An Author Discusses Paid Leave State Programs and the Hope for a National Program

In this episode of The Paid Leave Podcast, we talk about the fact that It was 4 years ago, in January of 2022, when CT Paid Leave started giving benefits to eligible CT workers. Since then, we have given over 1.4 billion dollars in benefits to over 182 thousand workers in Connecticut! 

Senior Lecturer in the Honors Program at Loyola University Chicago, Megan Sholar joins me to discuss state programs and the hope for a national paid leave policy. Megan teaches courses on women and politics, Latin American politics, and European politics. Her first book, Getting Paid While Taking Time: The Women’s Movement and the Development of Paid Family Leave Policies in the United States (2016), explores the reasons that the United States remains the only industrialized country in the world without paid family leave at the national level. She has also written about paid leave in The Hill and The Washington Post. Her most recent book is Chasing Equality: Women’s Rights & US Public Policy (2023). 

Scholar, an expert on paid leave, emphasizes its importance for women, noting the U.S. is the only industrialized nation without a national paid leave program. She cites pivotal moments like the 2016 presidential candidates' support and the 2019 federal parental leave policy. Megan also discusses the economic benefits and the need for state-level initiatives, using Connecticut as a model for efficient and successful implementation.

To get in touch with Megan Sholar, Megan Sholar: Loyola University Chicago.

For more information on her books, Getting Paid While Taking Time: The Women's Movement and the Development of Paid Family Leave Policies in the United States: Sholar, Megan: 9781439912959: Amazon.com: Books.

Lynne Rienner Publishers | Chasing Equality Women s Rights and US Public Policy.

for more information or to get apply for benefits go to ctpaidleave.org.

https://ctpaidleave.org/s/?language=en_US



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Transcript

Nancy Barrow: 0:01

Hello Connecticut, and welcome to The Paid Leave Podcast. The title basically says it all. I'm Nancy Barrow, and I will be delving into this new state program and how it can help you and your family. This podcast will give you information you should know about Connecticut Paid Leave and maybe just a little bit more Connecticut Paid Leave brings peace of mind to your home, family and workplace. Welcome to The Paid Leave Podcast. It was four years ago, in January of 2022 when Connecticut Paid Leave started giving benefits to eligible Connecticut workers. And a few things have improved in the four years that we went live with our program, we have given over $1.4 billion in benefits to over 182,000 workers in Connecticut, which is pretty awesome. And joining me to talk about paid leave is the Senior lLecturer in the Honors Program at Loyola University Chicago, Megan Sholar. And Megan teaches courses on women in politics, Latin American politics and European politics. And her first book, Getting Paid While Taking Time the Women's Movement and the Development of Paid Family Leave Policies in the United States, was in 2016 and it explores the reasons that the United States remains the only industrialized country in the world without paid family leave at the national level, she's also written about paid leave in The Hill and the Washington Post. And her most recent book is, Chasing Equality, Women's Rights and US Public Policy. And welcome to the Paid Leave Podcast. Megan!

Megan Sholar: 1:36

Thank you, Nancy, thank you so much for having me.

Nancy Barrow: 1:38

Your research on paid leave is really timely and it's really deeply needed. What first inspired you to focus on this issue?

