Paid Family Leave

In my previous post, I addressed some solutions to creating a fairer labor market in the United States, one that works for the people. I definitely encourage everyone to read that post as well and provide any feedback.

Today, I am going to talk about paid family leave, which is a concept I am borrowing from California.

The Family Medical Leave Act of 1993 was designed to protect you from job loss if you were out of work due to a qualifying event. While this protection is great, what it doesn't do is secure your income. People are often forced to chose between their health and their income.

I propose a voluntary paid leave insurance program, just like what is available in California.

Pay: To pay for the program, all employers will pay an additional 2% payroll tax on all wages. Employees who elect to join the program will also pay 2%.

Upon accepting a new job, and once a year, you will have the option to join the program or waive the option. If you accept it, your employer cannot discriminate against you. Either way, the employer has to pay the same tax, so it doesn't matter.

Trigger: If you have been enrolled in the program for a consecutive twelve-weeks and a qualifying FMLA event occurs that will result in eight or more consecutive calendar days out of work, you will now qualify for payment from the disability leave. Two exceptions will exist: parental leave and jury duty. I will explain those later.

Amount Paid: You will be paid in accordance to your average aggregate earnings in the past 12 weeks before the leave was triggered, at a rate of 80%. For example, if you make $500 a week, that would come to $6,000 over 12 weeks. Therefore, for each week you are on the paid leave, you will draw a check of $400 for every week you are out.

Total Weeks: Each employee is guaranteed 12 weeks of this leave per year, regardless of whether it is consecutive or not.

Who is eligible?: ANY employee who signs up for the program is eligible, regardless of the number of hours they work.

Jury Duty Leave
No employee should have to face financial instability due to performing their civic duties. As such, I propose that jury duty leave automatically require payment under this program and is eligible to all employees, whether they sign up for it or not.

In Florida, jury duty only pays about $15.00 a day. This isn't right. You should be able to draw your income and continue to perform your civic duty.

Therefore, under this program, every day you serve on the jury, you will be paid at 80% of your normal hourly wage for eight hours, for each day you are serving. The maximum will be 40 hours per week and there is no expiration, it will continue to be paid out for every day you are on the bench.

Parental Leave
Parental leave is a unique and it needs some serious reform. The first year of a child's development is extremely critical. No parent, mother nor father, should have to chose between caring for the newborn and drawing an income.

Therefore, I propose parental leave rights that extend to 52 weeks for all presently qualifying FMLA triggering event. All employees will have the option to take this leave, whether or not they signed on the paid leave program.

The parents pay will be determined by their pay aggregate in the twelve weeks prior to the triggering of their leave. They will earn 100% of their normal salary for the first 12 weeks and it will go down 20% every 12 weeks thereafter.

What are your thoughts on paid leave? Would a program like this work at a national level?

Much love,
ArchAngel O:)