March 23, 2021
As business owners and employees continue to struggle with the ongoing COVID-19 crisis and look toward our economic recovery, the need for a long-term national paid leave program has never been stronger. For over a decade, despite strong bipartisan support for such a policy, America remains one of the only countries in the world without a national paid family program. Why is that?
The plight of small businesses is often raised as a key hurdle. Paid leave programs, opponents say, would put too much of a burden on small business owners, who employ approximately 49.2 percent of Americans working in the private sector. As two small business owners, we cannot stay silent on the issue. Our firsthand experience has shown us the opposite: Paid leave is good for our businesses and valuable for our bottom line.