Megan Sholar: 1:46

So while I was in undergrad and grad school, I was always drawn towards issues focusing around women's rights, women's issues, so I was always taking courses on those topics, and I always ended up writing my research papers on those topics. And then when I was in grad school, I needed to come up with a dissertation topic, and I just happened upon the fact that the United States is basically the only country in the world that doesn't have paid leave, even paid maternity leave. There are a handful of other countries that don't the US is the only industrialized country to not have it, and that sparked a question in me, why? Why does the United States not have this? So I ended up doing my dissertation. It was a comparative study of the United States and Canada to determine why these two neighboring countries, Canada has a very generous paid family leave. The United States has nothing at the national level. And as I'm sure we'll be talking about today, paid leave is important for everyone, regardless of gender, regardless of age. But I especially came at it initially as a women's rights issue, and I have found over and over again in my research that women are especially hurt by the lack of paid leave. They're hurt in the home. They're hurt in the workplace. So even though it benefits men and women and children and businesses. I've found, in many different ways, that not having paid leave hurts women the most, and so it overlapped with my interest in women's issues and women's rights, but then it ended up just being so much bigger, yeah, and it really became a question of me trying to figure out, how do we stand out in this way? And I think I like I definitely know a lot of my students today, I didn't know that we didn't have paid family leave, because when you're in your teens and your 20s, you're less likely to need it because you're less likely to have children, you're less likely to have aging parents to take care of, you're less likely to have a major illness in in your own life. And so coming across this, I was really struck by the fact that we didn't have it, and so it led me to want to focus more on that issue.

Nancy Barrow: 4:20

It's so interesting. And how did you gather all this information? Where did you look for it? Because it's very interesting when you're doing a dissertation like, where do you find this information?

Megan Sholar: 4:31

So one of the things that I did for my dissertation, I was actually it was in Chicago at the time, and Northwestern University has a big system of archives, and I traveled up there a lot, and I actually looked at archived like old issues of the newsletter for the National Organization for Women, which is the biggest women's organization in the US. And that's how. You and I had talked earlier about the title of my book, about the role that the women's movement plays in there. So what I started doing for my dissertation was going through every archived issue of their newsletter to document what issues did they prioritize during the second wave of feminism. So looking during the 1970s and 80s, and I found over and over again that they were prioritizing reproductive rights. This was both right before and after Roe versus Wade in 1973 and they were prioritizing the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, which ultimately failed in 1982 and that's when many point to the end of the second wave of feminism, and I found that that that family leave was just really not a priority. It's not that National Organization for Women and other women's groups were against it, but they were just other priorities that they thought they needed to focus on more. Yeah, and so there wasn't a ton of pressure from women's organizations on the government to pass that type of legislation. So that was something new that I had brought in in my dissertation, and then talked about it later. My dissertation went from a comparative study of the United States and Canada to my first book, where I decided just to focus on the United States, not only why the US at a national level doesn't have paid leave, but then I started comparing states, because, as we'll talk about, some states have it and some states don't.

Nancy Barrow: 6:30

Yeah, it's so interesting. And what made you write the first book, Getting paid while taking time the women's movement and the development of paid family leave policies in the United States? What? What were your goals when you wrote that book?

Megan Sholar: 6:44

Part of the goal was for me to just figure out more. Why don't, why don't we in the United States have what almost every other country has. But I also just wanted more people to know about this. As I said, I have learned in my research both from talking with people about paid leave, even just family and friends when they knew about my research, but definitely my undergraduate students that so many people don't know that the United States doesn't have paid leave. And I think part of that is a lot of times I would talk to people again, like my students, and they would say, Oh well, you know, my aunt had a baby, and she got, you know, she got three months paid leave. And I would say, Well, what does she do? And they would often, oh, well, she's a lawyer or some sort of white collar job. And it would turn out that, that she got the lead through her employer, right?

Nancy Barrow: 7:37

They had a, they had a nice package for them, yeah, yeah.

Megan Sholar: 7:40

Yeah, and it was, but they just assumed, like, that means that the United States has it. And so so many people, I don't think so many people, didn't realize that we don't have it. And so I wanted to figure out why that was, but then I just got more deeply involved at the state level, right when I started noticing that, Okay, a few states have passed it, and now more states are passing it. So then it became another question of, what are the states that are passing it have in common? And how come it failed in states that tried it but weren't successful? So it sort of took on a new path from a national Canada to the United States to these different states.

Nancy Barrow: 8:16

What were the pivotal moments that shifted that conversation?

