[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
EXAMINING THE NEED FOR COMPREHENSIVE
NATIONAL PAID FAMILY AND MEDICAL LEAVE
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
OVERSIGHT AND REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
DECEMBER 10, 2019
__________
Serial No. 116-75
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Reform
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available on: http://www.govinfo.gov,
oversight.house.gov or
docs.house.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
38-734 PDF WASHINGTON : 2020
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York, Chairwoman
Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of Jim Jordan, Ohio, Ranking Minority
Columbia Member
Wm. Lacy Clay, Missouri Paul A. Gosar, Arizona
Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts Virginia Foxx, North Carolina
Jim Cooper, Tennessee Thomas Massie, Kentucky
Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia Mark Meadows, North Carolina
Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois Jody B. Hice, Georgia
Jamie Raskin, Maryland Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin
Harley Rouda, California James Comer, Kentucky
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida Michael Cloud, Texas
John P. Sarbanes, Maryland Bob Gibbs, Ohio
Peter Welch, Vermont Ralph Norman, South Carolina
Jackie Speier, California Clay Higgins, Louisiana
Robin L. Kelly, Illinois Chip Roy, Texas
Mark DeSaulnier, California Carol D. Miller, West Virginia
Brenda L. Lawrence, Michigan Mark E. Green, Tennessee
Stacey E. Plaskett, Virgin Islands Kelly Armstrong, North Dakota
Ro Khanna, California W. Gregory Steube, Florida
Jimmy Gomez, California Frank Keller, Pennsylvania
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York
Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts
Rashida Tlaib, Michigan
David Rapallo, Staff Director
Russ Anello, Chief Oversight Counsel
Amy Stratton, Clerk
Contact Number: 202-225-5051
Christopher Hixon, Minority Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on December 10, 2019................................ 1
Witnesses
Panel 1
The Honorable Rosa DeLauro, Congresswoman, 3rd Congressional
District of Connecticut
Oral Statement............................................... 7
Panel 2
Jacqui Silvani, Newfields, New Hampshire
Oral Statement............................................... 10
Vicki Shabo, Senior Fellow, Paid Leave Policy and Strategy,
Better Life Lab, New America
Oral Statement............................................... 11
The Honorable Robert Asaro-Angelo, Commissioner, New Jersey
Department of Labor and Workforce Development
Oral Statement............................................... 14
Aaron Seyedian, Founder, Well-Paid Maids
Oral Statement............................................... 16
Rachel Greszler [Minority Witness], Research Fellow, Economics,
Budget, and Entitlements, The Heritage Foundation
Oral Statement............................................... 18
Jennifer Tucker, Senior Policy Advisor, The Black Women's
Roundtable, The National Coalition on Black Civic Participation
Oral Statement............................................... 19
* Opening statements, and the prepared statements for the above
witnesses are available at the U.S. House of Representatives
Repository: docs.house.gov.
INDEX OF DOCUMENTS
----------
The documents listed below are available at: docs.house.gov.
* Study about California's paid family leave; submitted by Rep.
Miller.
* Sprouts plan to invest tax reform savings in employee
programs; submitted by Rep. Grothman.
* Dollar Tree expands maternity leave, article; submitted by
Rep. Grothman.
* Lowes to give employees bonuses due to benefits from tax
reform, article; submitted by Rep. Grothman.
* Starbucks announces new investments in paid leave, article;
submitted by Rep. Hice.
* Unum boosts parental leave, article; submitted by Rep. Hice.
*Southwire to pay workers, article; submitted by Rep. Hice.
*The TjX Companies; submitted by Rep. Hice.
*Jezebel article; submitted by Rep. Ocasio-Cortez.
*Staffer written testimony; submitted by Rep. Ocasio-Cortez.
*Rep. Steny Hoyer's written statement; submitted by Chairwoman
Maloney.
*Letters of support from 15 organizations; submitted by
Chairwoman Maloney.
EXAMINING THE NEED FOR COMPREHENSIVE
NATIONAL PAID FAMILY AND MEDICAL LEAVE
----------
Tuesday, December 10, 2019
House of Representatives
Committee on Oversight and Reform
Washington, D.C.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:11 a.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Carolyn B.
Maloney [chairwoman of the committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Maloney, Norton, Clay, Lynch,
Connolly, Krishnamoorthi, Raskin, Rouda, Wasserman Schultz,
Sarbanes, Welch, Speier, Kelly, DeSaulnier, Lawrence, Plaskett,
Gomez, Ocasio-Cortez, Pressley, Tlaib, Jordan, Massie, Meadows,
Hice, Grothman, Comer, Gibbs, Norman, Roy, Miller, Armstrong,
Steube, and Keller.
Chairwoman Maloney. The committee will come to order.
Good morning to everyone. Without objection, the chair is
authorized to declare a recess of the committee at any time.
With that, I will now recognize myself for my opening
statement.
I am honored to be convening today's hearing, my very first
as chairwoman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, as we
continue to mourn the loss of our dear friend and colleague,
Chairman Elijah Cummings. As I sit here today in his chair, I
am mindful of his lifelong mission to seek not only common
ground, but higher ground.
With that in mind, I am very pleased to hold today's
hearing on an issue we have been fighting for many years, the
need for comprehensive paid family and medical leave. It's
important for people to understand the current situation in our
country. Right now, we are one of only two nations in the world
that does not provide our workers with any form of paid family
or medical leave, the United States and Papua New Guinea.
I remember when I was pregnant with my first child, and I
asked my offices about leave policy. Do you know what they
said? Leave? What leave? Women just leave. We expect you to
leave. I said I didn't intend to leave, I intended to come back
to work. They said it's the only time it's ever happened. That
was an unacceptable answer then, and it is an unacceptable
answer now for families across the country.
There are some basic and fundamental questions we need to
face as a society. For example, if a young woman, a hardworking
and promising employee, wants to have a child and spend a few
weeks caring for her newborn, should she be forced to go
without any paid maternity leave at all? Or should we as a
Nation finally recognize that having a child is a wonderful and
predictable part of our employees' lives that we should
support?
If a father's two-year-old daughter is diagnosed with
cancer, should he be forced to take leave without pay and face
financial hardship in order to take his daughter to her
chemotherapy treatments? Or should we as a Nation do better by
them?
If a man who has dedicated his entire professional career
to serving the American people has to help care for his wife
after a stroke, should he be forced to leave the workplace
altogether? Or should we as a Nation value him and his
contributions?
These are the questions that we as policymakers must
answer. We are the ones who make these decisions. I believe
with all my heart that we need a policy that supports
hardworking young women who are having their children, that
supports the father in crisis who is caring for his two-year-
old daughter with cancer, and that supports the dedicated
husband who is helping his wife recover from her stroke.
Providing this benefit is a significant and important
investment in our future. The future of children, parents,
families, and our future as a Nation. Paid leave yields better
outcomes for productivity, health of parents and children, and
long-term financial stability. It also contributes to closing
the gender wage gap.
There are some who disagree. They oppose paid maternity and
paternity leave, and they oppose any type of paid family and
medical leave. But we are making progress in this fight that
has been over 35 years in the making, to give parents and
caregivers who work for the Federal Government, time to care
for their newborns, sick children, and other ailing members.
Champions like former Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder, who
was chair of the then-House Civil Service Subcommittee, started
this important work force effort to respect parents and
caregivers and help them balance the economic and emotional
needs of having a family so they wouldn't need to choose
between their family and their work.
I have sponsored a bill for many years called the Federal
Employee Paid Leave Act. In fact, previous versions of the bill
passed the House twice, but we have never gotten it through the
Senate and signed into law.
My current bill would provide Federal employees, women and
men, with 12 weeks of paid leave for the birth, adoption, or
fostering of a child, for a serious medical condition, or to
care for an ill spouse or parent. The Federal Government is our
Nation's largest employer, and it should be a model employer
for the Nation.
Earlier this year, I was very pleased that the House passed
these provisions as part of the National Defense Authorization
Act. When it went to the Senate, we were not sure if it would
survive. We had been fighting for so long. We did not know if
it would finally happen. But over the past few days, an
agreement was struck to provide for 12 weeks of paid leave for
employees at all Federal agencies when they have a new baby or
adopt a child.
If this agreement is signed into law, it will be a
tremendous victory for the more than 2.1 million employees
across the country. Parents finally will be able to have a
child without worrying about their paychecks suddenly coming to
a halt.
Now, this agreement is not perfect. The Senate refused to
approve paid leave for medical reasons. For example, that
father who needs to take his two-year-old child to chemotherapy
treatments would not be covered, and neither would the husband
who needs to care for his wife recovering from her stroke. In
addition, this provision covers only Federal employees, so it
does not cover anyone working in the private sector.
We will continue fighting for these Americans in the months
and years to come. But despite these drawbacks, this is an
amazing accomplishment. Democrats made this issue a priority of
our caucus. I want to thank Speaker Pelosi, the Democratic
Women's Caucus chaired by Lawrence, Speier, and Frankel, who
have made it a priority, along with the congressional
Progressive Caucus, chaired by Jayapal and Pocan, for their
support and leadership.
I would also like to acknowledge Representative Gerry
Connolly for his work on the issue. He is a tireless advocate.
He held our committee's first hearing in this Congress on this
issue in his subcommittee. He is also a tremendous negotiator.
He is one of our committee's conferees on the defense bill,
along with Stephen Lynch, who is also phenomenal.
Together they skillfully represented the interests of our
committee, our workers, and the American people in the
negotiations with the Senate that resulted in this victory.
They also worked closely with Chairman Adam Smith on the
Committee on Armed Services, whose leadership and vision led to
this achievement, as well as our partner in these efforts,
Democratic Leader Steny Hoyer.
I would now like to recognize my good friend and colleague,
the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Connolly, to give his opening
statement.
Mr. Connolly. I thank the chair. And congratulations on
your first hearing, I believe, as chairwoman.
Chairwoman Maloney. Yes, it is.
Mr. Connolly. But especially congratulations on this signal
victory. Without your persistence and your tenacity, this would
not have happened. And as you said, the job isn't complete, but
this is a huge step forward. Congratulations, Chairwoman
Maloney.
In September, our subcommittee, Government Operations, held
the first hearing, as the chairwoman just indicated, to even
discuss paid family leave for Federal employees, the first
hearing like it in 10 years. Again, it was due to the
persistence of Chairwoman Maloney that we were able to have
this hearing.
I was honored to work with her to ensure that a provision
providing 12 weeks of paid parental leave to our talented
Federal employee work force remained in the National Defense
Authorization Act, and it seems we were successful. But the
victory lap is somewhat circumscribed, because there's still
more work to do, as the chairwoman just indicated.
While we've secured paid parental leave for Federal
employees, we must continue to fight for paid family caregiving
leave and leave to care for one's own medical needs.
Now, is the time to catch America up to the rest of the
world when it comes to paid family and medical leave. Leading
businesses have long recognized that good paid leave policies
for employees strengthen families and enhance recruitment and
retention of a talented work force. It's time that all of
America's families, and our national economy, reaped those
benefits.
I will continue to join with Chairwoman Maloney and others
to fight for our Nation's civil servants and their right to
paid family and medical leave. We want all Americans to enjoy
those privileges and those rights. As we stated, when fighting
to ensure paid parental leave for Federal employees in the
NDAA, too many employees, both public and private, have no
access to leave when they need it most, and it's time to take
steps to ensure they have it.
Family leave is not a magnanimous gift provided by unsavvy
employers. Data shows that paid family leave improves
recruitment, morale, productivity, and retention. A 2016 survey
by Deloitte found that 77 percent of Americans said paid family
leave would sway their choice of an employer. That's
particularly important in an environment with 3.5 percent
unemployment.
Half of those surveyed would prefer a family leave
opportunity to a pay raise. An Ernst & Young study found that
80 percent of companies with paid family leave policies found a
positive impact on employee engagement.
Companies that institute paid leave policies found less
attrition of their female employees. A Rutgers University
survey found that women with access to paid family leave are 93
percent more likely to be working a year after having a child
than those without such access.
In short, paid leave is an effective incentive for all
employees and can be a pivotal one for women, particularly in
the workplace.
With all of these benefits, the United States remains one
of the only nations in the world, industrialized world, that
does not guarantee some form of paid leave. In fact, in 2018,
less than 17 percent of the workers in our country had access
to paid leave benefits through their employer, and less than 40
percent has access to personal medical leave through employer-
provided short-term disability insurance.
The lack of paid leave hurts American families and the
Nation's economy. If our country took steps we're advocating
for today, creating policies that encourage woman to
participate in the work force at the same rates as men,
economists predict we would improve the Nation's finances by
half a trillion dollars in economic activity per year. By
providing paid family leave to Federal civil servants alone,
the Institute for Women's Policy Research estimated agencies
could prevent 2,650 departures per year among women workers,
saving $50 million in annual turnover costs.
In the United States, 62 percent of two-parent families
have both parents employed as they struggle to make ends meet.
Three-quarters of women with children work outside the home.
Beyond childcare, our Nation is aging, and the size of families
is decreasing, meaning more Americans are and will be
responsible for caring for older parents.
Currently, one in four Virginia workers, for example, in my
state, is 55 or older, one in four. And in the next 15 years,
the share of Virginia's population over the age of 65 is
projected to grow by 30 percent. That's not untypical of most
of the country.
So, we're going to need to care for our older family
members. And as a Nation, we need to take steps to ensure we're
prepared for those population shifts.
In Virginia, access to paid leave is even more concerning.
For example, in 72 percent of our households with children, all
parents have paying jobs. In 79 percent of homes with Black
moms in Virginia, those moms are the breadwinners. In homes
with White and Latino mothers, moms are the breadwinners in
nearly half of those homes. Yet 55 percent of our work force
does not have access to paid leave, and even fewer have access
to paid leave at all. It's time to change those policies.
Having a baby, nursing your ailing dad or mom, sitting next
to your sick teenager at the hospital, treating your own
symptoms after radiation treatments for cancer, these are the
most vulnerable moments for a family, rife with emotion and
deep pain and difficulty. These are the moments that
demonstrate that we as Americans care about each other. We need
to enact policies that put families first, and it's an easy
step when it also makes economic sense.
I thank the chairwoman for her leadership and her
graciousness, and I wish every success in our future endeavor.
I yield back.
Chairman Maloney. Thank you. I would now like to recognize
the ranking member, Mr. Jordan, for his opening statement.
Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Let me also congratulate you. This is a big day for you. We
appreciate that and wish you the best.
While we all miss our friend, Chairman Cummings, we look
forward to working with you and your team.
We hope we get--that you will work with Republicans in
rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in the Federal Government
and in working to pursue reforms that make our government more
efficient, effective, and accountable.
In that vein, before I get to our opening statement, there
was a report released just yesterday by the Inspector General,
as you know, Madam Chair, this committee has jurisdiction over
the inspector generals and the work that they do in the various
Federal agencies across our government, and we were hoping that
you might let us know when we would have Mr. Horowitz in front
of this committee to answer the questions about his important
and, in many ways, scathing report on the FISA court and what
took place just a few years ago in front of that court.
Do you have an idea when we might have that hearing?
Chairwoman Maloney. The ranking member's request for a
hearing with Mr. Horowitz is noted, and we will address that at
the appropriate time.
Mr. Jordan. I appreciate that, Madam Chair.
The purpose of today's hearing is to discuss various
proposals to pay Federal employees for up to 12 weeks of family
and medical leave and to mandate various leave requirements on
employers in the private sector.
At the outset, I would like to note that the best way to
help both employers and employees throughout the country is to
pursue policies that promote economic growth and job creation.
Since President Trump's inauguration, his administration and
Republicans in Congress have pursued policies to do exactly
that.
Under the President's leadership, we have been successful.
The November jobs report showed that our economy added 266,000
additional workers, 54,000 in the manufacturing sector, and
unemployment fell to an unbelievably low rate of 3.5 percent.
And I think that's because of the policies such as the Tax Cuts
and Jobs Act, which the President signed into law almost two
years ago now.
