Pennsylvanians Cannot Wait for Paid Leave

Policy change takes time. I know this intimately.

The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), for instance, passed in 1993, became law with the intention that Congress would eventually ensure workers receive paid leave instead of unpaid leave. 33 years later, we are still waiting.

Across the country, I work with coalitions that introduce paid time-to-care legislation session after session, only to watch it linger in committee without a hearing. And yet they come back, time and time again, until the law succeeds.

In my own beloved city, Philadelphia, it took eight years (and 2 mayoral vetoes) to pass paid sick and safe time for anyone who works in the city.
So yes, I understand waiting. But I never expected paid leave in PA to take this long.

On August 9, 2016, the Department of Labor awarded $250,000 to Pennsylvania to study the feasibility of creating paid family and medical leave (PFML) in the state. At the time, only four states (California, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and New York) had PFML, but similar grants in 2014 and 2015 meant that more programs were on the horizon. Today, 15 states have passed PFML by legislation or at the ballot box, but Pennsylvania isn’t one of them.

I helped the PA Department of Labor and Industry find the data they needed to apply for the grant, and spent 2016 into 2017 serving on the study committee. Our 61-page report set into motion new, bipartisan legislation introduced in the PA House and Senate. Today, that legislation, supported by a coalition of statewide advocates, business owners, and workers, made it through the House and has more cosponsors in the Senate than any other bill. And yet… it lingers.

Since 2017, babies have been born and children have been adopted. Family members have needed care, whether to recover from chronic illness or from broken bones. COVID ravaged our state and throughout the world. And in some cases, the people who needed paid leave the most, like my friend Jessica who had breast cancer, are no longer here to use it.

Families cannot wait another day for paid leave—not in Pennsylvania or anywhere else in the country.

US Department of Labor, August 9, 2016:
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Labor and Industry will receive $250,000 to conduct cost-benefit analysis for different paid family-leave models; statistical analysis to determine populations that would benefit from them; feasibility study of state administrative infrastructure for a paid family-leave program; and education, outreach and marketing analysis for implementation purposes.

By Marianne Bellesorte.