Megan Sholar: 8:22

I think there's, there have been a lot. So we have the 1993 was the FMLA, the Family and Medical Leave Act, which was the first type of national policy that we had, and that's unpaid leave. So it's really just job protection. You can take up to 12 weeks, and you keep your job, you keep your health insurance. So that was the beginning of it. But at the national level, really didn't go very far. It hasn't gone very far since then. So states started in the early 2000s California was the first to adopt it in 2002 so that became a pivotal moment, I think, where people started to talk about it, and think maybe there's a different way. But even at the sort of national conversation, there have been a lot of moments in the last decade. So one of them in 2016 this is what I wrote about in The Washington Post, in the 2016 presidential election, that was the first time ever that the two major party candidates both came out in favor of paid family leave. So Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump both came out in their campaign and said they were supportive of that. So that was huge for the national conversation. Because, you know, no one had done that before. 2019 was a big moment, because during Donald Trump's first administration, he passed paid parental leave. So it's not family leave, it's it's more narrow in scope. It's only for new parents. But he did pass paid parental leave for federal workers, which is about two. Million people. So that's that's a really, you know, huge impact that that policy change will have, and again, that just put it on more people's radar, that these are the types of policies we need. Certainly, covid the pandemic, shed so much light on the caregiver crisis in the United States. And this is again, where the burden especially fell on women and just the need for better policies, that includes also things like childcare, but just the larger discussion of our caregiving policies are in crisis in the United States, and covid shed so much light on that you saw the in 2021 there was over a group of over 250 companies, like big companies, Etsy, Spotify, Patagonia, they sent a letter to Congress saying, we need paid family Leave. You need to pass this. There's often that argument that businesses are against it, but this was showing no major businesses are in favor of this. And at a at a more of a state level, something getting a little more into the details of the policy, but a really huge issue. I found in my research a big turning point was in 2017 when Washington State passed paid leave. And the reason why it was so important is you had already California, New Jersey, Rhode Island and New York, all of those states had passed it, but all of those first four states had a state level what's either known as an SDI or TDI, a state disability insurance program or temporary disability insurance program. There's only five states that have that those four California, New Jersey, Rhode Island and New York and then Hawaii, and they set it up decades and decades ago, and the reason why that's so important is that it gave the states a mechanism to fund paid family leave. They already had the infrastructure set up, and so when those first four states passed it, they just said, You know what, we'll expand the reach of our state disability insurance program will expand the infrastructure, and then we'll be able to include paid family leave. And Washington state, they actually were the second state to pass paid family leave. They passed it in 2007 no one really knows that, because they passed it in 2007 and it was never implemented because they couldn't come up with a funding mechanism, right? They have that state disability insurance program, and so when then a decade later, Washington passed it and set up a new funding mechanism, that was a huge turning point, because until then, only these SDI states, these state disability insurance program states passed it, and so when Washington State was able to actually implement it, it showed all these other states. Look, you can do it even if you don't have this existing infrastructure. There is growing pressure on both other states and the national government to adopt paid leave with neighboring states. They're missing out. If you, if you're in one state and you live next door to a state that has it, you feel like you're missing out, especially because we know a lot of times people will live in one state and work in another, people that live on those those borders, and they may feel I'm missing out because I don't have this here. More broadly, families are losing over $20 billion in lost wages each year because there's no paid leave. And if you look more broadly at the overall national economy, it's estimated that the US is losing more than $500 billion every year of additional economic activity because there's no paid leave. So thinking about as we see more and more states passing it, there's definitely this growing pressure. And you and I talked about, before we started recording, that California was the first state to pass it in 2002 New Jersey was the second state to pass it and implement it, and that took six years. And then it took five years for Rhode Island, and then it took three years for New York. But then, since New York has passed it in 2016 nine states and Washington DC have passed it. So yeah, the the motivation is there, like we're seeing it ramp up. It took a long time for those first few but now every year, you're seeing one state to state, and so there's definitely growing pressure. On other states to keep up. I mean, because there's competition, there's economic competition between states, but also we're there's just a lot of evidence that shows it is harming families economies like individual families economic situation, but it's actually harming our overall economy. We are losing out on economic activity because we don't have paid leave.