Because of our growing economy, companies are competing for
workers and voluntarily expanding benefits for their employees.
In our home state of Ohio, for example, Conger Construction
Group from Lebanon was able to double the number of its
employees, offer bigger bonuses to its employees, give more
paid time off to employees, and offer better health care
benefits because of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, not because of
any mandate from the Federal Government.
I have concerns about several of the proposals that we will
discuss today. We must carefully consider the potential
tradeoffs from legislating a Federal mandate for paid family
leave, like the potential for lower pay or reduction in other
employer-employee-based benefits.
In the Federal Government, of course, the free market and
the free market principles aren't applicable. It is, therefore,
up to Congress to decide whether to expand Federal employees'
paid leave policy. Federal employees, on average, receive
annual salaries around $90,000. Federal employees' total
compensation, including benefits, can be valued as much as
$125,000. Research shows that Federal employees are paid more
than comparable workers in the private sector.
But before settling on a proposal that would tax--that
would take tax dollars from union workers in Ohio to pay for
leave for already well-paid attorneys at the EPA or the
Department of Labor, the committee and the Congress should do
some serious fact-finding. It is incumbent upon us to study the
relevant information.
Is paid family leave necessary? Are a large number of
Federal workers depleting their paid vacation leave and sick
days for parental or medical leave? Do Federal agencies have
policies in place that substitute for paid family leave?
Paid family leave is certainly a well-intentioned policy,
but we have an obligation as policymakers to thoughtfully
consider the proposals, the need for the proposals, and their
potential consequences.
I'm grateful for the witnesses for testifying before us
today, particularly pleased to see our colleague, Ms. DeLauro,
with us today, and we look forward to their testimony and the
chance to ask questions.
With that, Madam Chair, again, congratulations. I yield
back.
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you.
I would now like to welcome our first witness. First, we're
honored to have with us the House sponsor, the lead sponsor of
the FAMILY Act, a bill that would create universal
comprehensive paid family and medical leave for workers across
the country.
Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro has been a champion for workers
and families for three decades. As chairwoman of the
Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human
Services, and Education, she leads the fight to expand
opportunities to middle class families and ensure our economy
is working for everyone. We are grateful for her tireless
leadership and dedication to these issues.
Congresswoman DeLauro, you may now begin.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. ROSA DELAURO, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT
Ms. DeLauro. Thank you very, very much for your kind words.
And while this morning we honor the memory of our colleague,
Elijah Cummings, we offer our sincere congratulations to you,
Madam Chair, on ascending to this position. I am delighted to
be here.
And I want to recognize and thank our ranking member, Mr.
Jordan, for welcoming me here today, and all of the members of
the committee.
You know, as Members of Congress, I believe it is our duty
to level the playing field for middle class families and for
working people, especially now. Why now? People's pay is a
serious economic challenge that people have in their lives,
that their pay does not keep up with the rising costs,
skyrocketing costs that they face every day.
So, it is sadly no surprise that very few can afford to
lose several weeks of wages, whether for an ill loved one, or
for the birth of a child. It would push them over the edge. In
fact, 62 percent of working people cannot access unpaid leave
under the Family and Medical Leave Act, according to
researchers from Brandeis University, either because they are
ineligible, or they cannot afford to.
But those moments come regardless. In 1986, I was diagnosed
with ovarian cancer. I went to my employer then, told him I was
going to be hospitalized, and that I didn't really know whether
or not I would be returning. My employer was Senator
Christopher Dodd. Senator Dodd introduced what became the
Family and Medical Leave that same year. But what he said to me
on that day when I went into his office was, Rosa, go get
yourself well. Your job is here. Your salary is here. Just take
care of yourself.
With the support of my family and friends, and by the grace
of God and biomedical research, I recovered and have been
cancer free for 30 years.
Two years ago, my mother, at age 103--happy to tell you,
she served on the City Council in New Haven for 35 years--she
was dying. I got to spend every day and every night with her
for six weeks. No one told me, as a Member of Congress, that I
would not receive a salary. No one told me that my job would
not be waiting for me.
That was such a blessing in both cases, a blessing that
cannot just be for Senate staffers or for Members of Congress.
The United States needs a national paid leave policy to
provide paid time off for working people who are welcoming a
new child, caring for a seriously ill or injured family member,
or recovering personally from a serious illness, for everyone.
So, after three years of careful deliberation and coalition
building, I introduced the FAMILY Act with my partner in the
Senate, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, and we did that in 2013. It
is the gold standard. We have reintroduced it in every Congress
since, as we did earlier this year, with 700 groups in
virtually every state endorsing it.
The FAMILY Act allows employees to receive up to 60 days,
or 12 weeks of partial income, 66 percent of their income, for
a health condition, injury, or sickness to a child, parent,
spouse, or domestic partner, the birth or adoption of a child,
the injury of a family member in the military, or exigencies
arising from a servicemember's deployment. It creates an
independent, a self-sustaining national insurance fund by
having employees and employers pitch in together with payroll
contributions of two cents for every $10 in wages. It is
equivalent to less than $2 per week for a typical worker.
It would be managed under a new office of Paid Family and
Medical Leave within the Social Security Administration, but it
is separate and independent from the Social Security Trust
Fund, so that it does not impact the solvency of Social
Security. It has a record 201 cosponsors in the House and 34 in
the Senate, and it is bipartisan, as were similar proposals in
the states.
So far, nine states, including the District of Columbia,
have passed paid leave programs. They go even further in terms
of leave duration, family members covered, wage replacement
offered, or employment protections. We can learn from these
innovations, and we can learn from the businesses who support
paid leave. From the Main Street Alliance to the American
Sustainable Business Council, close to 100 businesses or
business leaders nationwide support the FAMILY Act.
It is no surprise that a 2017 study by the Boston
Consulting Group found that 250 companies offering paid family
and medical leave reported better ability to attract and retain
talent, higher productivity, more diverse company leadership
teams, and increased profitability.
Considering the benefits of paid leave for families and for
businesses, I am so glad to see that my colleagues on the other
side of the aisle support this in some form. But proposals need
to be not--not deal with harm, because that would be
unacceptable.
Many of the programs I've currently written force tradeoffs
between the worker's current self and their future self.
They're being asked to dip into their Social Security funds, or
their child tax credit. And most only provide income for new
parents. We applaud--we should provide support for new parents.
The birth of a child is glorious. But income support for new
parents is not enough. 75 percent of workers who take FMLA,
family and medical leave, currently do so to address the
serious health condition of their own, or of a loved one.
So, let us provide the paid leave that families and workers
need and deserve, not only for Senate staffers, for House
staffers, and not only for Members of Congress, but for
everyone in this country, to provide them with economic
security. We need to alleviate the economic insecurity of
middle-class families, of working people. We must not only
celebrate them; we must elevate them. We can do that with the
FAMILY Act.
Thank you so much for allowing me to come before the
committee this morning.
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you so much, Congresswoman, for
your testimony and for all of your efforts on this issue. And
for everything that you do for working families, thank you so
much.
While the second panel is coming forward and the clerks are
switching out the nameplates, I will introduce our second
panel.
We are privileged to have witnesses on our second panel
that bring a rich diversity of perspectives on the issue of
paid leave.
Jacqui Silvani is a teacher and Navy veteran whose son,
Joe, was treated for a rare form of cancer in 2015 at the age
of three. She is from New Hampshire, and she will testify about
her inability to access paid caregiving leave when her son was
sick.
Second, we have Vicki Shabo. She is a senior fellow for
paid leave policy and strategy at the think-tank, New America.
She is a leading expert on national and state paid family leave
policy, and has researched extensively in this field. From 2009
until 2019, Ms. Shabo led workplace policy initiatives at the
National Partnership for Women and Children.
The Honorable Robert Asaro-Angelo is the Commissioner of
Labor and Workforce Development for New Jersey. He is
responsible for administering New Jersey's paid family leave
program, and will testify about how that program benefits
workers and businesses in the state.
Aaron Seyedian is the founder of Well-Paid Maids, a home
cleaning service in Washington, DC, and Boston. It pays its
workers a living wage and offers them a full benefits package,
including paid leave. He will share how being able to offer
paid leave helps his employees and gives his small business a
competitive advantage.
Rachel Greszler is a research fellow for economics, budget,
and entitlements at The Heritage Foundation.
And Jennifer Tucker is a policy--senior policy advisor for
Black Women's Roundtable, which is part of the National
Coalition on Black Civic Participation. She will testify about
how the lack of paid family and medical leave impacts women and
families of color.
If you would all please rise and raise your right hand; I
will begin swearing you in.
Do you swear or affirm that the testimony that you are
about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth, so help you God?
Let the record show that the witnesses answered in the
affirmative.
Thank you and please be seated.
The microphones are sensitive, so please speak directly
into them.
Without objection, your written statement will be made part
of the record.
With that, Ms. Silvani, you are now recognized for your
opening statement.
STATEMENT OF JACQUI SILVANI, NEWFIELDS, NEW HAMPSHIRE
Ms. Silvani. Good morning, Chairwoman Maloney, Ranking
Member Jordan, and members of the committee. My name is Jacqui
Silvani. I live in New Fields, New Hampshire, and I am a proud
member of MomsRising. I am also very proud to be a Navy
veteran, a mother of three, a wife, and a teacher of fourth
grade students at Epping Elementary School.
Hi, guys.
I'm here today because I know firsthand why our country so
urgently needs a comprehensive paid leave policy that allows
all workers to care for their families without risking their
jobs or financial security.
In June 2015, I was driving home from work when I received
the kind of phone call no parent ever wants to get. My two-
year-old son, Joe, was playing at daycare when suddenly, half
of his face was red and sweaty while the other half was
completely dry. His providers were perplexed. My husband and I
rushed Joe to the emergency room. The next morning, after a 3-
1/2-hour MRI, doctors told us that our tiny toddler had a
clementine-sized tumor in his chest. Joe was diagnosed with
stage 4 neuroblastoma, a cancer of the nerve endings. Joe also
had bone lesions on his hips, spine, shoulder blade, and femur.
In a heartbeat, our lives changed completely. I had only
one thought: I needed to save my child's life. Joe's treatments
started immediately, and it quickly became clear that it would
be long and difficult. Joe needed six rounds of inpatient
chemotherapy, 20 rounds of radiation, tandem stem cell
transplants that decimated his immune system and required
complete isolation, and six rounds of painful immunotherapy. He
has lasting kidney damage due to his treatment and developed a
rare and severe complication called transplant associated
thrombotic microangiopathy that itself has a 20 percent
survival rate. Over the course of his intense treatment, he
spent 210 days in the hospital. I was there with him nearly
every day, because most of all, he needed me.
Having paid leave for at least part of that time would have
made such a difference. It would have helped to alleviate the
enormous stress my husband and I faced. We could have staggered
our leave and shared the responsibility of managing Joe's care,
while still collecting the paychecks we so desperately needed.
We wouldn't have had to worry about our jobs at the same time
we worried about our child's life.
But we did. When Joe was diagnosed, there was no question
that I needed to take time away from work. But as a teacher, I
had no paid leave. My son's diagnosis meant we immediately lost
a third of our income. My husband works at an auto dealership
and had no paid leave either. His income is based on
commissions. So, while I managed Joe's care, my husband faced
the enormous stress of working full-time, doing all he could to
support Joe and me, and becoming the primary caregiver of our
two children.
At the same time we lost my income, we faced major new
expenses. My salary was gone, but we had to pay the COBRA rate
for our health insurance during my year leave of absence at the
rate of $1,700 a month. There were healthcare costs that our
insurance didn't cover. Constantly taking Joe for treatment in
Boston meant paying a lot for gas and parking. Hospitals don't
provide caregiver meals. We needed before and after-school care
for Joe's siblings, including care over summers and school
vacations that was not anticipated. Yet, we still needed to pay
our bills.
Losing my income in the midst of this nightmare meant my
son's medical crisis was also a financial crisis for our
family. I will forever be grateful to the community that
rallied around us. Friends held fundraisers to help keep us
afloat and help pay our mortgage. But because we had no paid
leave, we were under extreme financial stress at the same time
we faced the extreme emotional stress that came with trying to
see our toddler through this life-threatening illness.
Now, 4-1/2 years after his diagnosis, I'm thrilled to say
that Joe is a healthy second grader and just about the happiest
kid you'll meet. We often joke he's bound to be a politician,
because he's so talented at engaging people. Perhaps one day he
will sit where you do today. If so, I know he will prioritize
policies like paid family medical leave, because he knows
firsthand what they mean for families.
While Joe has recovered, our family is still feeling the
financial effects of my unpaid leave. My retirement accounts
are gone. We are unable to contribute to my husband's accounts.
We are still digging out as we support our three children. Yet
we are the lucky ones.
The emotional effects continue as well. When your kids are
in danger, you don't think about your own mental health. We
live in fear that Joe will relapse because the rate of
recurrence for kids with the kind of cancer that Joe has is
around 50 percent. I honestly don't know how we would survive
it again.
But I do know that if we had paid leave, it would have been
much more manageable. Often when we think about paid leave, we
think about new babies. I know some lawmakers have even offered
proposals that only address leave for new parents. As a mom, I
know how important parental leave is. But we needed family
leave to care for Joe, and policies that don't address the full
range of caregiving needs would not have helped my family. In
fact, they would have left us behind.
No one plans for their child to get cancer, for a parent to
have a stroke, or to need surgery yourself, but those things
happen to all families, and that's why our country needs a
comprehensive paid leave policy so urgently.
Working people like my husband and me should be able to be
there for our families in times of joy and times of hardship. I
hope you will support the FAMILY Act.
Thank you.
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you.
Ms. Shabo.
STATEMENT OF VICKI SHABO, SENIOR FELLOW, PAID LEAVE POLICY AND
STRATEGY, BETTER LIFE LAB, NEW AMERICA
Ms. Shabo. Good morning, Chair Maloney, Ranking Member
Jordan, and members of the committee.
Thank you. Your story is incredible. And as a parent, I
can't imagine what you have gone through.
I also want to offer my congratulations to you, Chairwoman,
for your longstanding leadership on Federal employee's paid
leave, and the significant march forward that the Federal
employees parental leave provision in NDAA is. It will make the
Federal Government an employer of choice.
But access to paid leave shouldn't depend on one's
employer, their job, or their state of residence, whether
they're a traditional employee, or a contract worker. But today
it does.
Just 19 percent of workers have access to employer-provided
paid family leave to care for a new child or an ill loved one.
Within individual workplaces, access may be provided to the
most highly paid and highly skilled workers, but not to others.
This comes at an enormous cost. An estimated $20.6 billion to
families in lost wages, $500 billion to the economy and lost
productivity, more than $300,000 in lost income and retirement
savings to adults who take time away from work to care for an
aging parent, unknowable healthcare costs, safety net costs,
and opportunity costs.
You must take action now. But what action looks like really
matters. Paid leave must be part of a suite of investments in
families, wages, work, and care. A comprehensive national paid
family and medical leave program must be equitable, inclusive,
and sustainable. It must provide every working person in this
country with the security of being able to care for ourselves
and our loved ones, and it should be designed to promote race,
gender, economic equity, and strengthen America's
competitiveness in the global economy.
Right now, the FAMILY Act is the only proposal pending in
Congress that meets this test. It's exciting to see support,
both from the 200-plus cosponsors, which are now a bipartisan
group, and from advocates and businesses. In fact, this week, a
new collaborative called Paid Leave For All and a new small
business coalition for paid family and medical leave are both
launching, which is a testament to momentum and demand.
I want to make three observations about potential
bipartisan progress and the enactment of comprehensive paid
leave. And I wanted dispel myths and provide context for
action.
First, let's not forget that the FMLA, the Nation's unpaid
leave law, was enacted after a nine-year battle in Congress.
Nine years. It took so long because opponents at the time
claimed that the FMLA would do substantial harm to businesses
and the economy. Fortunately, they were wrong, and many of the
opponents at the time admit that now.
Similar in states, businesses that feared new paid family
leave laws have also found their concerns to be unfounded. They
generally now support their state's laws, and business support
for a national law is growing.
