their families are likely to need at some point. In sharing the costs, we, as a society, will reap the rewards.
The alternative paid leave plan proposed by Gov. Phil Scott and New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu does not offer that kind of universal participation. Instead, their twin-state plan is a voluntary private insurance proposal that would allow individuals to opt in and out of the plan each year. But a voluntary insurance paid leave plan is risky — it could result in few people receiving coverage and escalating costs. No state has chosen this path, because the risks are so great. Whether it is feasible and will increase access to the constituents who need family and medical leave the most is a huge unknown.
Women today make up nearly half the Vermont labor force, and most mothers in our state manage both employment and family care at the same time. So adopting a paid family and medical leave program is an urgent priority. It is also essential that new plan is structured in a way that helps those who need paid leave the most and is sustainable.