Nancy Barrow: 15:24

Yeah, and it's interesting, like we talked about this too, that Delaware, Minnesota, Maine and Maryland, are going in 2026 different times. Like, I believe Delaware and Minnesota are going in January, Maine and Maryland later on in the year, but they're planning on getting this program rolling out in 2026 that's four in one year. So like you said, if there is momentum, it looks like.

Megan Sholar: 15:45

Yes, I think it's certainly showing that it can be done, and it's moving very quickly. But I do think there's going to be that pressure on neighboring states, especially when you look like in the northeast, because you have many smaller states all next to each other. And that's definitely a place where you have people living in one state, working in another, easily crossing borders. And I think there's going to be increased pressure in those states that don't have it when they see all their surrounding states. There's going to be increased pressure on lawmakers to get this and my thinking maybe more so my hope is that eventually you're going to get enough states that there's going to be a critical mass of states where the federal government's going to feel that pressure, yeah, because you're going to start getting businesses in states that are pushing for it because they want to be seen as more competitive, yeah, and they may not be able to offer it. I mean, you look at big companies, Apple and Google, and if you you look at those, they already offer excellent paid leave programs because they know that attracts the best employees. They don't need to do it through the state. They are such big companies. They are they are offering it to their employees, often more generous than even state provided policies. But small businesses can't afford to do that. What will happen, though, and the argument that's often made you and I talked about before, that small businesses are against it. I've actually found the opposite. Because if you're a small business and you have eight employees and one needs to go on leave, and it's not a choice if they're if they have cancer or if they've just given birth, it's not a choice they have to go on leave to take care of this. A small business isn't going to be able to pay their salary and maybe hire a 10th but if that small business lives is housed in a state that offers paid family leave through the government, then their employee that's on leave is still getting their salary, and the small business now has that money they would have paid to that employee to hire a temp. Yeah, so it's, it's actually small businesses often are in favor of the government stepping in with this paid leave. And so as you're getting more and more states passing it, states that don't have it, I feel like they're going to pressure their state lawmakers, and eventually it's, it's going to become very confusing to have so many different state policies. I can't predict when, but I definitely feel that eventually that pressure will go to a national policy of some sort.

Nancy Barrow: 18:29

Yeah, I think it's so great that you talked about small businesses, because we talked to so many small businesses who are so in favor of Connecticut Paid Leave, because it does do great retention of quality people and they're happy or coming back after they've had a leave knowing that this is supported by their boss. You know, there is a real loyalty there.

Megan Sholar: 18:52

Yes, there's a lot of research out there that shows, and I even heard you talk about this on your podcast on other episodes that the biggest expense to businesses is employee retention and hiring or more so is hiring new people. So the retention is so important because it can cost up to a year salary of another employee to replace that employee. And so if you have paid family leave, studies show that retention rates are higher, that morale is higher, productivity is higher, yeah. And so it actually helps the businesses, because without paid family leave, many employees just leave. They they have to take leave anyway, and then they don't come back, they don't necessarily feel that connection or that commitment, or they just have to look elsewhere for employment. And that ends up being the biggest expense to businesses, is having to, you know, advertise the position and then hire someone, and then train some. One, if they just kept that other employee, they would have saved that that money and that time, right? Yeah, all many small businesses can't afford to do that on their own, so they actually welcome this governmental policy, because it allows them to help to maintain their employee relationships better.

Nancy Barrow: 20:21

And it's no cost to the employer, at least in Connecticut, in some other states, you know, the employer does help pay for it.