Second, the eight states, plus New Jersey, with paid--plus
D.C. I'm sorry. New Jersey is sitting right here--with paid
leave programs show that progress is possible. Most include
features that substantially surpass the FAMILY Act, in terms of
the uses of leave, the wage replacement offered, the family
members covered, the employment protections provided. And most
substantially and significant for this committee and for
Congress, laws with these enhanced features passed with
substantial bipartisan support.
To me, the state's bipartisan progress cautions against
allowing Congress and national political observers to define
down what a passable policy is. You must not write off certain
policy design elements. We should look to the states'
experiences to understand that a program like the FAMILY Act
should be within bipartisan reach.
Third, it's remarkable that 80 percent of voters support a
plan like the FAMILY Act. Substantial majorities of voters
across all political backgrounds also prefer the FAMILY Act to
approaches that would cut people out or force tradeoffs. Voters
who support the FAMILY Act are also willing to contribute to a
national paid leave fund, and to contribute more than it would
require. This, too, is true across party lines.
Experience in states reinforces this polling. To my
knowledge, there has never been a backlash against payroll
contributions from individual taxpayers or businesses in states
with paid leave programs.
So, what's required in a national policy? To achieve
favorable outcomes for women's labor force participation and
earnings, men's engagement in caregiving, child, maternal, and
ill loved one's health, business benefits, and taxpayer
savings, a national program must meet certain criteria. It must
include all FMLA-covered needs to create a policy that's
flexible for all working people, regardless of their care need;
make leave available gender equally, both on paper and in terms
of the policy parameters, that make it possible for men to take
leave; provide adequate and timely wage replacement so lower-
wage workers can use the policy without hardship; ensure
meaningful duration of leave to account for the full complement
of health and care needs; permit caregiving for a range of
family members, to recognize that family care comes in many
forms; be affordably and sustainably funded to provide
certainty for workers and employers; include employment
protections so that leave is safe to use; and finally, and most
important, as we're finding from new research, build in funding
for worker and employer outreach and education to ensure
effective implementation and use.
Congress's search for common-ground solutions is exciting
and long overdue. However, bipartisan efforts should not
translate into watered-down legislation. Proposals that only
cover new parents and fail to provide new revenue can only be
described as half-measures that would do more harm than good.
These approaches would exacerbate existing inequalities and
would fail to serve the interests of women, people of color,
people with disabilities, and low-wage workers. They would also
be ineffective at producing desired individual and systemic
outcomes.
It's well past time for the United States to enact a
national comprehensive paid family and medical leave program.
The costs of the status quo are great, but the benefits of the
future that we can create together are much more substantial.
States show us that a plan like the FAMILY Act can work for the
country. It's time for paid leave for all.
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you.
Mr. Asaro-Angelo.
STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT ASARO-ANGELO, COMMISSIONER, NEW JERSEY
DEPARTMENT OF LABOR AND WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT
Mr. Asaro-Angelo. Chair Maloney, Ranking Member Jordan,
members of the committee, thank you for welcoming me here
today. Greetings from Governor Murphy and the great state of
New Jersey.
I appreciate your devoting your time to this important
issue. For seven years, I had the privilege of serving as the
regional representative at the U.S. Department of Labor,
working on this important issue from Maine to Florida, where I
often used New Jersey as an example in our push to lead on
leave.
Now as Labor Commissioner, I am proud to be working on best
practices in my own state, support our workers and businesses,
people who want to provide for their families and communities,
and people who want to contribute to our economy. That is what
every person in this room should be thinking about, myself
included, taking care of the people behind the jobs.
New Jersey is experiencing a strong economy. More people
are at work in the Garden State than ever before, and a near
record low 3.2 percent unemployment rate. But a strong economy
does not mean we can rest on our laurels or assume economic
benefits reach everyone equally.
We have been proactive in reinforcing our commitment to
paid family and medical leave in our state. This year, we
celebrated the 10-year anniversary of Family Leave Insurance,
or FLI, as we'll call it, and the 70th anniversary of temporary
disability insurance, or TDI, as it is known in our state.
These programs support our workers by acknowledging
caregiving as an integral part of American culture. Like most
states, we have a significant sandwich generation, a work force
that is taking care of both children and aging parents and
relatives.
In New Jersey, there is no doubt these programs work as a
publicly funded insurance program. For seven decades, our TDI
program has been jointly funded by employers and employees,
providing a framework for our solely worker-funded FLI program
that has recently been expanded at zero cost to employers. By
offering this wage replacement in a universal, comprehensive,
and inclusive way, we are ensuring all of our workers who care
for loved ones have the income they need.
Those least likely to have benefits offered privately by
their employers, tend to be younger, female, and have less
access to education and savings than those who receive at least
some pay while on leave. That's why programs like ours are so
critical.
As Labor Commissioner, I know when families thrive, the
economy thrives, which is why this year we passed a law
expanding family leave. As Governor Murphy reminded us when we
signed the bill, no one should ever be forced to choose between
earning--caring for a family member, and earning a paycheck.
Research shows employers overwhelmingly care about the well-
being of their staff.
We now have 11,000 more businesses operating in our state
than we did when FLI went into effect, including year-over-year
growth of our small businesses as well. In a competitive
economy, these programs relieve employers from providing an
additional job benefit without increasing costs, leveling the
playing field for all businesses competing for talent, large
and small. Paid family and medical leave programs save
employers money by reducing turnover and training costs when
they lose staff to a temporary situation.
According to the American Sustainable Business Council,
employee productivity actually increased between 3.5 and 6.5
percent once paid leave policies were implemented.
Additionally, an Employer Association of New Jersey survey
found the average time it took employers to assist with their
worker's claim was only about an hour, start to finish. And
that was before we made improvements to reduce employer-side
paperwork. This is good policy and good government.
The Murphy administration continues to learn from best
practices, working with our legislators to make informed
changes. For example, we recognize the structure of families
today is more diverse than in the past, and, therefore, our
programs must also evolve for the caregiving obligations
families face today.
We have expanded coverage to include children of any age,
parents-in-law, siblings, grandparents, grandchildren, domestic
partners, any individuals related by blood or with whom you
have the equivalent of a family relationship.
We have also expanded coverage to victims of domestic or
sexual violence. The law now permits these victims to claim
benefits so they can access the care they need and focus on
their recovery and safety. These improvements are a good start.
But as of July 2020, even more are coming. We have doubled the
maximum benefit period so workers can claim up to 12 weeks for
caregiving or bonding. We've also increased the weekly benefit
rate from 66 to 85 percent of a worker's average weekly wage,
which, according to this year's numbers, will be up to $881 per
week.
Finally, our FLI program will allow workers with more than
one job the option to take leave from one employer while
continuing to work for another. Since many New Jerseyans work
more than one job, this aspect of the new law offers
flexibility that did not exist before. Why do we make these
changes? Because people in low-wage jobs can't afford to live
on a replacement of only two-thirds of their weekly wages,
which means low-income workers can't bond with a new baby, or
care for an aging parent, further restricting them from moving
up the career and wage ladder.
We know access to paid family and medical leave is only
meaningful if every worker from the home health aide to the
health care executive has access. The true challenge is making
our most vulnerable populations aware of rights, protections,
and programs available to them and ensuring equity in access.
That is why we formed the Office of Strategic Outreach, to
let our communities know about paid family and medical leave,
as well as earned sick leave and other recent improvements to
New Jersey law.
If you'd like information beyond today's testimony, our
website is myleavebenefits.nj.gov, where we made it easier for
everywhere to understand the rights and benefits available to
them. So, I encourage you to visit and see how paid leave works
in New Jersey. We think you'll see the evidence that we are
making the economy stronger because it is becoming fairer.
Thank you for your time and attention to this critical
issue. I look forward to your questions.
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Mr. Seyedian.
STATEMENT OF AARON SEYEDIAN, FOUNDER, WELL-PAID MAIDS
Mr. Seyedian. Thank you, Chairwoman Maloney, Ranking Member
Jordan, and members of the committee for having me here today.
My name is Aaron Seyedian. I am a member of the Main Street
Alliance, and I am the founder of Well-Paid Maids, a living-
wage home cleaning company that operates in the D.C. and Boston
areas. All of our employees earn $17 an hour and receive a full
benefits package on day one with us. This package includes 22
paid days off per year; health, dental, and vision insurance;
100 percent employer-paid commuting costs; and 100 percent
employer-paid short-term disability insurance.
Unlike many cleaning companies, we only hire W-2 employees,
not independent contractors, which means all of our employees,
of course, receive unemployment insurance, workers'
compensation insurance, and are eligible for overtime.
By offering consumers an ethical alternative in an industry
where anti-worker practices are rampant, we hope to help our
workers by providing good-paying jobs with decent benefits. At
the same time, we aim to help all workers by bolstering the
case for policies like a minimum wage that's a living wage,
paid sick days, and the subject of today's hearing, paid family
and medical leave.
I'm really eager to see paid family and medical leave
enacted at the Federal level. As a small business owner, I can
tell you that the sky is not going to fall on employers if
something like is this enacted, not just for Federal workers,
of course, but for the private sector.
Based on my own business experience, I think that paid
leave is not only affordable for small businesses, but that
it's extremely beneficial for them as well.
So, first on the subject of cost, I'm personally skeptical
of any employer who would claim that paying into a paid leave
program is going to threaten the viability of their business or
force them to lay off employees. My company is currently
participating in the ramp-up periods for Massachusetts' and
D.C.'s paid leave programs, and they're just not that
expensive. So, D.C. is the more costly program, and it's a .62
percent payroll tax on wages paid. So, for my business, that's
around $20 per month per employee. From my perspective, any
employer that can't brook an additional $20 or $30 per month,
you know, per FTE doesn't have a viable business--or business
model.
Furthermore, as somebody who provides short-term disability
insurance to its employers, I can tell that you the state and
local programs, which we're currently participating in, are
going to offer comparable coverage to what a small business can
obtain in the private market but at nearly one-third of the
cost. It's obvious why.
You know, by running this type of insurance program as a
public good, instead of private profit-making entity, costs can
go down for the folks who subscribe to it. In addition to that
reduced cost, the state programs that we're going to be
participating in also include family leave. Of course, short-
term disability insurance, that's really just for personal
medical issues.
So, in addition to being affordable, though, I believe that
paid family and medical leave at the Federal level is going to
be extremely beneficial to businesses, right? This isn't just a
cost to bear. You know, in my own business, I've reaped a lot
of gains from the benefits that I mentioned earlier, short-term
disability being one of them.
In the cleaning industry, you know, the typical model is to
basically, you know, misclassify your workers, pay them as
little as possible, offer no benefits, work them to death. My
company takes the opposite approach. And I think there are
great reasons for doing that.
So, you know, in every market we operate in, we offer the
best possible compensation package, and because of that, I know
that if you take care of your employees, they're going to take
care of you. So, you know, from my perspective, the reason that
my employees are happy, hardworking, and dependable is because
we have a benefits package, including paid leave, that respects
the reality of everyday life. We all know people get sick, we
all know people have babies, they need vacation, et cetera. I
think that when you show employees that you have their back,
they have yours in turn. You know, multiple witnesses have
mentioned kind of the litany of studies that indicate all of
the benefits that businesses experience by offering paid leave
and other--other high-road benefits.
In closing, I'm proud to be a business owner coming here
today to speak in support of paid family and medical leave, and
I'm happy to articulate it in business terms. Based on the
structure of the existing state and local programs that we're
participating in, you know, from my perspective, it's not going
to cost businesses all that much, and it's going to generate
positive outcomes for everybody.
Ultimately, though, I think the crucial argument for a
national paid family and medical leave program is that it's the
right thing to do. Too often, we reduce everything to the logic
of the market. You know, sometimes that's fine. Ultimately,
though, I think that paid family and medical leave is more than
an employment issue. I think that how we decide to support each
other when the worst happens is a test of national character,
and I believe that we as Americans need to come to terms with
the fact that currently our policies pretend that it's normal
for people to fall into avoidable financial ruin when the worst
happens or for people to return to work two weeks or less
after--after having a baby.
Whether or not we use policy to ensure that people can take
time off to be with their newborn children or to care for a
sick spouse is, I believe, a moral choice, and I hope that
Congress will soon make the right choice by extending paid
family and medical leave, not just to Federal employees, but to
all employees.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify, and I look
forward to your questions.
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you very much.
Our next witness is Ms. Greszler.
STATEMENT OF RACHEL GRESZLER, RESEARCH FELLOW, ECONOMICS,
BUDGET, AND ENTITLEMENTS, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION
Ms. Greszler. Good morning, and thank you for inviting me
here today. As a mother of six young children, and also with my
own mother and my grandmother diagnosed with cancer in recent
years, I understand the need to take leave. Families are the
foundation of society, and I think that it's important that
they be able to care for one another.
But we also have to recognize that paid family leave has
costs and consequences, and a government program can't erase
those costs, it can only redistribute them. Voluntary employer-
provided policies work better because they can balance worker's
and employer's needs at minimal costs and consequences,
providing them more flexible and often more generous policies
than a one-size-fits-all government program could. Yet a
Federal Government program would crowd out these policies, just
as they're starting to expand even further.
Most notably, many low-wage workers have gained access to
employer-provided policies over recent years. I think everyone
here today agrees that it's these low-wage workers that we want
to help the most.
So, I wanted to share a story about a low-income refugee
family that my own family came to know and love recently. This
family welcomed their fourth child about a year ago, a sweet
little baby boy. As they left the hospital, what should have
been a sweet homecoming to them, they returned and their
belongs were all outside on the sidewalk. They had been
evicted. This father needed a job. They needed a home. They
needed food for their children. And this mother needed a place
to recover.
Paid family leave was the last thing on their minds. If a
government program had been there, it would have been of no use
to them. Neither parent had been in a job long enough to
qualify for leave, and a partial benefit would not have been
enough to make ends meet. That's why I'm so concerned by the
FAMILY Act and other government proposals.
The experience of government-run paid family leave programs
across the world is that they redistribute money from lower-
income earners to middle-and upper-income earners.
In California, five times as many workers in the highest
income bracket file paid leaves claims as those in the lowest
bracket. Canada's program is said to exacerbate class
inequality and, quote, ``aid in the social reproduction of
higher-income families,'' end quote. In the
U.K., quote, ``too little support is directed to those
families that need it most and too much to those who do not,''
end quote. In New Jersey, quote, ``the state's paid family
leave policy puts many workers below the poverty level and
pushes people who are already struggling deeper into poverty,''
end quote.
Attempts to reverse these regressive traits have failed.
San Francisco tried by enacting a 100 percent benefit
replacement, and yet, low-income mothers were still half as
likely as higher-income ones to receive government benefits.
Moreover, a recent economic analysis of California's program
found that it reduced women's employment and earnings, as well
as their fertility rates.
This is the opposite of what we should all want to achieve.
Instead, policymakers should seek pro-growth policies and other
measures that can do more for low-income families and for all
families.
This strong economy and our 50-year record low employment
rate have produced large wage gains, and those gains have been
the strongest for lower-income workers. Those who make less
than $25,000 a year gained about $1,500 in additional wages
last year. And low-income Black women gained about $2,400.
That's enough to finance between three and five weeks of paid
family leave. And if those workers don't need the leave, it's
their own money to spend or save as they please.
Moreover, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act has added $1,400 to the
typical family household, and more companies are adding new and
expanded paid leave benefits because of those tax cuts.
Policymakers can build on these gains by helping generate
leave options that meet worker's and employer's unique needs at
a cost that they can afford. The Working Families Flexibility
Act would give lower-income hourly workers the choice to
accumulate paid leave in exchange for overtime work. Universal
savings accounts, or letting workers draw on other tax
preferred savings, would be particularly helpful for
independent, part-time, and temporary workers. And increased
private disability insurance is another way to meet worker's
own leave needs.
Considering the upward trend in efficient and flexible
employer-provided paid leave programs, as well as the highly
regressive nature of the existing government programs,
policymakers should avoid enacting a new Federal program, and
instead, focus on giving workers more income and flexibility to
choose what works best for them.
