Eileen Appelbaum

Ruth Milkman

English

Research Papers in Economics

TIME FOR CHANGE?
US WORK-FAMILY POLICY IN
THE AGE OF OBAMA1
EILEEN APPELBAUM* AND
RUTH MILKMAN**
Barack Obama may be the first US president who
genuinely understands working women’s issues, as
the chapter on “Family”in his book,The Audacity of
Hope (Obama 2006,chapter 9),makes clear.Perhaps
that is one of the reasons why women – especially
women of color – voted for him in record numbers
last November. Notwithstanding Sarah Palin’s pres-
ence on the Republican ticket,56 percent of women,
compared to 49 percent of men,voted for Obama,ac-
cording to exit polls. In addition, women turned out
to vote in greater numbers than men in 2008,making
up 53 percent of all voters (Institute for Women’s
Policy Research 2008).
Their confidence was not misplaced. As president,
Obama immediately signaled his commitment to im-
proving the lives of working women,signing the Lilly
Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which provides redress for
sex discrimination in pay,just days after taking office.
His commitment to helping working families also be-
came apparent early on.During the presidential cam-
paign, Obama promised to make family and medical
leave more accessible and more affordable,and to set
a new minimum standard of paid sick days. During
his first weeks in office, he established the White
House Task Force on Middle Class Families, which
has improving work-life balance as one of its five
goals,as well as the White House Council on Women
and Girls. Michele Obama’s First Lady’s Office and
the White House Domestic Policy Office have also
signaled a strong interest in women’s issues.2 In addi-
tion, Obama promised to reinvigorate the Depart-
ment of Labor’s Women’s Bureau.
The United States is one of only a handful of nations
in the world that does not guarantee access to paid
maternity leave and stands alone among high-income
countries in not providing paid time off from work
for an employee’s own illness or to care for a sick
child (Heymann 2007).The 1993 federal Family and
Medical Leave Act (FMLA) provides only unpaid
leaves for childbirth or bonding with a new child or
to recover from one’s own illness or care for a seri-
ously ill family member.Many working families can-
not afford to take unpaid leave,and FMLA coverage
is far from universal, since smaller firms are exempt
and workers whose tenure with their current em-
ployer is limited are often ineligible.Nearly half of all
female employees are not covered by the FMLA pro-
visions for pregnancy, childbirth and parental leave.3
In addition, about two-fifths of all US workers lack
paid sick days, and even fewer have access to paid
parental or eldercare leave. Low-wage workers are
the least likely to have access to paid time off,and are
regularly forced to make wrenching choices between
a day’s pay and the welfare of their children and fam-
ilies.
Although working women have many unmet needs,
including affordable child care and pay equity, the
current policy agenda focuses on paid family leave
and paid sick days. Polling data suggest that women
today are more concerned about these issues than any
others.In a November 2008 poll,for example,35 per-
cent of women indicated that Obama would best
meet the needs of women if he addressed “family and
work-life balance” issues, whereas only 22 percent
chose the economy as their top concern (although un-
employment had not yet risen to its current high lev-
el), and 10 percent chose pay equity (Woman Trend/
Lake Research Partners 2009). Moreover, policy in-
CESifo DICE Report 4/2009 12
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* Professor at Rudgers, the State University of New Jersey.
** Professor of Sociology at UCLA and at the CUNY Graduate
Center.
1An earlier version of this article appeared in the Fall 2009 issue of
New Labor Forum.
2 Top staff include Jared Bernstein, White House Task Force on
Middle Class Families;Tina Tchen and Jenny Yaeger,White House
Council on Women and Girls;Jocelyn Frye,the First Lady’s Office;
and Martha Coven, the White House Domestic Policy Office.
3To be eligible,one must have worked for the employer for at least
12 months and for at least 1250 hours during the 12 months pre-
ceding the leave. See http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/regs/compli-
ance/whdfs28.pdf CESifo DICE Report 4/2009 13
Forum
terventions on these issues enjoy broad public sup-
port, among both women and men, and across party
lines (Lake Research Partners and the National
Partnership for Women and Families 2007). Even
workers who do not have children themselves, some
of whom may occasionally complain about picking up
the slack for co-workers who do,are likely to support
family leave programs,especially in view of the grow-
ing need for leaves from work to care for aging par-
ents and other seriously ill family members.
In addition, in the US context, paid leave and paid
sick days are essential to social inclusion of low-paid
employees and to rebuilding the middle class. Most
families now rely on the paychecks of all available
adults,and their economic security depends on main-
taining those income streams during bouts of illness
or when caring for a new child or an ill family mem-
ber.Those covered by FMLA have access to unpaid
leaves, but many workers are not covered at all, and
those who are often cannot afford to take the unpaid
leaves the act permits. Indeed, for working-class
women, having a baby is strongly associated with
poverty spells.Lack of access to family leave for care-
givers also lengthens recovery periods for the elder-
ly and forces many into expensive nursing homes,
rather than allowing them to remain at home. Lack
of access to paid time off to bond with a new child,
recover from an illness, or look after a seriously ill
family member is extremely stressful for workers,
who may have no option but to quit their jobs in or-
der to care for their families in a crisis. Even routine
illnesses – a cold or stomach virus – can create insur-
mountable problems for the two-fifths of US work-
ers whose employers provide no paid sick days.
With or without access to paid sick days or family
leave,workers must find ways to care for themselves
and their families. Absence from work can mean a
loss of income and often disciplinary action – includ-
