FAMILY Act 10th Anniversary Statement

For more than 20 years, Family Values @ Work has led the movement to win a federal paid family and medical leave (PFML) program. The Family and Medical Insurance Leave (FAMILY) Act is FV@W’s key legislation in our work to win PFML for all. Our network models the impact the FAMILY Act could have at the state level through the passage of 14 PFML programs nationwide; they’ve written the blueprint for paid leave policy that works. Now is the time to raise our voices, to let legislators know that they MUST pass the FAMILY Act into law. Today we join with the legislation’s sponsors to mark its 10th Anniversary. 

Sponsored and reintroduced this year by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the FAMILY Act was designed to assist working Americans by creating a benefit that would allow workers to take up to 12 weeks of PFML to care for a loved one or bond with a new child. It would establish a comprehensive national program to meet the needs of new parents and people facing personal or family health challenges. This worker benefit would operate through a shared fund that makes paid leave affordable for employers of all sizes and for workers and their families.

The FAMILY Act is a step in the right direction toward winning a federal paid family and medical leave program. Paid leave is our key pillar to realizing gender, economic, and racial justice. We know through our state-level wins that PFML is essential to economic justice so that families most impacted by its absence have access to financial stability; Black women, who lead most of the Black households in this country, will have support to stay employed; and the women who do a majority of caregiving in the nation have the support they need to make work work for them and their families. If US legislators don’t act, millions of people will continue to live with the impossible ‘choice’ of deciding between taking time to care for themselves and their loved ones or working to provide for themselves and their loved ones.

When everyone has the same access to opportunities––their race, socioeconomic class, and gender notwithstanding––then we all will realize the peace that comes with access to paid time to care. We can’t and we won’t wait another 10 years.