Thank you.
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you. Our last witness is Ms.
Tucker.
STATEMENT OF JENNIFER TUCKER, SENIOR POLICY ADVISOR, THE
NATIONAL COALITION ON BLACK CIVIC PARTICIPATION
Ms. Tucker. Good morning.
Chairwoman Maloney, acting--Ranking Member Jordan and
members of the committee, many of you support paid family leave
because you care about valuing families, and likewise, many of
you are committed to promoting racial and gender equality. I'm
here today to connect the dots, because paid leave is an
essential way to build such equality.
Lack of leave drives down Black women's income and economic
stability, their ability to keep their job and to advance, get
out of poverty and stay out of poverty and build wealth.
Our Nation was built upon forced, unpaid labor of enslaved
Black men and women. Low paid domestic work was the only job
open to many Black women after the Civil War and well into the
1960's. When the labor--Fair Labor Standards legislation was
passed guaranteeing minimum pay, hours, and protections, an
agreement with southern segregationists excluded domestic and
agricultural workers. Not surprisingly, Black women and other
people of color today are less likely to have access to paid
family and medical leave.
I sit before you this morning not only as a public policy
professional, but also as a caregiver, twice having experienced
life in the sandwich generation. My younger daughter was barely
walking when my mother was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease
in her late 60's. I was her primary caregiver. Then, too, my
sister, who lived with a chronic illness her entire adult life
after a lupus diagnosis as a teen. She just celebrated her 48th
birthday the day before she suffered a serious bleed on her
spinal column.
Ms. Tucker. Both of my caregiving experiences were for
chronic conditions that lasted for many years. Each had a
common crisis period associated with them that required all of
my attention and that of several family members. We survived
because we had financial resources, paid sick and vacation
days, and a supportive family that many people don't have.
It taught me that a catastrophic accident or illness can
happen to anyone, and all workers deserve time to care for
themselves, their families, without economic devastation,
physical exhaustion, or so much stress.
I know many Black women who have little or no paid leave
time. Black women earn only 61 cents for every dollar earned by
White, non-Hispanic men. Only 54 percent of Black workers have
access even to unpaid leave under FMLA, and many women who do
can't afford to use it because 84 percent are primary or co-
breadwinners for their families.
Black women face a devastating maternal mortality rate,
four times higher than that of White women. Pregnancy-related
complications are closely tied to infant death.
We need comprehensive paid family and medical leave to
combat these and other disparities, but how that leave program
is structured matters. We must ask: Will it reduce or increase
racial and gender inequities?
To be inclusive, a paid family leave needs and must have
coverage for all workers and all need cares, offer a meaningful
duration of time, reflect the diversity of families, guarantee
job protection, provide adequate and progressive wage
replacement, and be sustainably funded and cost-effective.
I thank you for your time and your commitment to ending
racial and gender inequality.
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you so much.
The chair now recognizes the distinguished Congresswoman
Norton.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Again, I
congratulate you on assuming the chair and on the achievement
of your Federal paid family leave act. No wonder this is your
first hearing.
I'd like to direct my questions first to Mr. Seyedian, who,
of course, does business in the District of Columbia, to
congratulate him on giving a living wage to all his employees
and what looks like a pretty full package.
Now, you've been in business only three years, right?
Mr. Seyedian. Just over two years.
Ms. Norton. But you do business in--well, Massachusetts
has--in Massachusetts and D.C.
Mr. Seyedian. Yes. Yes.
Ms. Norton. Now, D.C. doesn't quite have it yet, right?
Mr. Seyedian. No. So, both are actually in the ramp-up
period.
Ms. Norton. So, both are in the ramp-up period. So, you are
competing with businesses that do not offer family leave of any
kind, I take it. I mean, there are many such businesses in the
District of Columbia.
Mr. Seyedian. Correct. Yes.
Ms. Norton. So, my question really goes your bottom line,
and that is: How are you able to grow--are you growing?--and
compete with others who don't offer anything like the package
you offer? In fact, I need to find out more about you so we can
consider bringing you into our home here in the district.
Mr. Seyedian. I hope so.
Yes, that's a great question. So, the business has been
around for just over two years. You know, as we look at closing
off, you know, this calendar year, basically we will have
doubled in size from our first full year to our second full
year. We're going to do around $600,000 in revenue this year,
which we think is pretty good for a business of our size and
our age.
You know, to your point, we have grown quite a bit. So,
we're at 14 employees. We're still hiring in both the D.C. area
and the Boston area. In fact, I have somebody flying up to
Boston tonight to hire a few more cleaners in that market.
And, you know, in terms of how we compete, it's really
through customers who are attracted to what we're doing. So,
you know, we're not just A-1 Cleaning Services, you know, or
Four-Star Cleaning Services. The people who use our company are
really excited about our wages and our benefits, and, you know,
that's why they're willing to choose us versus a competitor.
I think that's a great message to, you know, anyone who's
thinking about the different possibilities in the economy for a
high-road model, which is customers really crave it. So, I
think that's----
Ms. Norton. So, that if there's a state law----
Mr. Seyedian. Sorry?
Ms. Norton. If there is a state law, such as the upcoming--
--
Mr. Seyedian. Yes.
Ms. Norton [continuing]. Law or the law in New Jersey, does
that make it more affordable to remain in business and to
compete with others in business? In other words, you're doing
this on your own.
Mr. Seyedian. Yes.
Ms. Norton. You're competing with others who don't have to
do it. You say you're making a profit.
Mr. Seyedian. Right. Absolutely.
Ms. Norton. Now, what difference would it make to have a
state law, let's say the new D.C. law?
Mr. Seyedian. Well, it's actually going to make us more
profitable because of the amount of money that we pay right now
for short-term disability insurance, which, you know, we use as
basically kind of a stopgap version of paid family medical
leave, because folks can use it to tend to their own medical
absences.
The short-term disability insurance that we buy is more
costly than the public program that we're going to participate
in in D.C. So, by being able to basically cancel our short-term
disability policies and just participate in the public plans,
we're going to save money, and it's going to make us more
profitable.
Ms. Norton. I wanted to ask Ms. Shabo, unpaid family leave,
how--I mean, would you give us some indication of whether or
not unpaid family leave, that law that we passed some time ago,
has benefited anyone? Do people take advantage of it when they
don't get any pay? Who is it that takes advantage of it?
Ms. Shabo. Sure.
Ms. Norton. What good is it?
Ms. Shabo. Yes. The Family and Medical Leave Act, which is
now 26-1/2 years old, certainly has benefited some people. But
the reality is that, for people who cannot afford to take
leave--that is the number-one reason why people forego a needed
leave, is that they can't afford to take unpaid leave under the
FMLA. That means the folks that have benefited from the FMLA
are disproportionately higher-wage, professional employees who
might have some pay or cobbled-together vacation or sick time.
There are huge disparities in who has access to unpaid--to
be able to afford to take unpaid leave. So, that's why paid
leave is so critical. And for low-wage workers----
Ms. Norton. You heard Ms. Greszler argue that since--that,
with all of these policies, low-wage people don't take
advantage of them. Why is that?
Ms. Shabo. So, what we are learning from the states is both
about how the policies need to be designed to ensure that low-
wage workers are able to afford to take the leave that's
available to them and, in fact, the programs that they're
paying into. We've learned a lot about the community-based
outreach and the partnerships that are needed, the materials
that are needed to help inform low-wage workers and their
employers about the leave policies that are available.
I just very quickly want to say, you know, I have looked
very closely at the Working Families Flexibility Act, the
savings accounts, the Social Security proposal that's floating
out there, even the CTC proposal, and there is no way that a
low-wage worker is going to be able to benefit from any of
those things. We've got 40 percent of workers in this country
who don't have $400 for an emergency expense. The idea that
they'd be able to contribute to a savings account is
unthinkable.
The Working Families Flexibility Act forces people to work
or takes people's ability to work more than 40 hours in a week
to take their comp time, their time-and-a-half, and then
tradeoff time for that. They need those wages. They are low-
wage workers.
So, you know, I think, in looking at the way that the state
programs are funded, they are affordable. They can be
accessible. We need to design them with equity in mind. And
that goes to the wage replacement rates, the job protection
that should go with them, and the outreach and education that's
needed to make sure that workers know about their rights, are
able to assert those rights. Then it's the IT systems that
provide for the timely processing of applications and payment.
Ms. Norton. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you.
The chair recognizes Congressman Hice.
Mr. Hice. Thank you, Madam Chair. And, likewise, I want to
say congratulations to you on your first hearing, and we
certainly wish you the best as you lead this committee. So,
congratulations.
Ms. Greszler, I'd like to come to you. We hear a lot about
the support of the national paid family leave and medical, and
I get that. I mean, it sounds wonderful. But we all know at the
end of the day there's nothing free, and at some point this has
an enormous cost associated with it. You brought that up in
your opening statement.
I'd like to hit on some of that, if we can. Whether we're
talking higher taxes or increased debt, lower benefits, fewer
promotions for women, there's a lot of costs associated with
this. And once those factors are put into play--I mean,
sometimes we hear as much as 74 percent of Americans favor this
type of legislation. But when the costs associated with it are
added, the popularity of this drastically begins to drop off.
Could you elaborate on some of the details of some of these
tradeoffs?
Ms. Greszler. Yes. There is broad support for a paid family
leave program if you just ask that question. But then if you
get into what are the tradeoffs--you know, if you were asked,
are you willing to pay $450 a week, fewer than half of
Americans are willing to do that.
Then when you get into trading off spending on current
programs, which, with the tight deficits that we have right
now, you would have to--you have less support. So, when workers
are asked, would you be willing to trade lower Social Security
spending or education and other--only 21 percent of people are
willing to support a Federal paid family leave program.
I think it's important to note, what will the cost be?
Because we don't really know. The state programs have been so
underutilized. In New Jersey, only one percent of people who
are eligible for the caregiving benefit use it. Only 12 percent
of parents who are eligible for the benefit use it.
So, it appears that costs can be relatively small. In
reality, if you have a Federal program and you have companies
that start canceling their current policies and shifting those
costs onto the Federal workers, then the cost of that program
will expand over time, and it's not going to be a cup of coffee
a week. And I don't see low-income workers buying cups of
coffee a week because they don't have that to give it up. More
like, it's going to be a tank of gas instead of that.
You know, the American Action Forum has estimated upwards
of $1,500 for the average worker to have a paid family leave
program. And, as I noted, those low-income workers are not
going to be able to use that program. It's better off to let
them have that money and use it as they see best fit for their
families.
Mr. Hice. I would think also that it would impact the tax
rate in states that implement this, at least in some states.
Are you aware of that?
Ms. Greszler. If you had a Federal program?
Mr. Hice. Yes.
Ms. Greszler. They would have to choose whether or not they
keep their existing program, which would be a nightmare for
businesses to have to figure out which one they're going
through. But, yes, when you have a Federal program, the tax
rate would start out probably relatively low and then grow over
time.
I've talked to some of the insurers in New York, and they
actually go through a private insurance market. They have said,
``We're in the business now, but we can't stay in the business
unless they increase the tax rates. It won't be affordable for
us.'' So, they won't be able to provide that policy.
Mr. Hice. OK. Thank you.
You also mentioned in your opening statement about the
impact of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and how that--obviously,
the boom in the economy, record-low unemployment, and all this
that is out there. I know I have several businesses, many
businesses in my district, and hundreds of them across the
state of Georgia that are voluntarily offering multiple
benefits, from higher wages to benefits and leave and all sorts
of things, because they are more profitable.
So, can you talk, from a national perspective, how the tax
cut has affected private industry and how that really, if it's
your opinion, is more effective than a national stamp?
Ms. Greszler. Of course. So, it provided huge resources
that the employers can now use to meet their employees'
demands. A lot of those employers surveyed them and said, what
would you like? They wanted more benefits, particularly paid
family leave. That's why we've seen this huge growth in those
policies.
Everyone has pointed out today, it's in employers' best
interest to provide these policies. You have higher retention.
It's very costly to replace a worker. They're going to stay
there longer. They're going to be happier. So, employers know,
better than policymakers and bureaucrats, what's in their best
interest. And the best way for them to be able to offer those
policies is to have the resources to do so in a flexible way.
A one-size-fits-all policy does not work for 28 million
different businesses across the U.S. or 159 million different
workers. You need a policy--just as Ms. DeLauro communicated,
she had a policy that wasn't, you know, standard, it wasn't a
formal policy, but it worked. It was something that her
employer--you know, different ones at the time--were allowed to
provide her with.
I would love to see more of that, not having the employer
have to say, ``Go to the Federal Government. You're going to
deal with the bureaucrats, and they're going to tell you what
you can get,'' but, rather, ``Let me work with you. I want to
keep you on as an employee, and I want to make this work. Let's
see what's flexible and what works best for you.''
Mr. Hice. Thank you for your testimony. I yield back, Madam
Chair.
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you.
The chair recognizes Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Madam Chair. And my
congratulations to you as well. It's many years of service on
this panel, and I'm very proud of you.
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I'm proud to serve with you as well.
I have had personal experience both with giving birth to
all three of my children--one of whom is now a teenager and the
others who are juniors in college--giving birth to all three of
my children while working very full-time. I gave birth to all
three of my children while serving in the state legislature and
running for Congress with my third child.
About 12 years ago, some of you know, I was diagnosed with
breast cancer suddenly at 41 years old. One day, the picture of
health; the next day, a cancer patient, facing my own
mortality.
Because I had this job, because I am in charge of the
employment policies of my office, I was able to take the kind
of leave, like I was in the legislature, because I didn't have
anyone other than my constituents to answer to, and I was able
to structure my work-life balance in order to make sure that I
could care for my newborn babies after they were born and make
sure that I could get myself well, all while managing the
demands of a very demanding job.
Most people don't have the luxury that Congresswoman
DeLauro and I and all of my colleagues here have had. Research
has shown that women with incomes of $75,000 per year or higher
take an average of 12 weeks of maternity leave, while mothers
in households with incomes of less than $33,000 per year
frequently reported taking only six weeks of leave, not
necessarily paid. Nearly one-quarter of U.S. women are back at
work within two weeks of giving birth.
Ms. Greszler, I find it troubling that you used the very
tired argument that one-size-fits-all doesn't work for most
employers. I want to start by asking you a few questions.
I understand from your opening statement that you have six
children. Were you able to take maternity leave for each of
your children, the birth of each of your children?
Ms. Greszler. Yes, I was fortunate to be able to take leave
with each.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. And how much maternity leave were
you able to take for each of your children?
Ms. Greszler. I chose to take 12 weeks with each. And I had
different policies at different times.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Were you paid----
Ms. Greszler. I was paid at least part and often in full.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. OK. And was it important for you to
spend that kind of time with the peace of mind knowing that
your salary, at least in large part, was covered during that
time, for you to spend time with your newborns?
Ms. Greszler. Absolutely.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. And do you think other parents would
value and benefit from that time as well?
Ms. Greszler. I do. And I think that they would value most
from policies that are flexible and let them work with their
employer to determine what's best.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. OK. Do you support a minimum wage?
Ms. Greszler. I think that we should let the market
determine what's the appropriate wage and----
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. But do you support a minimum wage?
Or do you think that we should not have a one-size-fits-all
policy and just let the market pay anyone anything they choose
to----
Ms. Greszler. No, I think----
Ms. Wasserman Schultz.--and not have a floor?
Ms. Greszler [continuing]. A minimum wage, particularly a
$15 minimum wage, would actually----
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I'm not asking you about a $15
minimum wage.
Ms. Greszler. I don't believe in a one-size-fits-all
policy----
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Do you believe----
Ms. Greszler [continuing]. Because we have unique----
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Excuse me. Reclaiming my time. Do
you believe in a minimum wage?
Ms. Greszler. No.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Not at all? You don't think that we
should require employers to not allow employees to fall through
the holes without a minimum wage?
Ms. Greszler. I think that we should let workers work at
whatever wage that they choose to negotiate with their
employer.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. OK. Well, that tells you all you
need--all we need to know about your views.
