The Family and Medical Leave Act has been good for US businesses, helping to stabilize the workforce and keep the country competitive, President Biden said last week in observing the act’s 30th anniversary.
The act, the first piece of legislation President Clinton signed into law after taking office in 1993, allows eligible workers to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave during any 12-month period to care for a seriously ill family member or a new child or to recover from a serious illness.
“Family Medical Leave isn’t only for workers and families,” Biden said at a Thursday event at the White House, according to a published transcript. “It’s good for business. …[I]t has increased the overall [gross domestic product] by well over a trillion dollars. It’s done a lot of really, really good things. When workers can take leave — when they’re able to do that rather than have to stay in their job, they’re better off and the businesses are better off as well because things get done.”
The FMLA, the president said, is necessary if the United States is to remain competitive on the world stage. “How can we compete in the global economy if millions of American parents, especially moms, can’t join the workforce because child care or eldercare costs them more than their paycheck?” he said.
Biden noted that millions of workers, especially women, face difficult choices between keeping a paycheck and caring for their family or themselves. In long-term care, 80.9% of the direct care workers are women, according to the think tank Economic Policy Institute.
Before the FMLA, Vice President Kamala Harris said during the ceremony, “women faced impossible choices — the choice either to take care of a loved one or keep a job, the choice either to protect one’s health or protect one’s livelihood.”
Thirty years ago when the act was signed into law, the United States ranked number six among advanced economies in the share of women in the workforce, according to Biden.
“Women are 50% of our population. We can’t reach our full economic potential if we leave half the workforce behind,” he said. “You know, I believe that one of the best ways to continue making progress is to ensure women are at every table where decisions are made. Every table.”