Megan Sholar: 20:28

I will say, Yes, Connecticut does stand out. Most of the other states are employee and employer contribution. So Connecticut stands out that it's only employee contribution. But even in those states where the employer does have to contribute, they're still getting a benefit out of it from that retention. So you see a variety of states, some are only employee funded. Some are employee and employer funded. I think Washington, DC, I think it's just employer. I believe I'd have to double check on that, but I think they are primarily the employer funded.

Nancy Barrow: 21:03

One really interesting. You wrote your book before our state program was voted into law in 2019 your book was in 2016 and I know they say money is an issue with setting up these types of programs, even a national program, we've we've talked about that, it's like that's one of the big issues, but we did it on time and under budget. We're very proud of that fact, and we do studies all the time on solvency, and we have no issues. What do you think the country and other states can learn about Connecticut Paid Leave and how it was set up so successfully with the timeline and fiscally?

Megan Sholar: 21:39

I would say, first of all, congratulations on doing that. That's definitely no small feat. I would say the biggest takeaway is just that it can be done, that you had a state that had the political backing, that had the momentum, and decided made it a priority, and said, we're going to do this and then made it happen. So it's definitely a good example for other states to look to to try and determine, you know, what was it that Connecticut did, that other states could talk with the organization of people that helped to get this passed and then help to implement it, because, again, it's showing it certainly can be done. As you and I have talked about, there certainly are some characteristics that the states that have passed it have in common. Most of the states that have adopted paid leave are in the higher parts of the list of GDP per capita, right? So when you look at the states that have passed it, almost all of them are in the top 10 that the wealthiest states. So that helps to have some of those higher incomes to have the wealthier states. Certainly it's almost exclusively blue states, democratic states that have passed it, where you had a Democratic legislature, Democratic governor, so you're seeing those differences. But even that being said, still looking at Connecticut, even though it fits in that higher income and the blue state, it still shows that here are the steps that can be taken. Here's how you can implement this program. And not only it be on time, on budget, successful, also popular that, as you talked about in the beginning of the podcast, of how many people use it, it. It caught on very quickly. And that's not always the case with these new programs, because people are confused. Businesses may be confused in the beginning, just not everyone knowing. Oh, do I qualify? And if so, what do I have to do in order to actually get the benefits? And so having a good education. Kind of strategy of getting the information out to people is really important, and certainly too I mean, Connecticut is a relatively smaller state that has helped to be able to get the information out to more people. But you can look at there's a lot of states in New England that are also small, that have not passed it, or that weren't able to pass it as quickly and as economically, efficiently as Connecticut. So I think you know much more about the details of Connecticut's program, but definitely this is showing other states it can be done, yes, it can be done on time, on budget, it can be successful. And so I would say other states, especially the ones in New England, the ones in the Northeast that haven't yet passed, it could look to Connecticut and sort of speak with your cohort to say, what did you do? What. Does it actually look like the behind this?

Nancy Barrow: 25:02

Yeah, and I think that you see like the resources and benefits of Connecticut paid leave as an asset to women in their health care equality, which is important, yeah.

Megan Sholar: 25:10

100 percent! Lack of paid leave harms women in the home, because they are overwhelmingly the caregivers, and that's caregiver of children, but also caregiver of elderly parents, you know, sick family members and so not having paid leave. First of all, it from a practical standpoint, it hurts women financially because they're they're not getting paid. But there's also something much bigger to this is that it's just saying that we don't value caregiving in the US. There's very much this idea that when we say we value something, we put a numerical number on it, we give you a paycheck to say we're valuing what you're doing. And so when caregiving is not paid, when you're not giving that wage replacement, you are sending the message that we don't value it, that we we just take for granted that you're going to do this caregiving. And that's that's a larger problem in the United States, that much of our society and public policy is set up as if families still have the breadwinner, one one person that goes out into the world and works for pay, and then one person at home who is doing all of that care work but not getting paid for it. And that's just not the way that society is set up, but our policies still reflect that. A sociologist at University of Wisconsin Madison, a quote from her that I think sums it up, Jessica Calarco, she said that other countries have social safety nets. The United States has women!