You know, and you've said you don't think a one-size-fits-
all program works, but most people in America don't support a
one-size-fits-all wage, because we know what kind of poverty
people would be thrown into if that's what we allowed.
What you have to offer, on the other hand, is nothing at
all for millions of Americans. And some, often the more
affluent, will be lucky like you were, but many more, likely--
80 percent of workers, in fact--will not.
Ms. Greszler, I don't buy your argument that it is too
difficult to have a national standard that will work for all of
our citizens. We must make sure that women, parents have the
benefit of the benefit that I had, that I could choose to have,
regardless of their income, regardless of their employer. And
we do need a floor through which we are not going to allow
people to crash through when they have unexpected illness or
give birth to children, that every parent, regardless of income
or their employer, deserves to be able to work for someone who
is required to give them a minimum of paid family leave.
Thank you. I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Hice. Madam Chair?
Chairwoman Maloney. For what purpose does the gentleman
wish to be recognized?
Mr. Hice. Thank you. I have a unanimous request to submit
four articles of four different companies that, because of the
tax cut bill, are providing family leave. I have Southwire to
pay----
Chairwoman Maloney. Without objection. Without objection.
I've seen the articles. They can go into the record. Thank you.
Mr. Hice. Thank you.
Chairwoman Maloney. I now recognize Mr. Grothman.
Mr. Grothman?
Mr. Grothman. Sure. I'll have a couple--or look for a
little bit more from Ms. Greszler.
I guess there was--IRS data was done to do a study of
California's 2004 paid family medical leave and its effect on
women's careers. I'd like to--you're familiar with the study,
correct?
Ms. Greszler. Uh-huh.
Mr. Grothman. I'd like you to elaborate a little bit on it
and what we can expect to be the effect on women's careers of a
more proscriptive family medical leave law.
Ms. Greszler. So, there was a recent, somewhat
groundbreaking study in California. This study was different
from others because they were actually able to obtain IRS data,
and so it's better reporting, and you also had more than twice
the sample size of previous studies.
What they found there, comparing women, you know, who had
babies six months apart before and after when California's paid
family leave policy was enacted, those who utilized the benefit
afterwards compared to those who didn't, those women had seven
percent lower employment rates and eight percent lower
earnings. Oddly, their fertility rates actually were lower as
well. They did find that they were spending more time at home
with their children as a result of that paid family leave law.
Mr. Grothman. OK. But, in other words, what you're showing
me is there are unintended consequences of this law that only
came out with a comprehensive review of tax returns.
Ms. Greszler. Correct.
Mr. Grothman. OK.
Right now, Federal Government has a hodgepodge of 43
different paid leave days, correct?
Ms. Greszler. Yes. Federal workers have 13 days of sick
leave that can roll over every year. You can use 30 days of
advance sick leave. And they can also access a paid-sick-leave
pool.
Mr. Grothman. OK. Could you explain how that compares to
the private sector right now?
Ms. Greszler. I think, on the average, the private sector,
the most that they have for paid sick days is about 10;
vacation days, similar, about 10, you know, two to three weeks,
whereas the Federal Government offers three to four weeks.
Mr. Grothman. OK.
Could you speculate--and maybe it's an unfair thing to do.
That California study intrigues me. Could you speculate on why
you got those kinds of, I guess--I think the other members of
the panel would consider unexpected results?
Ms. Greszler. I think women taking more time off, staying
home with children, some of them make the decision that they
are going spend more time at home. Maybe they only went back in
a part-time capacity or they stayed out of the labor market
entirely.
You also had higher-income women that are using those
benefits, as we saw that it's just not as readily available to
lower-income women. They don't know about it. A partial benefit
doesn't let them pay the bills. There's more fear about
discrimination or their job not being there.
So, it has to do, I think, with the different usage rates
and also just the decisions that women choose to make.
Mr. Grothman. Could you comment in general as far as the
number of high-income versus low-income women who take
advantage of these benefits?
Ms. Greszler. Well, in California, I believe that they had
five times as many people in the highest income bracket
compared to the lowest income bracket for women that were using
the program. I'm not sure across the board what the figures
are, but, consistently, everywhere, that's what we find. And
that's what I'm most concerned about.
I would like to reiterate to Mrs. Wasserman Schultz, I
agree, we should be looking at the impact on low-income
individuals, because that's who we all would like to help here.
And what I'm trying to point out is that these policies
actually don't benefit the low-income individuals. They tax
them, and then they are not able to use them.
So, I would love to work with everybody in this room to see
what policies would actually benefit those low-income workers.
Mr. Grothman. I guess--you know, we get briefings on this,
and everything's focused on the women, the women, the women,
which is good. Could you give us----
Chairwoman Maloney. That is good.
Mr. Grothman. Were there any analysis on the man's side of
the effect of this law?
Mrs. Wasserman Schultz. Can we give him another five
minutes?
Ms. Greszler. Well, no, it is important, because I think
people can look at this as just a parental leave and a
maternity leave issue, and, actually, four out of every five
leaves that are taken are not parental leave but they're for a
worker's own illness or caregiving.
There's not a whole lot of evidence, at least in the state-
based programs, but, generally speaking, government policies
encourage more men to take paternity leave, but, again, it's
the upper-income earners that are more likely to take it.
Mr. Grothman. Are there any statistics you could get from
the California study on how this impacts men?
Ms. Greszler. Yes. I could share those with you after the
hearing.
Mr. Grothman. OK.
I, as well, have some articles that I'd like to submit to
the committee. Is that OK?
Thank you.
Chairwoman Maloney. We've reviewed them. Without objection.
I now recognize Congresswoman Kelly.
Ms. Kelly. Thank you, Chairwoman Maloney. I want to say
congratulations to you, and I look forward to you being the
chair. Get a lot of rest and relaxation in between.
We often think of paid leave as being important for new
parents, but it's just as important for workers who need to
care for a sick child, spouse, or relative or for themselves.
Ms. Silvani, let me start with you. When your son was
diagnosed with cancer in 2015, you took unpaid leave of absence
to care for him. How did his illness impact your family?
Ms. Silvani. How didn't his illness impact my family? He
was very sick. My other two children didn't know what was going
on with their brother. Once Joe was out of treatment, my
children needed mental health support.
I didn't have paid leave at that time either to help them
deal with their brother's illness. So, to not have that time to
be able to take care of our family as a whole was very hard for
our family.
Ms. Kelly. So, the sickness of one impacts----
Ms. Silvani. Of course.
Ms. Kelly [continuing]. Many people.
Ms. Silvani. Of course.
Ms. Kelly. And hopefully I'm saying your name right, Mr.--
is it ``Seyedian''?
Mr. Seyedian. It's ``Seyedian,'' but that's fine.
Ms. Kelly. ``Seyedian.'' No, no, I want to get it right.
You started a small business with the goal of treating your
employees better. You paid them a living wage; you offered
comprehensive benefits, including paid medical leave.
I understand you also had a personal health crisis that
motivated you to start a business with this goal. Can you talk
about how your concussion set you back and how difficult it was
to address your own health needs?
Mr. Seyedian. Sure thing. Yes. A few years back, when I
worked in consulting, I sustained a concussion. I wasn't able
to work, primarily because, you know, staring at a bright
screen, reading words, all that kind of stuff, that's
prohibited when you're trying to recover from a head injury.
So, I ended up taking more than a few months off of work. I was
able to do so because of the kindness and benevolence of my
employer and their forward-thinking in having a disability
policy in place.
Likewise, the same is true for my own employees at Well-
Paid Maids. But, you know, ultimately, this kind of thing
shouldn't rest on having an employer that, you know, is
thinking forward about something like this or is kind of
enlightened on this subject.
Ms. Kelly. Thank you.
And, Ms. Tucker, turning to you, you mentioned in your
written testimony that you served as a caregiver for your
mother and your sister while raising a family, meaning you are
part of the sandwich generation.
What does access to paid family and medical leave mean for
communities of color, whose families are more likely to be
intergenerational and whose members are more likely to take on
caregiving responsibilities as a result?
Ms. Tucker. That is so correct; our families are more
likely to be intergenerational. Paid family leave would mean
that families would have a cushion, an ability to take some
time, even with that reduced salary, to do what they needed to
do with their ill family member.
We know that a quarter of young African American
millennials between the ages of 18 and 35 are caregivers. And
many of these caregivers are earning $30,000 annually. I
believe this is because they are in jobs that allow them to
take care of the family member. So, this means that their
earning power over their lifetime is stunted starting at the
starting gate.
Ms. Kelly. Thank you.
Thank you for sharing your stories. Many people across the
United States can relate to them. Dealing with a medical
condition or health crisis is scary and stressful, and it can
already be financially crippling without losing your income.
I know, when I entered Congress, I represent the 2nd
congressional District of Illinois, and I had the highest rate
of foreclosures in my area because of healthcare issues.
According to one recent study, 42 percent of new cancer
patients lost their entire life savings within two years
because of the cost of treatment.
Ms. Shabo, how does a lack of access to paid medical leave
compound how much it already costs workers when they or their
family members are sick, even when they have insurance?
Also, when my colleague was asking a question, you kind of
made a face, so I didn't know if you wanted the opportunity to
respond to the answer.
Ms. Shabo. Ah. I'm not sure which question that was, but I
have lots of facts and opinions.
On the point about the caregiving, you know, I think there
was a fantastic new study that was released last week by the
National Alliance for Caregiving and Caring Across Generations,
which showed that more than half, I think three-quarters, of
people who are caring for both a loved one and a child are Gen
X, which is my generation--and I'm dealing with this, myself,
now--or are millennials.
So, as we're thinking about how do we provide for the
financial security and stability of this incredibly important
cohort of folks that are going to be with us and in our work
force and in our communities for a long time, how do we make
sure that we're not piling on medical debt, lack of access to
paid leave, student debt, high housing prices, and wages that
aren't growing.
How do we make sure that--you know, the research tells us
that when cancer patients, in particular, have a family member
that's taking them to--and involved in their treatment, when
workers themselves are dealing with a cancer diagnosis and able
to take treatment and then recover, they're more likely to get
better, they're more likely to go back to work.
The cost savings around healthcare and the access to paid
leave are integrally related. I believe that this is a feature
of this whole conversation that doesn't get talked about very
much.
But, certainly, you know, medical debt, healthcare costs--
these all could be alleviated with better access to paid leave
so that caregivers and people themselves can get care.
Ms. Kelly. Thank you. I yield back the time I don't have.
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you.
The chair now recognizes Representative Comer.
Mr. Comer. Thank you, Madam Chair. I, too, want to
congratulate you on your new position as chairperson of this
committee.
I think I'm confident that all of us in Congress, on both
sides of the aisle, are sympathetic to those families who have
children and those families who are put in a terrible position
of having to be a caregiver for other family members.
I also think that, in Congress, those of us who represent
extreme levels of poverty are also sympathetic to the working
poor. I represent southern Kentucky, so my district's very
vast. I represent the eastern part of the state that has
Appalachia. I represent the far western part of the state that
has the Mississippi River Delta, two of the poorest regions in
America. We have countless stories of working poor struggling
to provide for their families. I'm very sympathetic to that,
and I want to help the people that I represent that are doing
everything right.
But there are two schools of thought to how we proceed to
help these working families. The first school of thought has
been elaborated by my colleagues on the left: more government
solutions, government mandates, increase the minimum wage.
These are plans that have been in place for decades, and they
really haven't worked. They really haven't served those areas
of extreme poverty in my congressional district.
And there's another school of thought that I feel like
we've tried to employ over the last three years in Washington,
and that's more of a market-based solution where we focus on
trying to grow the economy. I believe, if you look at where we
are today, we've been very successful, with the passage of the
Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, with President Trump and the last
Congress's efforts to focus on burdensome regulations, to try
to get the government out of the way, to grow the economy, to
provide more opportunities for all Americans.
We have a situation now where we have maximum employment in
this country. I don't think anyone would disagree, whether
you're the most liberal Member of Congress or the most
conservative Member of Congress, that the biggest complaint we
hear from our employers today is they can't find workers. The
one thing that's holding the economy back today is the fact
that businesses and employers are hesitant to invest additional
capital because they're not confident they can find workers to
fill those positions.
So, we have a situation where we're having maximum
employment, which has led to wage inflation. So, this is
something that's happened through the market, not through more
government laws, not through government mandates--wage
inflation.
Ms. Greszler, I want to ask you, how do you feel that the
Tax Cuts and Jobs Act has impacted employers and families?
Ms. Greszler. Well, we've seen on the employer side that
they're able to raise wages and benefits and offer more jobs.
And I'd like to highlight, just in this last month, we heard
that over the last year the group of marginally attached
workers and those who are discouraged, who I think a lot of--
would apply to a lot of those in your district, that fell by 25
percent in one year. That's because they have job availability.
It's not just low-wage jobs; it's ones that provide higher
opportunities.
In my opinion, those workers are far better off being
handed $1,500 in wage gains over one year when they're earning
a $25,000 salary than having the government take that same
amount and tell them that they're going to provide them with
these benefits, when they might not be benefits that they want
to have.
Mr. Comer. I agree.
According to the Society for Human Resource Management, 20
percent of employers in 2019 offered family leave beyond what
is required by FMLA. This represents a six percent increase
from the prior year. Do you think this trend will continue?
Ms. Greszler. Exactly. We're on this upward trend. There's
a strong economy. The tight job market means that the employers
have to compete. They see the value in offering those benefits,
because they can get the workers that they need and they can
retain them. So, I think that this is not the time to stop that
upward growth.
Mr. Comer. I agree.
And I'll conclude by saying this, Madam Chairman. I think
that when we have a situation like today, where we have maximum
employment, and employers are competing for employees, the
businesses that take the best care of their employees are going
to win the battle of the best employees.
So, I feel like we're on the right track in America, and I
hope that we can continue the pro-growth agenda that has led to
unprecedented prosperity. But there are still lots of pockets
of poverty in America, lots of families that are struggling,
and those are the people that we certainly need to focus on. I
think the solution's a market-based solution.
Madam Chair, I yield back.
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you.
The chair recognizes Representative Lawrence, one of the
co-chairs of the Women's Caucus that has prioritized this
issue.
Mrs. Lawrence. I want to thank you, Madam Chair. And
congratulations. It's wonderful to be able to add a man to
the--I mean, a woman to this wall of men as the chair of this
caucus--this committee. I also want to thank you for being a
champion of this issue.
As stated, I have the honor to serve as the bipartisan and
Democratic women's co-chair for this Congress. The issue of
paid family leave is something I hear frequently about,
ensuring that women and family and parents have the ability to
preserve their economic security while continuing their
employment in this country.
One of the things that troubles me, Ms. Greszler, it's an
oxymoron. You're saying that because of this tax cut that many
workers have not received, although there has been a tremendous
increase in pay to stock owners or boards--if they have more
money, it should equate to embracing providing paid family
leave.
You stated one of the challenges we have is because poor
and minority families struggle the most with being in this
sandwich position of taking care of a sick child and taking
care of a sick parent. But what is something that is not being
talked about is that, for women, maternal mortality in the
United States is one of the highest in the world. And one of
the major contributing factors to that is the lack of
childcare, because women do not have the flexibility to take
off from work to attend all the prenatal care.
The reality, if I'm making $8 an hour--and how dare you say
you don't support $15 an hour. Because if you don't, you are
stating that poverty in America should be a reality. How can
we, as a country who consider ourselves so great, embrace a
philosophy and a standard that impoverishes people in America?
And women are the largest group of those who are impoverished
by this low wage rate in America. That's one issue.
The second issue is that when we, as a country, understand
that the only way that we increase the population in this world
is through childbirth and that there is a need for a woman to
be able to take time off--and God help her if she has a child
who's sick. And so, after the birth of the child, continuously
having to care for that child, that can be the father, that
could be the mother, that could be a same-sex couple. All of
the issues that goes with caring with a sick child. We, as the
sophisticated, major force of democracy in this world, should
not be one of the last to say that every person working and
trying to provide for their family, regardless of their income,
do not have access to paid family leave.