ing being fired. The lack of protection for workers
who miss work because of family demands creates im-
pediments to job retention and economic stability for
workers (especially but by no means exclusively
women),raises turnover costs for employers,acceler-
ates the spread of colds and flu, and adds to the high
cost of health care.
To address these issues,broad coalitions of advocates
representing the elderly, the disabled, children, low-
income families, minority and immigrant communi-
ties, and working women have formed in many parts
of the US.They have been successful in a few states
in recent years, and are currently mobilizing at the
federal level. On their own, however, these groups
generally lack the political clout to pass paid sick days
or paid family leave legislation. The opposition of 
organizations that lobby on behalf of business –
Chambers of Commerce, the National Federation of
Independent Business, the National Association of
Manufacturers, and many others – to the passage of
laws to remedy this situation is consistently fierce.
Work-family advocates have been most successful
when they work in coalition with organized labor to
address the needs of working families – and, espe-
cially, women workers. Such coalition-based advoca-
cy efforts have begun to alter the political landscape
on this issue by promoting the idea of a paid family
leave program that offers universal coverage as well
as securing paid sick days for all employed Americans.
One model is the pioneering paid family leave insur-
ance program that took effect in California five years
ago – with labor doing much of the political heavy lift-
ing.It provides partial wage replacement (55 percent
of earnings and up to USD 959 per week) not only
for bonding leaves for parents to care for new babies
but also for leaves to care for seriously ill family
members, including domestic partners (Milkman and
Appelbaum2004).Two other states – Washington and
New Jersey – have also passed paid leave legislation,
and several others are considering doing so. Federal
action to provide incentives to states to establish such
programs,or even to require them to do so,is now po-
litically feasible. Paid leave programs are relatively
inexpensive, since at any given point in time, rela-
tively few workers take advantage of them – leave-
triggering events being spread over the life cycle.
Requiring employers to provide paid sick days as a
minimum employment standard also enjoys broad
public support.A 2007 national poll found that 89per-
cent of voters – 83 percent of Republicans and 94 per-
cent of Democrats – favor paid sick days (National
Partnership for Women and Families 2007). It is easy
to understand this high level of support across the po-
litical spectrum.In addition to the loss of wages when
an employee misses work,unapproved absences may
also be punished with suspensions or even with job
loss (Dodson, Manuel and Bravo 2002). In the 2007
poll, 1 in 8 voters reported that they or a worker in
their family had been fired or penalized for taking
time off from work to care for a sick family member.
Some businesses already offer their employees paid
sick days.According to the March 2008 National Com-pensation Survey, 61 percent of private sector workers
– 71 percent of full-time and 27 percent of part-time
workers – had access to paid sick days.4 But two-fifths
of all private sector workers and nearly three-quarters
of part-time employees had no paid sick days at all
(Kramer and Zilberman 2008). More than half of the
US workforce either has no paid sick days or cannot
use them to care for sick children (Galinsky,Bond and
Hill 2004).Moreover,access to paid sick days is uneven,
with managers and professionals far more likely than
lower-paid workers to be able to take paid time off
when they are ill.In 2008,only 23 percent of employees
in the bottom 10 percent of the income distribution had
any paid sick days, compared with 83 percent of em-
ployees in the top 10 percent.And although 83 percent
of managers and professionals have paid sick days,on-
ly 51 percent of production workers, and 42 percent of
service workers do (Kramer and Zilberman 2008).As
a result,children in low-income families are far less like-
ly than other children to have a parent with paid sick
days (Clemans-Cope, Perry, Kenney, Pelletier and
Pantell 2008; Earle and Heymann 2002).
Once again, California was at the forefront when San
Francisco passed a paid sick days law in November
2006,the first locality in the country to do so.Since then,
Washington DC and Milwaukee, Wisconsin have fol-
lowed suit.Milwaukee’s ordinance passed in November
2008 with 69 percent of the vote, but a legal challenge
from the city’s business lobby is holding up implemen-
tation. In addition, two other cities and 13 states have
recently introduced paid sick days legislation.5
Access to paid time off from work is an area where
the inequality among women is especially salient.
Many employers of managerial and professional
women (and sometimes men), eager to retain their
trained and highly skilled staff, provide these high-
end workers with paid sick days and paid family leave
benefits or the functional equivalent already.But for
other employed women – with the notable exception
of union members who often obtain such benefits
through collective bargaining – paid sick days and
paid family leaves are rarely available.
Thanks to Obama’s electoral victory, along with the
continuing economic crisis,the ideological pendulum
may be decisively swinging away from the market
fundamentalism that has been hegemonic for the past
three decades.The renewed legitimacy of government
intervention presents a unique political opportunity
for labor and other progressive advocates to win leg-
islation requiring paid sick days as a minimum em-
ployment standard as well as federal support for the
establishment of state insurance programs (similar in
design to unemployment insurance) to provide paid
family leave.Apart from universal health care,which
is at the top of the Obama administration’s agenda,
this is an urgent priority for working families that de-
serves immediate attention.
Several bills are, or soon will be, before the US
Congress.Although their approaches vary,all address
the urgent need for paid time off for workers and sug-
gest the growing political momentum for federal ac-
tion on this issue.