Nancy Barrow: 26:55

Yeah, and caregiving. You know, we have this great caveat at Connecticut that it's by affinity, so you don't have to be blood related, and you take time away from work to take care of if your best friend had a hip replacement. You can take time off from work if you're going to be her caregiver to help her. You can take time away from work if it's if you're not married, but you live together, you know, if it's like family a neighbor. That's one of the things I love about Connecticut Paid Leave, and that we do really see caregiving as an important role, but how different families look these days.

Megan Sholar: 27:30

Yes, Connecticut stands out on that, and I love it. Yeah, I think, I think it just adds on to everything I just said about the value of caregiving that it a good reminder that it's not just about, oh, we're legally related or connected in this way. It's the actual act of caregiving, which can be done by someone in your family, but not necessarily and that. So it's, again, it's not putting a value just on familial ties or legal ties. It's actually putting a value on the caregiving itself.

Nancy Barrow: 28:05

Yeah, and so you don't have to quit your job. You can still get income replacement and go back to your position with FMLA. You know, we always tell them to take that together as well.

Megan Sholar: 28:15

Oh yes Because, as we said, for it's important for people. I think of all you know, of all ages, it's important for men, for women, for children, for businesses. But what I found over and over again is that it really harms women not to have it, as we already said, in the home, it it devalues care work, but as you just brought up, it harms them in the workplace, because they are the ones that are most likely to quit their jobs if they don't have paid leave, and then that can can add up over a lifetime of time away from the workforce. So you're paying less into Social Security, you're not getting raises, you're not getting that training, and your lifetime earnings are decreasing significantly, and that's going to harm women in a variety of ways. Yeah, as you and I just talked about before we started recording the new report that comes out that shows the new report that just came out that showed that women are not getting promoted at the same level as men, even when they're doing remote work. Yeah. And part of it is women are self reporting that they are less likely to go up for promotions in some cases, and the number one reason they're citing is caregiving responsibilities.

Nancy Barrow: 29:32

Yeah, it's amazing. What would you like people to take away from this podcast?

Megan Sholar: 29:37

Megan, certainly the first thing, the thing that we kept saying is just that the United States doesn't have paid family leave at the national level. People that don't know that? Yes, although I feel like people that are listening to this podcast would probably already know that, but I would say two things. One is a better understanding of the ways in which. Okay, lack of paid leave hurts. Everyone hurts, women hurts, men hurts, children hurts, businesses hurts, the overall economy that I think people often just don't make those connections. But in my research, I've seen over and over so that's one thing, is just the lack of paid leave has such wide reaching negative effects. And then the second one is that states, especially a state like Connecticut that has really seemed to do it, to put this into place in a in a efficient and effective way that other states like Connecticut have shown it's possible, that it can be done. Connecticut did it, as you said, on time, under budget, and now have given out benefits to so many different people in Connecticut that it is possible to do and that it can be successful, and that this can set the stage for other states to do it, and to look at states like Connecticut and say, How did you do it? How did you set this up? As I said before, a lot of states had to start from scratch because they didn't have those SDI programs, those state disability insurance programs already set up. But now we've seen a lot of states are figuring it out. They have figured it out, which means more states can do it.

Nancy Barrow: 31:26

Yeah. Well, thank you, Senior Lecturer in the Honors Program at Loyola University Chicago. Megan Scholar, thank you so much for being on The Paid Leave Podcast. You had so much great information!

Megan Sholar: 31:39

Thank you, Nancy, it was a pleasure to be here.

Nancy Barrow: 31:41

It was awesome to talk to you! For more information or to apply for benefits, go to ctpaidleave.org. This has been another edition of The Paid Leave Podcast. Please like and subscribe so you'll be notified about new podcasts that become available. Connecticut Paid leave is a public act with a personal purpose. I'm Nancy Barrow, and thanks for listening.