I want to ask a question to Ms. Shabo. How many workers
across the country currently have access to paid family and
medical leave benefits?
Ms. Shabo. So, today, 19 percent of workers have access to
paid family leave. That's to care for a new child or a
seriously ill loved one.
Mrs. Lawrence. And how current is that data?
Ms. Shabo. That is from March of this year.
Mrs. Lawrence. So, March of this year, the big, amazing,
fix-all pay cut happened.
Ms. Shabo. Yes.
Mrs. Lawrence. Did that have a major increase on providing
this benefit to American----
Ms. Shabo. No.
Mrs. Lawrence [continuing]. Workers?
Ms. Shabo. No.
In fact, you know, more to the point of low-wage workers,
over the past five years, we've seen access increase from 13
percent to 19 percent overall, so a six percent increase. Among
the lowest-wage workers, it's gone up by two points; among the
highest-wage workers, it's gone up by 12 points. So, we're
seeing the divergence in access to benefits actually increasing
exponentially.
So, this idea that, sort of, the tax cut or any other
factors related to employment and the economy is going to lift
the boats for the lowest-wage workers just isn't borne out by
the data.
I'd like to point out, in the SHRM data that the
Congressman cited, that 20 percent now have access to benefits,
that means 80 percent don't.
Mrs. Lawrence. Exactly.
Ms. Shabo. So, I am very concerned about the 80 percent.
I'm extremely concerned about the 94 percent of low-wage
workers. And that's who we need to be focusing on.
The idea that, you know, any of the half-measure solutions
or solutions that are rooted in austerity rather than in new
investment just doesn't play out in terms of people's access to
the benefits that we're looking for them to have.
Mrs. Lawrence. I want to close with this.
Ms. Norton.
[Presiding.] Your time has--the lady's time has expired.
Mrs. Lawrence. May I----
Ms. Norton. And the next witness is Mrs. Miller.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
And thank you all for being here today.
Ms. Silvani, I want to express my empathy to you. There is
nothing more frightening than when one of your children are
sick. And I'd glad that little Joe is doing so much better.
The topic before us today is multifaceted and extremely
personal. Likely, the issue of leave has impacted each of us,
our spouse, our sons and daughters at some point in our lives.
Through the enactment of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, we have
seen businesses not only increasing the pay of workers but also
increasing benefits such as family leave. The President and his
administration have worked to cut regulations to ensure a more
prosperous economy. It is amazing to see the positive
advancements that happen when we free businesses from over-
taxation and burdensome regulation.
Madam Chair, I would ask unanimous consent to offer a study
about California's paid family leave into the record.
Representative Grothman mentioned it, and I think it's
important that it should be included.
Ms. Greszler----
Ms. Norton. I won't object, but I'll ask that we be able to
see that.
Mrs. Miller. Absolutely.
Ms. Norton. It has not been given to us. I certainly have
no objection.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you.
Ms. Norton. Without objection, so ordered.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you, ma'am.
We have seen the unemployment decrease to 3-1/2 percent. We
now see employers competing to find good workers. How has the
strong economy under President Trump impacted the benefit
packages that companies can now offer?
Ms. Greszler. Well, not only have we seen more people have
availability to jobs--and you can't have a good benefit package
until you have a job--but we've seen a large increase in the
number of companies that are offering paid family and medical
leave benefits. More than 100 large employers have now come out
offering these benefits. And these are not just the upper
tiers, the consulting firms; these are the Lowe's, the Target,
the Starbucks that typically employ lower-wage workers, who all
now have access to these paid family leave benefits.
Mrs. Miller. In your testimony, you mentioned that record-
low unemployment is providing opportunities for marginalized
workers. Can you expand on that?
Ms. Greszler. Yes. And this is why I want to iterate that
the strong economy is better than something like imposing an
excessively high, one-size-fits-all minimum wage. The evidence
has shown that when you impose high minimum wages, you crowd
out the employees who are the least marginalized and those who
have the hardest time finding a job. It's the lower rung of the
ladder that gets cutoff, and those workers have no
opportunities then.
On the other hand, if you provide pro-growth policies that
let employers have more benefits to offer to create new jobs,
they have opportunities to draw more workers into the labor
force.
And that's exactly what we've seen. We've seen people who
were disabled before, who were discouraged and just gave up on
finding a job, and now there are hundreds of thousands of them
that have jobs, that are supporting themselves, and that have
the benefit of seeing that paycheck that they get, as opposed
to relying on a government benefit. You know, that's kind of an
intangible value to them, to be able to provide for themselves
and to have choices and flexibility over what they're doing
with their money.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you.
You also discussed how wage growth has helped contribute to
reversing income trends contributing to inequality. Can you
elaborate on how the current economy has done this?
Ms. Greszler. Yes. And I just wanted to actually point to
my written testimony there, because I think there is, based on
the recent jobs report--you know, I'm quoting here from the
Council of Economic Advisers that said that ``from the start of
the current expansion through the end of 2016, average wage
growth for production and nonsupervisory workers lagged that of
managers, the bottom 10 percent of wage earners lagged that of
the top 10 percent, those without a college degree lagged that
of college graduates, and African Americans lagged that of
White Americans. Since President Trump took office, each of
these trends has been reversed, contributing to lower income
inequality.''
And these are the types of pro-growth, free-market policies
that are bringing the bottom end up. And those people who have
been marginalized before, they are benefiting the most from
this. And it's not having the government come in and tell them
that they will provide them with a benefit and take more of
their money away so that they don't have these choices. It's
just letting the economy grow and letting mutually beneficial
exchanges between workers and employers help boost everybody.
Mrs. Miller. I understand that the private-sector approach
is better than a one-size-fits-all approach. How can we
encourage innovation and leadership in the private sector in
terms of paid family and medical leave?
Ms. Greszler. There are lots of things that we can do
without a government program.
You know, the Working Families Flexibility Act, all it does
is it lets private-sector workers have access to the same thing
that state and local workers have right now, and that's the
choice between, if you work overtime hours, would you rather
take time-and-a-half of paid leave or would you rather take
that time-and-a-half of pay. It doesn't force anything upon
anyone. And if you are a parent, particularly a single parent,
that time off is a lot more valuable, in many cases, than just
having a higher paycheck.
There are other things that we can do to encourage among
employers. With Ms. Silvani's case, I was thinking of my
brother-in-law and my sister-in-law, and he's a school teacher
as well. In his situation, they had a paid-sick-leave pool.
They had a daughter that was born weighing a pound, and they
had to have, you know, extended time off. She was an hour away
from where they were. And he had access to that; you know,
other workers were volunteering. I would love to see more
employers, particularly larger ones, to say, we're going to set
up a pool----
Chairwoman Maloney. [Presiding.] The gentlewoman's time has
expired.
Mrs. Miller. OK. Thank you.
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you.
I ask unanimous consent to yield one minute to
Representative Lawrence, who wants to thank her constituent
who's on the panel.
Mrs. Lawrence. I want to say that it is very important that
we understand the role of government, and to thank all of you
for coming out and each role that you play and adding light to
this issue.
I count on government for a number of things. And to say
that we don't need government to intervene on an issue that is
going to be transformational for the quality of life of
Americans is something that I feel very strongly about.
I have a dream, as well, for this great country, and I try
to keep hope alive. But I know that I have to take action and
do the work. It is clear that only a comprehensive approach
like the FAMILY Act will protect our workers, and I urge all of
us to support it.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you so much.
The chair now recognizes Ms. Tlaib for her questions.
Ms. Tlaib. Thank you, Chairwoman. I really do appreciate
this hearing. This is a very, very important issue for my
district, which is the third-poorest congressional district in
the country. And I really do appreciate your leadership on this
and for this to be one of your first-ever committee hearings on
House Oversight.
I do want to just clarify something that some of the
members on the other side of the aisle have been pointing to. A
recent study on long-term effects of California's paid leave
program found that first-time mothers who used the policy had
lower employment and wages 10 years later.
Ms. Shabo, how would you--I would like to ask you about
this specific study, because I don't want people to mislead the
public in regards to this, especially because, you know, I look
at studies, polling, everything, and sometimes it doesn't match
up with what's actually happening on the ground.
So, were there any limitations to the scope of this study
that you could shed some light to, so that we can have the
facts before us and not make any misleading comments?
Ms. Shabo. Yes. Absolutely.
So, this study is interesting. It is an outlier. Many, many
studies in California using different methodology have shown an
increase in both labor force attachment and earnings over time.
I think what's interesting and limiting about this study is
that it studied the very first cohort of women who took leave,
who had the additional six weeks of leave available, in 2004,
the third quarter of 2004 specifically, and followed the
earnings of that cohort over a five-year period and then a 10-
year period.
Now, there might be something unique or special about that
first cohort of women. There also might be different effects--
so, when the California law first went into effect, the men's
share of leave-taking was less than 15 percent. So, of all the
baby-bonding claims that were taken, men only took 15 percent
of those. Now we're above close to 40 percent.
So, there are trends in gender equity that have changed.
So, we don't know how that study would bear out if it was
repeated, you know, on data----
Ms. Tlaib. And, Ms. Shabo, in fact, there have been other
studies conducted of California mothers----
Ms. Shabo. Yes.
Ms. Tlaib [continuing]. That show that paid leave had a
positive impact on the work force. Isn't that correct?
Ms. Shabo. Yes, absolutely, and a particularly substantial
effect on Latina women and low-wage women. So, it is not right
to focus everything on this one particular study.
The other thing that this study really shows is that we
need to think about how we make policies accessible for men,
how we encourage men's leave-taking; how we pair childcare,
better access to quality, affordable childcare for parents; and
how we think about part-time parity and the wages and benefits
and opportunities for people who do choose to work less than
full-time.
The other limitation of the study is that it didn't include
self-employment income, and yet one of the author's hypotheses
was that some of these women moved into gig work and into less
formal employment relationships so that they could spend more
time, but we don't know the effects of those wages or that
income on their outcomes.
Ms. Tlaib. Thank you. I do appreciate that.
One of the things I know is really critically important is
to try to bring people in this room that are not here
physically. And many residents in my district can't afford to
come here or to speak up, because they're working right now.
And one community of caregivers who are often left out of the
paid family leave conversation are families who have members
with disabilities and special care needs. And I want to shed
light to the unique experiences for many of those parents.
I want to share a story of one of my residents. She's the
mother of three, and one of her boys, Isaiah, was born with
liver disorder. After receiving a liver transplant, his mother
started working as a server to help provide for her family. And
she was very upfront with her employer about having a child
with special needs. One particular day, after this employer
refused to let her leave early to take care of her son, she was
forced to prioritize help for her son and left her shift early,
which resulted in her getting fired.
As it stands, her son Isaiah takes eight medications daily
and goes to the hospital at least once a week to check his
liver blood levels.
If the U.S. had an inclusive paid leave policy, not only
would it keep my, you know, resident, this mother, to still
have a job, but she would've been able to confidently work
without her livelihood being threatened on a regular basis.
Ms. Shabo, can you elaborate on the unique difficulties
that families with special-needs children have?
But, also--and this is something that I really think our
country needs to look at--to me, this is a form of
discrimination. Yes, that mother may not be the one with
disability, but the fact of the matter is that the
discrimination toward her, which is due to because of the loved
one and because of the fact that she's a caretaker, I feel like
it needs to extend in protecting those caregivers, that this
is, again, a form of discrimination.
And we know--and, Chairwoman, I consistently was also
asked, as a young person applying for jobs, whether or not I
was going to have children, which was----
Ms. Shabo. Illegal.
Ms. Tlaib [continuing]. Illegal, right?
Ms. Shabo. Yes.
Ms. Tlaib. But I do think, you know, people are going to
push forward and say, ``Well, you have a child with special
needs. I'm not going to hire you.''
So, if you can talk a little bit about that, I really would
appreciate that.
Ms. Shabo. That's right. There's a couple of really good
studies out there about the multiple impacts that affect
parents and other caregivers to special-needs children and
other people with disabilities, the relationship between the
income in those households, the expenses of those households,
and lack of access to leave.
I think the other thing that just strikes me, as we think
about policies that would exclude those families, you know, we
hear a lot about one-size-fits-all policies, but I think the
ultimate one-size-fits-all policy would actually be a policy
that only applies to new parents and not to all of the people
who need leave for their own serious health condition or to
care for a family member.
To say that that caregiving is less beneficial or less
worthy of investment just strikes me as the ultimate
discrimination, as you say.
Chairwoman Maloney. OK. Thank you.
Congresswoman Pressley is recognized.
Ms. Pressley. Thank you, Madam Chair, for holding this
critically important hearing and for your continuing leadership
on behalf of working families across our country.
I also want to thank Congresswoman DeLauro for her
steadfast leadership on this issue and for sharing her story
earlier, which we know is the story of millions of Americans.
It is simply appalling that the United States continues to
be one of only two industrialized nations in the world without
any form of paid family leave. It is shameful. And this reality
continues to place undue burdens on families already struggling
to make ends meet--households disproportionately led by women,
already struggling to get by while wages are stagnant and
lingering gender and racial pay gaps persist.
Current policy is simply out of touch with the fact that,
at some point, virtually every person, every working person--
because hardship does not discriminate--will need to take time
away from a job to fulfill caregiving responsibilities, to
recover from a serious injury or a disruptive life event.
While I was a caregiver to my mother in the final throes of
her leukemia battle, making decisions by the hour about how to
extend her life, while doing my best to center her dignity
throughout that process, battling cancer while also battling
bill collectors, and along with the trauma of such a
devastating life event, it was as if seeing my mother, Sandy,
facing her final days wasn't already hard enough.
So, my experience is not unique. In fact, there are more
than 34 million caregivers who provided unpaid care to a parent
or a relative in the last 12 months alone.
So, Ms. Tucker, thank you so much for sharing your story
earlier today. Can you share what the day-to-day of caring for
your mother entailed?
Ms. Tucker. I can. You know, it was tough. It was tough to
try to make the arrangements that we needed to make for her
care, especially as she aged, because this was over a 10-year
period. It was tough finding doctors who she felt comfortable
with.
Being a part of the sandwich generation, having a child who
would come with me every day to the nursing facility that she
spent her final year in because she had gotten to a point where
she needed care, and I remember one time my daughter saying to
me, ``Do we have to come every day to see Grammy?'' Well, that
was pretty devastating.
It was tough dealing with the financial aspect of this. My
mother was a retired teacher, so she had some savings and she
had a monthly income from her retirement and from her Social
Security that lightened that load. But there was nothing easy
about----
Ms. Pressley. Sure.
Ms. Tucker [continuing]. About it. And----
Ms. Pressley. It was all-consuming.
Ms. Tucker [continuing]. I was on my own to find the
resources that we needed each time she had a crisis and we
needed to go to the next level of care.
Ms. Pressley. Thank you.
And it's my understanding that you also cared for your
sister----
Ms. Tucker. Yes.
Ms. Pressley [continuing]. After she suffered a severe
spinal cord injury as well. So, how did you manage serving as a
caregiver for both your mom and sister? And how did this impact
your financial situation? And are you still recovering?
Ms. Tucker. That's a lot of questions there----
Ms. Pressley. I'm sorry.
Ms. Tucker [continuing]. And a lot to unpack.
Well, lucky for me, these illnesses, these events didn't
occur at the same time. My sister's accident or bleed occurred
five years after my mother's death. So, we had time to kind of
hang out before she became really ill with her spinal cord
injury, which is what it was.
And, again, when I think back on it, I don't know how I did
it. I just found the resources that I needed to do it, and I
was in a place where I had the flexibility with work to do it.
I had vacation time and I had sick leave. And I'm one of those
people who's always at work, so I had accumulated a lot of
leave that allowed me to pinch off the three hours I needed to
go to the hospital before coming to work. And it was a quilt, a
patchwork of using leave and thinking it through.
Ms. Pressley. Sure.
Ms. Tucker. In terms of support, I had a supportive family
and a supportive spouse at the time that helped to make it
easier, and I was in a two-income household that helped to make
it easier. But it meant that I was up late looking at the
numbers, trying to figure out how we were going to make it
happen. And we almost used up all of my mother's savings before
she passed away.
