Johnae Strong prepares lunches, backpacks and clothing for her 10-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter as they ready for school and work Friday, Feb. 10, 2023, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley) I have spent my career fighting for universal paid leave, including helping pass the Federal Employee Paid Leave Act and the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. So, when I say Congress should pass the More Paid Leave for More Americans Act, it is not because it’s perfect. It is because I believe lasting policy change is built through one imperfect step at a time.
Every worker should be able to take time away from work to recover from a serious illness, care for a loved one, or welcome a child without sacrificing their income or their job. Yet it remains out of reach for millions of Americans.
The Family and Medical Leave Act guarantees up to 12 weeks of job-protected leave, but that leave is unpaid. And many workers don’t even qualify, because of restrictions tied to employer size, tenure and hours worked. The workers who most need paid leave are often the least likely to have it.
Only 14 states and the District of Columbia have enacted paid leave programs. Nearly every worker will need paid leave at some point, and right now, whether they have it often comes down to where they live.
The More Paid Leave for More Americans Act would begin changing that by creating a federal grant program that, for the first time, gives states a real financial incentive to establish paid leave programs that extend beyond parental leave to include caregiving and medical leave. To qualify, states must provide at least six weeks of paid leave with partial wage replacement scaled to income.
Six weeks won’t meet every family’s needs, but it’s far better than none and gives millions of workers protections they do not have today.
Many advocates, understandably, prefer the Family and Medical Insurance Act, or FAMILY Act. The comprehensive national program would guarantee 12 weeks of paid leave to every worker, covering everything from a new baby to a serious illness to caring for an aging parent. So do I.
But the FAMILY Act is solely a Democratic bill. If we want universal paid leave to become a lasting national commitment, we have to think about how we build the bipartisan support needed to get there. I don’t see this bill as an alternative to the FAMILY Act but as a step toward it. The question is whether we’re willing to make meaningful progress now while continuing to fight for more.
The history of paid leave in this country is a history of imperfect but real progress at the state level. When California first passed paid leave, it offered only six weeks with a 55 percent wage replacement rate, too little for many working families to realistically afford taking time off. Advocates said so at the time, and they were right.
But hundreds of thousands of workers gained benefits they had never had before; support for the program grew and lawmakers eventually expanded it. Today, California offers up to eight weeks of paid leave at 70 to 90 percent wage replacement.
The Family and Medical Leave Act was not the end of the fight either. It established that workers have a right to come back to their jobs after a family or medical crisis. State paid leave programs built on that foundation. As workers experienced paid leave, support for expanding it grew. That is what this bill sets in motion for the more than thirty states that still lack paid family leave.
I have seen this evolution firsthand. When we fought to pass paid parental leave for federal employees, one concern was that expanding leave could unintentionally reinforce workplace disparities if women remained the primary users. But the opposite is increasingly happening. As more paid leave programs have been adopted in states, fathers are taking leave in much greater numbers. That’s good for children and for mothers’ long-term careers, and it is slowly changing expectations about who provides care. Policy doesn’t just respond to culture — it helps shape it.
The bipartisan momentum we are seeing today is years in the making and should not be taken for granted. This bill has the potential to be debated, voted on and become law. Walking away from bipartisan progress won’t bring us closer to the FAMILY Act. It means another decade in which workers drain savings, cobble together sick days, quit jobs or return to work before they’re ready because they cannot afford not to.
I am tired of watching families make those choices. History shows us that transformative policy change rarely arrives in a single moment. We cannot build a paid leave system that only exists when one party governs.
None of our progress on paid leave — or any major social benefit — happened because advocates held out for the perfect bill. It happened because people made hard calls at the right moments and built on what came before. This bill is one of those moments. Congress should seize it.
Lelaine Bigelow is executive director of the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality. A first-generation Filipina American, she previously served in the Obama Administration and has dedicated her career to policies that improve the lives of people experiencing poverty, women, and people of color.
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