March 23, 2021
I don’t know about you, but one of my biggest stresses as a parent has centered around money, work, and finances. When I was a new mom without any guaranteed maternity leave, I was super stressed about taking the time I needed to heal after birth and bond, care for, and learn to breastfeed my baby. Then, when I re-entered the workforce, I worried about what would happen if my child or another family member ever got sick for a long period of time, or if I needed to take any kind of medical leave for myself.
I am not alone in these fears. For many American families, the financial and emotional toll of not having any kind of safety net for times like these is a huge source of stress. Often, it’s also a major financial strain. Every day, families go into debt because they have to leave jobs or take unpaid leaves of absence in order to care for their families or themselves.
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March 23, 2021
"We cannot emerge from this pandemic and remain one of only two countries in the world with no form of national paid leave."
On Tuesday, March 23rd, nearly 200 companies sent an open letter to Congress, urging them to pass a federal paid family and medical leave program in the Biden administration’s next COVID-19 recovery package. That companies are now behind a program that would help parents ostensibly take time off is no surprise — if you’ve been paying attention.
Over the past year, the tides have turned when it comes to the conversation around paid family leave in the United States. Paid leave is no longer a fringe policy position or a great nice-to-have policy pipe dream for America’s progressives.
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March 23, 2021
And they say the crisis-era program should last long after the pandemic subsides.
Business leaders from nearly 200 companies sent an open letter to Congress on Tuesday issuing a public call for inclusion and passage of a national paid family and medical leave policy in the next legislative recovery package. Signers include many prominent founders and CEOs of both growing and established companies, including Pinterest, Levi Strauss & Co, Spotify, Patagonia, Eventbrite, Rent the Runway, Stitch Fix, Rebecca Minkoff, Rothy's, Calm, Lightspeed Ventures, ThirdLove, Zola, Honest Company, Goop, and more.
Not only would having a national paid-leave policy go far in addressing some of the key failings in the U.S. health care system that were uncovered by the Covid-19 pandemic, it would help more women keep their jobs, say the business leaders.
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March 23, 2021
Close to 200 companies have signed a letter asking Congress to create permanent paid family and medical leave as part of the economic recovery package.
Close to 200 companies have signed a letter asking Congress to create permanent paid family and medical leave as part of the Biden administration’s economic recovery package.
Among those attaching their names to the effort are Rent the Runway, Etsy, Salesforce, Pinterest, Spotify, Eventbrite, Levi Strauss & Co., Danone, and Patagonia.
Celebrity-business signatories include Goop (Gwyneth Paltrow), Haus Labs (Lady Gaga), Bad Robot Productions (J.J. Abrams), Hello Bello (Kirsten Bell and Dax Shepard), and Once Upon a Farm (Jennifer Garner).
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March 23, 2021
A group of nearly 200 businesses worth a combined $539 billion is urging Congress to expand access to paid family and medical leave in the next spending package.
The signers of a letter sent to Capitol Hill on Tuesday include Spotify, Pinterest, Levi Strauss & Co., Patagonia, Lady Gaga’s makeup company Haus Labs, JJ Abrams’s production company Bad Robot and Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop.
“We cannot emerge from this pandemic and remain one of only two countries in the world with no form of national paid leave,” the letter states. “We need a policy that is inclusive and that protects all workers equally, regardless of what kind of work they do, where they live, or whom they love. Congress must work with the administration to build a framework for a permanent paid family and medical leave policy, so we're never unprepared for a crisis again.”
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March 23, 2021
Spotify, Salesforce are among the organizations that signed onto the letter.
More than 190 U.S. companies, including Eventbrite Inc., Patagonia Inc. and Pinterest Inc., are urging congressional leaders to pass a federal paid family and medical leave policy.
The memo sent Tuesday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer calls for Congress to work with the White House to include permanent paid leave in the $3 trillion “Build Back Better” recovery plan the Biden administration is preparing to roll out.
The letter calls for “an equitable and comprehensive paid family and medical leave program” that includes “time to welcome a newly arrived child, time to care for a seriously ill family member, and time to care for one’s own serious illness.” It doesn’t specify how much time off or how the leave should be funded.
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March 23, 2021
Biden has signaled a willingness to revamp benefits and workplace requirements.
In addition to roads and bridges, President Joe Biden has signaled a willingness to revamp what advocates refer to as the nation's "care infrastructure," benefits and workplace requirements such as paid family and sick leave that support American families and the economy in a different way.
Hoping to seize on a moment when Washington is engaged in ideas around economic recovery and after a hard year for employers and families, more than 200 businesses sent a letter to congressional leaders urging action on a federal paid family leave program in any future infrastructure and recovery legislation.
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March 22, 2021
Lady Gaga's Haus Labs, Goop, Spotify, and Eventbrite join push of nearly 200 businesses lobbying for a national paid leave policy in Biden's next economic recovery package
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Feb 18, 2021
Family leave brings up mixed emotions for many parents. Maybe you’re worried it will be hard to take a step back from work, or you’re excited for the time with your baby, but you’re anxious about missing wages. Knowing how maternity or paternity leave can affect your taxes can help you feel more informed and in control, whether you plan on taking paid or unpaid leave.