Thank you.
Ms. Pressley. Thank you.
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you.
The chair recognizes Mr. Raskin.
Mr. Raskin. Madam Chair, thank you very much. And
congratulations to you----
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you.
Mr. Raskin [continuing]. On your first hearing. And I know
that this will be an important landmark for you, the way that
it was an important landmark for Chairman Cummings when he had
the prescription drug reform hearing as his first hearing of
the new Congress.
Let's see. Mr. Seyedian, I want to just go back to this
question about the tax cuts. Some of our colleagues have
suggested that the trillion-dollar tax cut for the wealthiest
corporations and people has provided paid leave benefits to
workers.
And I know there was a limited temporary tax credit for
employers who provide two weeks of paid leave that was built
into the legislation. But is there any evidence that this
trillion-dollar tax cut has actually made a structural
difference in people's ability to get family and medical leave?
Mr. Seyedian. Not that I'm aware of, and certainly not in
my experience. I mean, I certainly as a small-business owner
don't feel the effects of that law, I would say.
Mr. Raskin. OK.
And is there anybody who has any structural evidence or
data about this point, whether this tax cut suddenly
transformed things? Because what I'm getting is, rather, the
report that millions and millions of Americans are still
without family medical leave and it's a crisis for people.
Ms. Shabo?
Ms. Shabo. Yes. You know, anecdotally, in talking to
business associations and business owners, survey data from EY
which asked business owners whether they would take up this tax
cut, there is no evidence that this tax cut has had any
appreciable effect.
And my favorite, sort of, anecdote, actually, is that the
only company that I know of that has said in the press that
they expanded their leave policy because of the tax cut is
Rolls Royce.
Mr. Raskin. OK.
Let me stick with you for a second, because I have three
children, who are the light of my life, along with my wife, and
the apple of our eye, and I consider it, obviously, a
profoundly meaningful thing to be into parenthood, and I'm a
cosponsor of the legislation to create family medical leave.
But I do get questions from constituents, and not just right-
wing Republicans--you know, there are people who are concerned
about the environment and climate change who say, ``Should we
be, as a society, subsidizing the act of having children, when
we have concerns about population and we've got concerns about
climate change and the carrying capacity of the Earth?''
What is the argument you make about the importance of this,
not just those of us who have children, for people who for
whatever reason choose not to or don't have children?
Ms. Shabo. Well, part of the reason that the inclusive and
comprehensive nature of the FAMILY Act, which covers all of the
FMLA caregiving reasons, is the right approach is because there
are some people who will never have children, but they do have
parents. Everybody has a parent. Everybody is a child, if you
are here. Everybody has somebody that they need to care for or
may need to care for themselves.
In terms of the value of paid leave to the care of children
and to the well-being of children, we know that access to paid
leave affects brain development and child outcomes. It means
children are more likely to be taken to the doctor, to get
immunizations. There's a study from California about reduced
head trauma. There's a study about reduced ADHD and better----
Mr. Raskin. So, it benefits society generally----
Ms. Shabo. Yes.
Mr. Raskin [continuing]. When we take care of children?
Ms. Shabo. And people are going to have children anyway. We
need people to have children----
Mr. Raskin. Yes.
Ms. Shabo [continuing]. Because we need a work force of the
future. But what we need to be able to do is invest in those
families and those children so that we provide the best
possible opportunities----
Mr. Raskin. OK.
What are the specific benefits that a new mother gets under
the paid parental leave policy?
Ms. Shabo. So, a new mom under the FAMILY Act would have
access to 12 weeks of paid leave at 66 percent of her wages.
The evidence shows women who have access to paid leave have
higher rates of breast feeding if they're----
Mr. Raskin. Yes.
Ms. Shabo [continuing]. Able to breast feed, reduced rates
of maternal depression, certainly a connection to maternal
mortality and other adverse outcomes.
And the fact that 23 percent of women in this country go
back to work within two weeks of giving birth, still bleeding
in some cases, needing to be able to be with their child, is
just outrageous.
Mr. Raskin. But Mr. Grothman says that he has the
impression this is all about women, women, women. But what
about fathers? What's in there for fathers?
Ms. Shabo. Well, when fathers have access to paid leave,
which they do under the FAMILY Act--and we know some best
practices about incentivizing men's leave-taking. And we know
that men want to be able to take leave; they just often either
can't, financially, or feel that the culture is holding them
back--they're more likely to be engaged in their child's care
over the long term.
And some evidence suggests that when men take access to
leave, women's wages actually go up over the long term. So,
this is about enforcing or creating new standards around gender
equity, both in homes and in businesses. But it's also about
the well-being of that child and the stress in the household.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you.
Commissioner Asaro-Angelo, what kind of impact does it have
on the families in your state to make these kinds of benefits
available?
Mr. Asaro-Angelo. It has a tremendous positive impact,
Congressman. I hear from folks every day--to be quite honest,
from workers and from businesses--about what it means to them
to be able to have the stability, whether it be caring for a
newborn or caring for a family member.
To hear Ms. Silvani's story and to think about something
like that going on every day in your family, to not have the
support of your fellow workers, of your state, of your employer
to get through that could be devastating.
And at a time when, as we mentioned earlier, every employer
is looking for more and more workers, we need to be there as a
state to help provide for them the support those workers need
when facing either birth or a family tragedy.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you.
The chair recognizes the distinguished ranking member, Mr.
Jordan.
Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Our colleague from Maryland just was pointing out--trying
to point out that the tax cuts had no effect on the amazing
economy. I'll give you some numbers.
How about the 266,000 jobs that were added just last month
alone? How about the 54,000 jobs in manufacturing, to my
colleague from Maryland? How about the fact that unemployment's
at 3.5 percent? It was a lot higher than that just a few
years--a lot higher than that before the tax cuts and
regulatory changes were made.
And how about this fact? Businesses expanding family leave
benefits as a result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017:
Broadridge Financial Solutions, Lake Success, New York; Charles
Schwab Corporation, San Francisco, California; Chipotle Mexican
Grill, headquartered in Denver, Colorado; CVS Health,
headquartered in Woonsocket, Rhode Island; Dollar Tree--Dollar
Tree--headquartered right here in Virginia; Lowe's,
headquartered in Mooresville, North Carolina; Rolls Royce;
Southwire, headquartered in Georgia; Sprouts Farmers Market,
Ellicott City, Maryland; Starbucks Coffee--all because of the
tax cut bill.
Mr. Raskin may have a different opinion about that, but
we've got all kinds of--TJX Companies, Framingham,
Massachusetts; Walmart; Western Alliance Bank Corporation--and
I could go on and on.
There are all kinds of companies who have expanded--who
have not just grown our economy, not just the thousands and
hundreds of thousands of jobs, millions of jobs that have been
added since then, not just the 3.5 percent unemployment, but
actually extending benefits to their employees because we got a
growing economy.
Mr. Seyedian--did I get that right? Seyedian? Close enough.
You're giving me the smile. I appreciate that. Is business good
for you?
Mr. Seyedian. Yes, business is good for us. I think it's
just a question of whether you attribute the overarching
macroeconomic conditions to the tax cut or not.
Mr. Jordan. Didn't you say you're sending someone up to
Boston as we speak to hire some more people?
Mr. Seyedian. Yes, we are.
Mr. Jordan. Yes. And you just opened your business, I think
you said, like, within the last two years? You just started?
Mr. Seyedian. That's correct.
Mr. Jordan. And business is good. You've got a handful of
employees already, and you're expanding. Is that right?
Mr. Seyedian. We have 14 employees. That's correct.
Mr. Jordan. And you would rather have higher taxes?
Mr. Seyedian. It's not a question of higher taxes or lower
taxes for us. I mean, our tax rate is not the fundamental
variable in how successful our business is.
Mr. Jordan. So, you want to pay more?
Mr. Seyedian. Again, I don't think it's a question of
wanting to pay more or less. I mean, there are greater
overarching things that impact the health of our business
beyond whether we pay a little more or a little less in taxes.
Mr. Jordan. Yes. OK.
And you decided to offer parental leave to your employees?
Mr. Seyedian. Yes, we offer short-term disability insurance
to our employees now. And as the D.C. and Massachusetts
programs come into effect, we will obviously participate----
Mr. Jordan. And you made that decision because that's just
part of your business model. You think that's good for your
company, for the way you want to conduct business. That's part
of your business practice and the business model you've
adopted. And it seems to be working. As you said, you're
expanding and you've had two good years.
Mr. Seyedian. Yes, that's correct.
Mr. Jordan. All right. But you want government now to
mandate that you do what you decided to do voluntarily.
Mr. Seyedian. Well, you know, it's a question of, of
course, you know, we're doing it because we're a very special
type of company, and there are large companies, like you
mentioned, like Charles Schwab. And I'm sure the Googles and
Facebooks do this too. But it's a question of, you know, is a
slaughterhouse going to offer paid family and medical leave----
Mr. Jordan. Sprouts Farmers Market----
Mr. Seyedian [continuing]. Unless it's mandated by----
Mr. Jordan. Sprouts Farmers Market offers it.
Mr. Seyedian. Well, and----
Mr. Jordan. I don't know how big that farmers market--and
maybe it's big, I don't know. It's in Maryland. I don't know.
Mr. Seyedian. Sure. And, I mean, I'm sure you can find all
kinds of examples, but, you know, to your point around
employers----
Mr. Jordan. What's the name of your business?
Mr. Seyedian. It's Well-Paid Maids.
Mr. Jordan. Well-Paid Maids.
Mr. Seyedian. That's right.
Mr. Jordan. They do it.
Mr. Seyedian. Yes. Yes. And I think it's--I mean, I'm sure
you can----
Mr. Jordan. They're not Charles Schwab.
Mr. Seyedian. Right.
Mr. Jordan. What do you have, 14 employees?
Mr. Seyedian. Right. Yes, that's right.
Mr. Jordan. And you did it.
Mr. Seyedian. Yes.
Mr. Jordan. No one told you.
Mr. Seyedian. That's true.
Mr. Jordan. But now you want--you've made a business
decision. Your business model is you're going to offer this
benefit because you're going to attract the kind of employees
you like. And you said in your opening statement, your
customers like that. They like that A-Plus Maids--what was it
called again? A-1 Maids? What was the name of your business?
Mr. Seyedian. Sorry?
Mr. Jordan. What's the name of your business?
Mr. Seyedian. Well-Paid Maids.
Mr. Jordan. Well-Paid Maids. They love Well-Paid Maids, and
they like that concept, and so they're willing to pay, I
assume, a little more to have the quality of service that you
offer your customers.
And you made all that decision on your own as part of the
business model, and now you're saying, I want the government to
mandate my competition have to do the same thing now?
Mr. Seyedian. Well, I mean, as you pointed out, I think it
was 20 percent of businesses that are extending this benefit.
And, also, I think the overarching framework around, you
know, having a stronger economy means that more employers are
going to offer this--perhaps that's true, but the economy goes
up and down. Everyone knows that. And so, as someone who has
personally benefited from, for example, being able to take paid
medical leave, I don't think this is something that needs to,
kind of, rise and fall or be offered or not offered according
to the vagaries of the market----
Mr. Jordan. I'm not saying that.
Mr. Seyedian [continuing]. Year to year.
Mr. Jordan. I'm just saying, my colleague was saying that
the Jobs and Tax Cuts had nothing to do with the amazing
economy we've been experiencing, and I would beg to differ, as
would all kinds of companies, large and small, including yours,
it seems, that have benefited under this great economy.
And it seems to me that--I'm all for paid leave, but I
think people should be able to make that decision on what's
best for their business model and what's business best for
their employees just like you did when you started your company
two years ago and are experiencing this amazing growth in the
Trump economy.
With that, I yield back.
Chairwoman Maloney. The chair recognizes my colleague from
the great state of California, Jackie Speier, one of the co-
chairs of the Women's Caucus.
And I congratulate you on your work on this bill and
others. Thank you.
Ms. Speier. Thank you, Madam Chair. And double
congratulations to you. I look forward to serving under your
distinguished leadership as chair of this committee, and also
for the success in getting paid family leave for Federal
employees, which should jump the numbers up a little bit.
I must say, I'm a little astonished by this debate today,
because the Republican Party prides itself in being the party
of the family. And when we have 81 percent of the families in
this country not eligible for paid family leave, I would think
you would be running to support this bill.
But it appears that it's not really about the family; it's
really about making sure that Big Business has the lowest tax
rates possible.
So, let me talk about California, since it's been the
whipping child here for the last few hours. California passed
the paid family leave in 2004. Ninety-nine percent of employers
report that the state's program has had positive or neutral
effects on employee morale, and 87 percent that the state's
program has not resulted in any increased costs. Not only have
wage costs not increased, but turnover rates have decreased. In
California, implementing paid family leave was even linked to
an 11-percent decrease in elderly nursing home use.
And as it was pointed out by my distinguished colleague
from Michigan, the study that's been referred to by Ms.
Greszler was a very narrow study. It looked at only the first
year of operation of this law, back in 2004. It was only for
moms having their first children. And it was before the law in
California was enhanced to provide higher wage replacement.
The study also explained that many of these mothers may not
have returned to full-time employment out of choice. Amazing,
that we have free choice to be able to make decisions whether
we want to stay home with our children or not, in some cases.
It also showed that women may have worked fewer hours or
wanted more flexibility or to become self-employed.
So, that's the California experiment that has actually
worked extremely well. There is an effort now in our state by
our Governor, who wants to extend it to six months of paid
family leave.
We know in Europe it's one year of paid family leave. And
if you're in Germany, my goodness, you can go and have a week
at a spa to deal with postpartum blues, if necessary. So, we
are so far behind the eight-ball that it's embarrassing.
And to have this discussion about imposing some burden on
business, when the FAMILY Act is only going to cost about $2
per week for the typical worker, says it all.
So, to you, Ms. Shabo, can you elaborate on the impact that
California's paid leave program has had?
Ms. Shabo. Yes. California's program has, by several
studies, increased work force participation and earnings. It
has reduced child head trauma. It's had a reduction in Medicaid
nursing home use, as you said. It's been tremendously positive.
We've learned a lot about what it takes to implement a
program effectively and make sure that the people who most need
to be able to use the program are able to use it. And those
efforts are ongoing. So, medical-legal partnerships are being
developed by groups like Legal Aid at Work. The state is trying
to do a better job of outreach and engagement to people in
other parts of the state besides the, sort of, big cities.
There's a lot of work that needs to be done.
On the cost element, California's contribution is one
percent. There's never been backlash on that. There's always
been a surplus in that fund. And what we see in national
polling data about willingness to pay is that workers are
willing to pay far more than that one percent and certainly far
more than the four-tenths of one percent that the FAMILY Act
would require.
And, you know, even the cost estimates that are at the
outer bounds of a good cost estimate around what usage would
look like show that the costs will not be prohibitive, and that
people are willing to pay those costs.
And some of the cost estimates that are out there, like one
of the ones Ms. Greszler mentioned, are based on completely
out-of-bounds estimates around leave-taking. So, for example,
the American Action Forum study that they referenced suggests
that there would be 16 million parental leaves a year. We only
have 3.8 million babies born in this country every year. So, we
can't rely on those cost estimates.
There are good estimates from the Institute for Women's
Policy Research and the University of Massachusetts that are
much more accurate. There's even a cost calculator on the
American Enterprise Institute site that was developed by a team
of researchers that shows that costs in no way, even taking the
most generous estimates, will be more than one percent, and
more like the four-tenths of one percent that is currently in
the bill.
Ms. Speier. I thank you. And I yield back.
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you.
And the chair recognizes Mr. Keller, Representative Keller,
from Pennsylvania.
Mr. Keller. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I just want to thank the panel of witnesses for being here
today. This is an important topic, and I'm glad the committee
decided to take this up. As a person who's had firsthand
experience with a sick child many years ago, you know, this is
something that is near and dear to me.