• The Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act
of 2009, a version of which passed the House of
Representatives in 2008,has been reintroduced in
the House by Representative Carolyn Maloney
and in the Senate by Senator Jim Webb. It would
provide four weeks of paid parental leave, which
could be combined with any accrued annual or sick
leave, to the 2.7 million workers employed by the
federal government. The bill has cleared its first
hurdle and passed out of the House Oversight
Committee on 25 March 2009.
• Also on 25 March 2009, Representatives Pete
Stark, George Miller, Lynn Woolsey and Carolyn
Maloney introduced the Family Leave Insurance
Act of 2009 to provide up to 12 weeks of paid ben-
efits to workers who need to take time off to care
for an ill family member, a new child, or because
of their own illness. These leaves would be fi-
nanced through a new fund to which employers
and workers would contribute equally – 0.2 per-
cent of the worker’s pay or less than USD 7 a
month for the average worker and 0.1 percent for
employers of less than 20 workers.Workers earn-
ing less than USD 30,000 per year would receive
full or near-full salary replacement; those earning
USD 30,000 to USD 60,000 would receive 55 per-
cent replacement; and those earning over USD
60,000 would receive 40 to 45 percent, with a cap
of about USD 800 per week.
• On 7 May 2009, Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey
and 18 co-sponsors introduced the Family Income
CESifo DICE Report 4/2009 14
Forum
4 A new definition of paid sick days access was introduced in the
March 2008 survey. It now includes previously excluded plans for
which no worker had made use of the benefit.As a result, the 2008
data for access to paid sick days are higher than, and not strictly
comparable to,earlier data from this source that are widely cited in
the literature.
5 Paid sick days legislation is currently under consideration in New
York City and Philadelphia,as well as Alaska,California,Colorado,
Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana,
New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Vermont. For
further details see 
http://www.nationalpartnership.org/site/DocServer/2009_PSDTrack
ing_090309.pdf?docID=1922CESifo DICE Report 4/2009 15
Forum
to Respond to Serious Transitions (FIRST) Act,
which would allocate USD 1.5 billion in incentives
to states to establish family leave insurance pro-
grams, as promised by President Obama during
the campaign. The FIRST Act provides discre-
tionary grants to states to implement programs
that provide partial or full wage replacement for
those taking family or medical leave. The funds
could also be used by states that already have such
programs to support wage replacement for eligible
individuals or for outreach and education,admin-
istrative costs and incentives to small businesses to
provide job protection.
• The Healthy Families Act, first introduced on 18
May 2005, would require employers to provide
workers with a minimum number of paid sick days
each year.These can be used to care for the work-
er’s own illness or preventative care, or to provide
care for a sick family member.Employers with few-
er than 15 workers would be exempt. Workers
would earn a minimum of one hour of paid sick time
for every 30 hours worked, up to seven days per
year,unless the employer selects a higher limit.
Advocates have been organizing around these issues
for many years now.During the Bush administration
that ended in 2008,the focus was on the state and lo-
cal level.But this year attention has increasingly shift-
ed to Washington.The two key national organizations
that bring together advocates from around the nation
are ValueFamilies@Work: A Multistate Consortium
and the National Partnership for Women and
Families.6 Their efforts to advance a program for
“valuing families at work” have been endorsed by
many unions as well as by the AFL-CIO.
At this writing,the Obama administration and the US
Congress are fully occupied with crafting a funda-
mental reform of the nation’s health care system.
There is every indication,however,that once this task
is behind them, work-family policy will assume a
prominent spot on the US legislative agenda.
References
Clemans-Cope, L., C. D. Perry, G. M. Kenney, J. E. Pelletier and M.
S.Pantell (2008),“Access to and Use of Paid Sick Leave among Low-
Income Families with Children”, Pediatrics 122,480–86.
Dodson, L., T. Manuel and E. Bravo (2002), Keeping Jobs and
Raising Families in Low-IncomeAmerica: It Just Doesn’t Work,
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Cambridge, Mass.
Earle, A. and J. Heymann (2002), “What Causes Job Loss among
Former Welfare Recipients:The Role of Family Health Problems”,
Journal of the American Medical Women’s Association 57, 5–10.
Galinsky, E., J.T. Bond and E. J. Hill (2004), A Status Report on
Workplace Flexibility:Who Has It? Who Wants It? What Difference
Does It Make? Families and Work Institute, New York.
Heymann,J.(2007),Forgotten Families: Ending the Growing Crisis
Confronting Children and Working Parents in the Global Economy,
Oxford University Press, New York.
Institute for Women’s Policy Research (2008), “Women’s Vote
Clinches Election Victory”, press release, 6 November.
Kramer,N.and A.Zilberman (2008),“New Definitions of Employee
Access to Paid Sick Leave and Retirement Benefits in the National
Compensation Survey”,U.S.Department of Labor,Bureau of Labor
Statistics. www.bls.gov/opub/cwc/cm20081219ar01p1.htm 
Lake Research Partners and the National Partnership for Women
and Families (2007),“Key Findings from Nationwide Polling on Paid
Family and Medical Leave”,
http://www.nationalpartnership.org/site/DocServer/Paid_Family_Le
ave_Poll_Results_2007.pdf?docID=2521
Milkman, R. and E. Appelbaum (2004), “Paid Family Leave in
California:New Research Findings”,The State of California Labor
2004, http://www.irle.ucla.edu/research/scl/pdf04/scl2004ch2.pdf
National Partnership for Women and Families (2007),“Key Findings
from National Polling on Paid Sick Days”, National Partnership for
Women and Families,Washington DC, 25 September.
Obama, B. (2006), The Audacity of Hope, Crown, New York.
WomanTrend/Lake Research Partners Polling (2009), reported in
The New York Times Magazine, 4 January 2009, p. 9.
6 See http://www.nationalpartnership.org/site/Page Server and
http://www.valuefamiliesatwork.org/