How family leave affects your taxes will largely depend on where you live and the laws in that specific state. “[This] is one of the reasons why passing a federal paid leave policy is so important — the current patchwork of paid leave policies is often confusing to utilize at best and, more often than not, entirely absent,” Neil Sroka, communications director with PL+US: Paid Leave for the United State, tells Romper.
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Feb 9, 2021
A national advocacy group is putting six figures behind a new ad campaign pressuring Congress to include paid family and sick leave in the COVID-19 relief package.
The ad from PL+US, which will run in Washington, D.C., during MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” and CNN’s “The Situation Room,” features emotional testimony from paid family leave advocate Mai Ton recounting her personal experience of having a newborn child at a time when her father was dying.
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Feb 03, 2021
If you've been feeling as if the world is on fire, you're right. It was, literally, for a while: As if a pandemic, a recession, a racial reckoning, and a contentious election weren't enough, 7.7 million acres of land and thousands of homes burned in the wildfires that swallowed the West. We've lost so much in the last year. Loved ones. Time. Sanity. And jobs.
Last year, my friends and colleagues, suddenly separated from their lives at work, joked that they missed wearing heels and pants that weren't sweats. But beneath the jokes was something else: grief. "Grief is loss of your present, of your perceived future," says Rebecca Soffer, cofounder of the Modern Loss community. "You feel untethered."
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Jan 26, 2021
Bloomberg’s Akayla Gardner reports, PL+US and Promundo, in collaboration with the Parental Leave Corporate Task Force release new study documenting how paid leave helped business adapt during the pandemic and growing business support for a national paid leave policy.
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Jan 24, 2021
On her first day back at work after her maternity leave, Meghan McCain, a Republican, called on the government to institute a national paid maternity leave policy for all new mothers. After experiencing an emergency C-section and postpartum health issues that left her physically unable to bathe or eat without help, she noted that she now understood just how critical maternity leave is to the wellbeing of our children and the wellbeing of women in this country.
A conservative herself, she pointed out the hypocrisy of a Republican party that touts itself as the party of family values, while denying mothers even a few weeks of critical time needed to heal, bond, and care for their children at the beginning of their lives.
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Jan 19, 2021
In this Fast Company article, Olympian Allyson Felix and PL+US advisor Elana Berkowitz underscore the historic moment we have following President Biden and VIce-President Kamala Harris’ inauguration to bring together Democrats and Republicans to pass paid leave.
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Jan 12, 2021
A national advocacy group will send letters to top members of President-elect Joe Biden’s economic and domestic policy teams on Tuesday pressuring the new administration to include paid family and sick leave in the coronavirus economic recovery package that Biden is expected to release this week.
“The Biden-Harris administration has made caregiving and the caregiving economy central to the nation’s economic recovery plans,” writes Corinne Roller, the legislative director for PL+US. “Now is the time to seize the bipartisan momentum for paid leave to provide economic security to families and businesses, protect public health, and support our nation’s economic recovery.”
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Jan 11, 2021
A few months ago, First Gentleman Douglas Emhoff participated in a virtual forum with us, and over 60,000 people tuned in. They learned the Biden Administration is serious about passing paid leave, and that Emhoff is a supportive partner to his wife, Kamala Harris.
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Jan 5, 2021
Amid the pandemic, small businesses and workers alike have benefited from access to national paid leave—public policy that hasn’t seen much corporate enthusiasm.
In June, clothing retailer Raygun reopened its doors to the public. Raygun employs nearly 100 staffers across six different stores—but since reopening six months ago, there has been no known COVID-19 transmission among them. Just this week, an employee in Raygun’s shipping department learned that his mom had tested positive for COVID-19. He was immediately asked to depart the site and take paid leave. Even after he tested negative, the company took precautions to separate him from other employees. “We adjusted some schedules so he can come in after hours and do some shipping all by himself,” says Raygun founder Mike Draper. “It’s just this constant balance.”
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Jan 3, 2021
After going into labor five weeks early on a rural stretch of highway in Ohio, I was picked up by a helicopter and to a hospital for an emergency C-section. My newborn son then spent the first 13 days of his life in the NICU. During this high-stress time, I was singularly focused on doing whatever I could to help him so we could take him home.
I never once worried if I'd get paid for that time away from work or if I'd have a job to go back to. That's because four years earlier, I'd started my own company. As the CEO, of course I'd keep my job…and of course I'd get paid.
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April 2, 2020
In this piece about how coronavirus is affecting working moms, PL+US's Katie Bethell weighs in on why the crisis could be a turning point for paid leave.
It’s my impossible but joyful job to be on top of culture, to be consuming everything and anything, to be out there in the world, engaged! It’s also my job to keep three small humans (ages six, four, and two) alive, to look after their social and emotional development, to make sure I don’t mess them up worse than Philip Larkin has already informed me I will. The latter makes the former very hard. So when I haven’t had time to read the latest novel or see the latest play, I turn to my kids for inspiration and material. I figure people can relate.
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Jan 30, 2020
A report from PL+US finds that big companies in industries where women make up the bulk of the workforce are less likely to offer paid time off to new parents.
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