And, also, as a former manager of a large wood products
manufacturing company, I have experience in operating a
business and having a large number of employees work at that
business. And it's clear that successful businesses and
operations require investing in their employees, whether it's,
as we did, paid time off--I think we're similar to the maid
business here, where we had disability policies for employees
for short-term disability. There are many options available in
addition to just time off. There were also educational
opportunities and so on for dependents of the employees.
But, you know, just one thing I'd like to talk about is,
now that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is the law of the land,
employers are providing increased wages, more benefits, and
more flexible schedules for their employees. Under President
Trump, unemployment has fallen to 3.5 percent.
And, according to the Society for Human Resource Managers,
20 percent of employees offer family leave beyond that of FMLA,
which represents a six percent increase from 2018. So, when
employers are given the opportunity to provide benefits and
have the ability to do it, it shows that that is happening.
Ms. Greszler, do you think this trend would continue?
Ms. Greszler. I think that if we continue to have this
strong economy and the tight labor market, that we can
absolutely expect this trend to continue, because it is in
employers' best interest to offer these policies.
Mr. Keller. OK. Thank you.
And, again, Ms. Greszler, how are companies responding to
the increased desire for paid family leave?
Ms. Greszler. A lot of them--the larger companies are
responding, as we've listened to that list, that they're
offering formal policies.
But I think that what we're not hearing as much about is
the smaller employers, who make up the lion's share of
employment in the U.S. And whereas they might not be offering
formal paid family leave policies that show up in the data, I
think they're offering more flexible options, whether it's
increased paid time off or just working individually. And
that's actually how most employees who take family medical
leave receive pay, is not through that formal FMLA policy but
through other types of leave that allow them to receive pay.
Mr. Keller. OK. Thank you.
And just one thing. In your testimony, you mentioned one-
size-fits-all programs are either too exclusive or too
inclusive. Can you expand upon that?
Ms. Greszler. Yes. It's just hard--as we've seen today,
there are so many different needs for benefits, and some of
those needs are an entire year or more. And a Federal policy
that provides 66 percent of your wages for 12 weeks maximum, it
might make a small dent, but it's not going to meet those
needs. It's not going to meet long-term needs. It's not going
to be able to provide that benefit immediately if you have to
rush away from work for an emergency.
You know, the better way that we can get at those is the
flexible policies. And if you become too inclusive and do pass
a policy of any leave for any reason, the costs are tremendous.
You know, there was some talk about costs already, but the
FAMILY Act, that is not a policy that can finance the current
amount of leave that's taken today. It could finance about one
in five.
So, either you have to have rationing of a policy like that
or you have to scale it back even more so that it's such a
bare-bones program that it particularly would not be able to
benefit low-income workers and very few people would use it.
Mr. Keller. OK. Thank you. I appreciate that.
And, again, I appreciate the participation of all of the
panelists today.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you.
The chair recognizes Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you, Madam Chair. And, once again,
congratulations on this phenomenal hearing on such an important
topic.
You know, I have to disclose that I have a stake in this
fight. When I first was a--when I was first starting my office
here, I decided to offer 12 weeks of paid family leave. And in
my first 11 or 12 months in office, there have been six
pregnancies in my congressional office. And six folks have
taken pregnancy or medical leave, five of them men in my
office--new fathers or folks that are taking medical leave
taking care of their families.
And this has been a very important dynamic. Many of the men
in our office have testified how, after the birth of their
children or in supporting their partners, how critical it has
been to be there for the, in each of these cases, the women in
their lives.
I would like to submit to the congressional record two
testimoneys from my staffers, Marcus Bedinger and Ariel
Eckblad, on the impact of paid family leave in our office.
Chairwoman Maloney. Without objection.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. But, out of these testimoneys, two
important statements stood out.
From my staffer Marcus, he said, ``As I write this today, I
am currently home with my oldest son while my partner visits
family in Ohio with our youngest son. This might seem an
inconsequential detail, but if I was not able to take this time
off from work and be fully paid, my partner would not have been
able to travel.''
And from my chief of staff, when asked about does giving
dads less paid parental leave than moms contribute to the pay
gap, when asked about that, she said, ``My thought is this.
There is this often explicit but sometimes tacit assumption
that child-rearing is the job of the mother. But child-rearing
is the job of the humans that have collectively decided to have
that child.''
When you have an institutional setup that--when you have
institutional setups that reify that, that say, ``Oh, actually,
dads don't need as much time because it's not their job to
child-rear,'' it's problematic. It creates expectations for
employers who presuppose if I hire a woman in a certain age
range, she might leave, but if I hire a man in that same age
range, he would not.
Ms. Shabo, can you illuminate a little bit on the impact of
paid family leave for men and on the positive impact that that
could have on people who give birth?
Ms. Shabo. Absolutely.
And the sentiments that your staffers have articulated
actually came up really poignantly last week on a panel that I
moderated at New America on the release of our men and care
report, men and paid leave specifically.
There were three dads, who talked about the cultural
expectations that dads wouldn't take leave. They were able to
negotiate, to cobble together. One of them had a wife who had a
horrible labor and a baby that was in the NICU, and he was back
to work within a week, unknowing--you know, he sort of talked
about how, even in the childbirth classes and Lamaze and all of
the other things he did, there was never a discussion from the
hospital system or from his employer or from any of the other
men in his life about the importance of men taking leave.
So, policy is a precondition. We have to design policies
that have wage replacement that's high enough that men can
afford to take leave. We also need a culture and sort of a
discussion and men standing up to say, ``Leave-taking is
important to me, and here's the way that it allowed me not just
to bond with my child but also to support my partner.''
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you, Ms. Shabo.
Ms. Greszler, you said earlier that you don't believe in a
minimum wage. Is that correct? You believe the market should
decide.
Ms. Greszler. I don't think that we should take a job
opportunity away from somebody if they're willing to work at a
particular wage----
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. OK.
Ms. Greszler [continuing]. That the government is not
allowing them----
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. So, no, you don't believe in a minimum
wage.
I take it you don't believe in healthcare as right either.
Is that correct?
Ms. Greszler. I believe that we should help provide access
to healthcare.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. OK. Do you believe that employers should
offer healthcare to every employee that they have?
Ms. Greszler. I think that as part of a benefits package
they should determine what is the best way and what do the
workers work want.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. OK. So, no, you don't believe it should
be uniformly offered.
Ms. Greszler. I think it should be what workers want and
what employers are about to provide.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. OK. So, the answer is no.
And, similarly, your view on parental leave is to let the
market decide. And I think what we've seen here is that the
market has decided.
Ms. Shabo, 80 percent of families don't have access and
workers don't have access to paid parental leave, correct?
Ms. Shabo. Paid family leave.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Paid family leave.
Ms. Shabo. So, to care for a child or a seriously ill
family member. About a half of moms don't have access to paid
leave.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. So, the markets decide.
And what is the most common length of parental or family--
paid family leave that you have seen?
Ms. Shabo. In general, it's, like, six to eight weeks, but
it really depends----
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Six----
Ms. Shabo [continuing]. And there's not a great----
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Yes.
Ms. Shabo [continuing]. There's not a great sample that
tells us.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. So, six weeks. Do we know how long
puppies are allowed to stay with their mothers after a dog has
given birth?
Ms. Shabo. I don't.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Eight weeks.
Ms. Shabo. Wow.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. So, the market has decided that women
and people who give birth deserve less time with their children
than a dog.
And I think that that, at its core, has shown that the
market has failed to treat people with dignity and with basic
respect. And so, when that happens, I think it's our job, as
the public, to redefine the rules of society and to treat
people who give birth with the dignity that they deserve.
Thank you very much.
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you.
The chair recognizes Congressman Gomez.
Mr. Gomez. Madam Chair, thank you so much for doing this
important issue.
This is an issue for me that's personal. Most issues are.
But when I was growing up, my parents worked four, five, six
jobs a week to make ends meet. And I got sick when I was about
seven years old, ended up in the hospital with pneumonia. And
between my parents wanting to make sure there was a parent
there every moment of the day that I was in the hospital, they
missed shifts at work, and also the increase in hospital bills
that put a strain on our family. We almost bankrupted our
family, and we almost lost our house.
So, this is an issue that I cared about when I entered into
the California state legislature, and I started trying to
figure out how do we tackle this issue. And I learned about
paid family leave. And they did a study in 2014, 10 years after
paid family leave was implemented, and they had learned a lot
of lessons. It wasn't a perfect law, but it was actually a
revolutionary law. It started off--nobody else had done it.
But there were three things that were lacking. One was wage
replacement needed to be high enough so people can actually
take time off and take it. There has to be better job
protection, especially for people that are working at places
with less than 50 employees. And the last one was awareness.
I actually introduced AB-908, which redefined and
restructured the wage replacement in California so that lower-
income workers get a higher wage replacement than the higher-
income workers. We are still seeing how that is going to play
out, but we recognize that we need to make this stronger and
better.
And we've seen great statistics: 40 percent of men now
taking time off; that it's no longer a question, why is a man
taking time off to bond with a newborn child, but more of an
expectation. Right? That's a good thing. You know, ask any
woman if it's a good thing that a man will spend time with
their own child to bond, they would say yes.
Companies recognize that. You know, more and more companies
are pushing and pushing and pushing--right?--for paid family
leave, not just because--and it is the market, because they
know in order to compete for the workers that they need, they
need to offer this benefit.
So, the market is responding, but that's because we had the
courage enough to pass a law that most people said would drive
business out of California, when California is now the economic
engine, and always has been, of the country. So, paid family
leave is a step forward, but we're making it even better.
I want to focus on New Jersey, because I know New Jersey
did a program. I just wanted to see what you guys are seeing in
New Jersey when it comes to paid family leave over a decade.
How many workers have been able to access paid family leave?
And what have the benefits been to the working families in your
state?
Mr. Asaro-Angelo. Thank you for the question, Congressman.
Right now, we have 6.5 million workers covered in New
Jersey. And unlike some other proposals in other states, this
is for every worker in New Jersey, regardless of the size of
the business. So, that way, we're trying to make sure that
every worker can take part in it, not just on the birth of a
child or adoption but also on the caregiving side.
We've recently expanded our family leave program to now
where we'll be able to have a higher wage replacement, up to 85
percent, starting July 1 of next year, up from the current 66
percent.
So, while the program started in 2009, we've been trying to
learn from it as we go along. And I think that this past year's
changes and improvements that were passed in February are going
to go a long way to addressing a lot of the problems that some
of the folks on the panel have had with implementation of paid
family medical leave, because I think it's going to do a lot to
reduce inequality in usage of the system.
Mr. Gomez. There's a lot of questions about, like, impact
on business. Has New Jersey's program negatively impacted the
state's businesses and the business climate?
Mr. Asaro-Angelo. Absolutely not. And I've got to tell you,
most--when I hear from businesses about our programs, quite
frankly, it's about calling me to help them process a claim
quicker every now and then.
But we've had an increase in businesses over the time that
FLI has been in place. Small businesses have grown six percent
in New Jersey. And like the person to my left talks about, it
levels the playing field. And when businesses want to offer
benefits to their workers, being able to participate in our
program, that's one cost they don't have to worry about,
because they know their workers are going to have that
protection, have the benefits to have the wage replacement when
they have to go out for the birth of a child or a caregiving
incident.
Mr. Gomez. I think this panel is very interesting, because
it's really starting to dig into the issues. But paid family
leave programs and any legislation is not perfect. You have to
kind of look at it and see how it's implemented--implementation
is always key--and then make adjustments as you learn more.
But I think that California and New Jersey, Connecticut,
Rhode Island--like, the states that are implementing it are
starting a trend that I think will reach Congress, and we
actually will be able to implement a national paid family leave
program for the states that refuse to do so.
Thank----
Mr. Asaro-Angelo. And we're in constant contact with our
fellow states who have these programs about what is working and
what isn't and small tweaks we can make together to improve all
of our systems.
Mr. Gomez. Well, thank you so much.
And I want to thank all the panelists.
Madam Chair, congratulations on your first day.
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you. Thank you so much.
And I want to thank all the panelists and particularly note
Ms. Silvani.
Your testimony was very moving to me, as a mother of two
children. To think of that type of crisis is traumatic, and I'm
happy to hear that your son Joe is doing better. And I hear
stories like yours all the time. People write me. Some of the
most effective advocates who come to my office are people like
you who have had a crisis and turn that energy into working for
change.
You wrote that your medical crisis quickly became a
financial crisis for your family. How did that added financial
stress impact your family?
Ms. Silvani. It just added more stress to an already
stressful situation. My husband was unable to spend time with
his son while he was in the hospital because he had to work.
So, the crisis of a child being sick or someone close in your
family being sick is both financial and emotional.
Chairwoman Maloney. And you wrote in your testimony that
your family is still feeling these financial impacts. I
understand you lost your retirement funds. Do you think your
family will ever recover financially from this stress and
financial crisis?
Ms. Silvani. We lost years of investment for our
retirement. So, I do know that--you know, I'm 38 years old. My
husband is 43 years old. We lost five years' or so worth of
investments that we would've been able to have as we get older.
I don't have any more funds to pull from in case Joe does
get sick again, which is quite a possibility. So, we don't have
the space in our finances to be able to keep saving and to be
prepared for that event that may happen with Joe.
Chairwoman Maloney. And you've also wrote about the
generosity of your neighbors that came together and helped you
in so many ways. But a national paid leave program means that
families like yours would not have to really hope that your
neighbors would be as generous and wonderful as yours were. And
a national program means that families would be able to
maintain their financial stability in the event of a crisis,
because workers and employers will both contribute to a
comprehensive nationwide program.
So, Ms. Shabo, I'd like to end by asking you, do you think
Americans would be willing to pitch in for a program like this?
They've been generous on their own, but do you think they'd
want to create a national program that would provide the
support for families?
Ms. Shabo. Yes.
Chairwoman Maloney. We say that that's our number-one
priority as a Nation, but if you look at the policies that are
in place, there's not enough support for families--in fact,
very little.
Ms. Shabo. Yes.
Chairwoman Maloney. And, in fact, our own country, along
with Papua New Guinea, we're among two countries in a United
Nations survey, only two countries in the world, who did not
provide for paid leave for the birth of a child.
Ms. Shabo. Yes.
Chairwoman Maloney. And I am thrilled to say that, today,
Adam Smith announced at our caucus meeting that he had
negotiated and gotten that provision in the National Defense
Authorization Act so that 2.1 million families will now have
that benefit and support.
And we know, from Rosa DeLauro's testimony and others',
that we will be pushing very hard to expand that to the private
sector and to others to provide more support for our families.
I can't tell you how thrilled I am that we passed that. I
could tell you my own stories all day, and I think many women
and men have the same stories. And hopefully this will be a new
day in America; we can continue providing more support for
families.
I really want to thank all of you and all of my colleagues
on both sides of the aisle who were here to testify and to
really help us move forward.
But before I conclude today's hearing, I would like to ask
unanimous consent to enter into the record a statement
submitted for this hearing by the majority leader, Congressman
Steny Hoyer from Maryland.
Congressman Hoyer has long been a champion for all workers,
and I appreciate his tireless efforts on the NDAA to reach the
possible deal for our Federal employees. He has been with me in
so many meetings and press conferences in support of this goal.
Chairwoman Maloney. I would also like to enter into the
record letters from nearly two dozen organizations that the
committee has received in recent days. These letters describe
the critical need for a national comprehensive paid family and
medical leave program among several diverse communities and
include submissions from the National Partnership for Women and
Families; 1,000 Days; the Main Street Alliance; Small Business
Majority; Human Rights Campaign; NARAL Pro-Choice America; and
more.
I ask unanimous consent that these materials be entered
into the official hearing record.
So, ordered.
Chairwoman Maloney. And I also would like to thank our
witnesses, once again, for testifying.
Without objection, all members have five legislative days
within which to submit additional written questions for the
witnesses to the chair, which will be forwarded to the
witnesses for their response.
I ask our witnesses to please respond as promptly as you
are able.
Chairwoman Maloney. This hearing is adjourned. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 12:52 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]