A Status Report on Workplace Flexibility:Who Has It? Who Wants It? What Difference Does It Make? Families and Work Institute,

Heymann,J.(2007),Forgotten Families: Ending the Growing Crisis Confronting Children and Working Parents in the Global Economy,

Keeping Jobs and Raising Families in Low-IncomeAmerica: It Just Doesn’t Work, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study,

Kramer,N.and A.Zilberman (2008),“New Definitions of Employee Access to Paid Sick Leave and Retirement Benefits in the National Compensation Survey”,U.S.Department of Labor,Bureau of Labor Statistics.

S.Pantell (2008),“Access to and Use of Paid Sick Leave among LowIncome Families with Children”, Pediatrics 122,480–86.

The Audacity of Hope,

What Causes Job Loss among Former Welfare Recipients:The Role of Family Health Problems”,

WomanTrend/Lake Research Partners Polling (2009), reported in The New York Times Magazine,

Women’s Vote Clinches Election Victory”, press release,

Time for Change? US Work-Family Policy in the Age of Obama

http://www.cesifo-group.de/portal/page/portal/DocBase_Content/ZS/ZS-CESifo_DICE_Report/zs-dice-2009/zs-dice-2009-4/dicereport409-forum3.pdf

Time for Change? US Work-Family Policy in the Age of Obama

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