Family Values @ Work Statement on Final 2020 COVID-19 Relief Package

Today, Wendy Chun-Hoon, executive director of Family Values @ Work, a network of 27 state coalitions fighting for paid sick and safe days, paid family and medical leave, child care, and other policies that value families at work, released this statement on the passage of the latest stimulus package:

Family Values @ Work is grateful for the tenacious leadership of our champions in Congress who insisted that a coronavirus relief package had to include some form of paid leave. Despite the omission in every previous version of this legislation, the package passed last night does contain $1.8 billion to allow workers to take paid sick time and paid emergency leave. We are especially grateful to Speaker Pelosi, Senator Schumer, and our long-time champions Representative DeLauro and Senators Gillibrand and Murray who stood with our movement in saying we cannot curb this virus unless people can afford time to follow the guidelines to get tested, quarantine, isolate and heal if exposed to the virus.

We are also pleased to see some direct payments to individuals and families, including those with mixed status, and some extended unemployment and housing relief to those who’ve been forced out of jobs this year, many due to caregiving needs.

However, as our champions themselves acknowledge, the modest $10 billion for child care assistance and the less than $2 billion in tax credits through March for employers who provide paid leave is woefully inadequate in the face of our current caregiving and health crises. This package is just a down payment on the investment needed to restore our nation’s physical and economic health. The reason it falls short: the Senate majority leader favored partisan politics and corporate meal deductions over working people’s lives and livelihood.

We know many small business owners who have used the paid leave reimbursements in FFCRA and will continue to use the tax credits available in this new legislation. But relying on the voluntary action of employers has left the U.S. as an outlier in the world and contributed to the disastrous spread of this pandemic. It’s meant that millions of workers – including 7 in 10 low-wage workers, who are disproportionately female and workers of color – do not earn a single paid sick day. Among the 318,000 in the U.S. missing from this year’s holiday celebrations are many essential workers blocked from taking time to care for themselves or a loved one when exposed to the virus. 

Paid leave has proven effective at reducing the spread of COVID, ensuring workers can safely quarantine or recover, and helping businesses stay afloat. Instead of extending and expanding the emergency provisions enacted with bi-partisan support this spring, Leader McConnell first blocked any paid leave provisions and then minimized what got inserted in the final deal.  

The Family Values @ Work network will continue to fight for effective paid leave and child care and other measures that workers, families, and small businesses need to recover from this crisis. We call on Congress and the incoming Biden administration to swiftly renew these critical protections and expand them to cover all workers as soon as possible in the new year.

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