Leave-Takers Need a Job to Come Back to
Tameka Henry knows what it means to lose a job because you’re caring for someone you love. Over a decade, Tameka was let go from several positions after her husband became ill with what turned out to be a permanent disability. She did the math: starting over again and again amounted to a loss of $200,000 for her family.
A new report prepared for the U.S. Department of Labor shows Tameka is not alone. This research, titled “Employee and Worksite Perspectives of the Family and Medical Leave Act: Results from the 2018 Surveys,” found that nearly one in five low-wage workers nationally report losing their job after taking leave. Most of those were not eligible for the FMLA. According to this report, the program covers only 56 percent of the workforce.
The harm families without leave face includes their health as well as their income. Many workers who were eligible for leave — half of them for their own health — did not take it or went back to work too soon. Primarily, workers couldn’t afford unpaid time; two-thirds of the respondents listed this as a problem. Almost half also listed fear of losing a job. For low-wage workers, that figure is even higher. Nearly three in five low-wage workers who needed leave but didn’t take it believed they might lose their job if they did, compared with 36 percent of non low-wage employees.
What happens to your physical or emotional health when you have what researchers call an “unmet need for leave”? Statistics alone don’t tell us what it’s like to go without treatment for prostate cancer or to postpone getting a hip replaced or to miss being at the side of a dying parent, but the stories of our friends and family spell out the consequences.
Not surprisingly, the barriers to taking leave reflect racial inequities. More than one in ten Black workers and one in ten Latinx workers reported an unmet need for leave, compared to six percent of white workers.
The First FMLA Survey
Twenty-five years ago, I sat on a bipartisan Commission on Leave charged with overseeing the first study of the impact on employers and employees of the FMLA. Half the Commission members were chosen because their organizations worked to pass the FMLA, and half because they’d worked to stop it. Coming to consensus was not going to be an easy task.
As we compiled questions for researchers to include on their survey, I wanted to know how people taking leave support themselves while they’re receiving or providing care. Not surprisingly, respondents said they go into debt, go without things they need, postpone paying bills.
Back in 1995, nearly 9 percent said they had to rely on public assistance. For low-wage workers, that figure was nearly one in five. In this most recent report, 11 percent of employees eligible for FMLA had to turn to public assistance; more than a quarter of low-wage workers did.
The results surprised many on the 1995 Commission, but not me or anyone else who knows what it’s like to lack access to paid leave. After viewing the results, the entire group — despite deep political differences — unanimously agreed to encourage states to experiment with how to provide wage replacement during leave.
Today nine states have passed paid leave programs, each improving the model. The third state (Rhode Island) included job protection for every leave-taker, and so have almost all that followed. The early states (California and New Jersey) have gone back to improve this provision; California is considering a bill on this right now. The more recent programs have also made wage replacement progressive, with a higher percent of wages for those paid the least.
Supplementing this DOL survey is abundant research on what we call the intended consequences of paid family and medical leave for individual health, child well-being, dignity and independence of seniors, and for family financial stability and economic growth overall. Paid leave programs can achieve these goals best when people are able to keep their jobs and have enough income to meet their needs.
Clearly the time is long overdue for a national paid leave program that is affordable, secure and effective for all.
Ellen Bravo is a founder and now strategic advisor to Family Values @ Work, a network of state coalitions working for policies such as paid family and medical leave.
