Millions of Americans Could Finally Get Paid Family Leave—If Lawmakers Can Agree On Who Pays

Taking time off for a newborn isn’t as hard in other countries. If Lyles lived in Bulgaria, which has one of the world’s most generous paid-maternity-leave laws, she’d get nearly 59 weeks of maternity leave at 90% of her salary and an additional year of parental leave she and Weien could split. If she lived in Chile, she’d receive 18 weeks at 100% of her salary and an additional 12 weeks to split. Even in Iraq, she’d have gotten 14 weeks at 100% of her salary. In fact, the U.S. is the only industrialized nation on the planet that doesn’t guarantee paid parental leave through a federal law.

It’s not that the U.S. doesn’t recognize the problem. Polls show that voters overwhelmingly back the concept of paid family leave: a 2017 Pew study found that 82% of Americans supported mandatory paid leave for mothers after a birth or adoption.

Now this broad public demand has spurred new efforts to fix it. The White House, Republican Senators and big businesses have recently joined traditional advocates on the left to champion paid family leave. Some states and major corporations have created their own policies, and a variety of proposals are circulating in Congress. It’s clear that the odds of Americans getting paid family leave have never been better. What’s not clear is whether lawmakers can find a bipartisan solution.

The biggest sticking point is how to pay for it.

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