DeLauro Promotes Paid Sick Days & Other Family-Friendly Policies in Keynote Address

Press Release

DeLauro Promotes Paid Sick Days & Other Family-Friendly Policies in Keynote Address

Congresswoman Rosa L. DeLauro (Conn.-3) delivered a keynote address on family-friendly national work policies at a forum - Getting Real About Families; an agenda for shared prosperity. With recent reports of companies drastically cutting paid sick days, DeLauro focused on the Healthy Families Act in her remarks. This legislation would provide paid sick days to millions of Americans, so American workers would no longer have to choose between their health, their family's health and their jobs.

Below is the text of her remarks.

"Thank you Larry for that warm introduction. I am glad to be here for this morning's forum.

"For more than two decades The Economic Policy Institute has offered a clear and perceptive voice on behalf of America 's middle and low income families. In a city that is busy and crowded with think tanks, you have achieved great reach and impact.

"As a policy maker, I have time and again turned to your rigorous and honest research, your thoughtful analysis, and your powerful arguments for the straight story on the economics of globalization, labor markets, trade and education. You are always ahead of the curve with the latest, sharpest, brightest take on the biggest challenges facing our nation.

"Larry few people in Washington have done more to illuminate the American definition of WORK - to change our understanding of the complex relationship between our workforce, education, achievement, and prosperity - and to focus our attention on growing inequality in our nation. Thank you for your guidance and leadership at the helm of this important institution. And thank you for continuing to push bold new ideas at a time when we need them most. Last fall's election showed that America was ready for a new direction and EPI's Agenda for Shared Prosperity provides a valuable roadmap moving forward. Thank you, I am honored to speak at this important institution.

"Thank you as well to today's cosponsor The American Prospect - your journalism continues to guide the debate in Washington and around America in sharp and valuable ways. This month's special report on ‘Ending Poverty in America ' digs deep on an issue that too few writers and reporters are addressing today. Your March report on work and families presented, in clear terms, EXACTLY what is at stake when parents must struggle to maintain a delicate balance. The debate you inspire - the debate we continue here today - is that much better for your presence and insight.

"Also let me thank today's other participants. Later this morning, we will hear from my good friend Dr. Heidi Hartmann, President and Founder of the Institute for Women's Policy Research, and Research Professor at George Washington University . It is good to see you. Your research and teaching continues to offer a clear new path to expand the social contract and make opportunity real for more families.

"And Dr. Janet Gornick, Professor of Political Science, Baruch College , City University of New York will look at the ways other nations have regulated work hours to help families and compare them to the U.S. As someone fighting to make sure we put the best policies in place, studies like this could not be more important. Research like yours, shows us what is possible for our families and in our workplaces.

"I am delighted to be here and so glad, in particular, to join you this week of all weeks - it is just a two days since I took part as Co-Chair, of the National Summit on America's Children.

"On Tuesday, I helped lead a day-long gathering convened by Speaker Pelosi, with dozens of members of Congress and hundreds of academics and policy makers to hear from national experts on how best to utilize recent scientific findings about early childhood development to shape public policies.

"We are seeing that the latest research in biology, neuroscience, and social science shows that a child's earliest experiences have a long-lasting impact on his or her development, health, achievement, and livelihood as a productive adult. We know that 80 percent of brain development occurs by age three. And the young children we reach early are more likely to stay in school, go to college, and become successful, independent individuals.

"Right now there is a chasm between what we know is good for America 's children and what we actually do as country to make it happen.

"Ultimately however, these are not just children's issues, they are family issues. And we should implement policies which operate that way. This is about a public perspective that puts America 's working and middle class families center-stage. That's my real topic today.

"On Tuesday, we talked about reaching a turning point with our Summit on America 's Children. We talked about finally getting down to work in Congress and finally ‘getting real,' as you have so presciently titled our gathering here this morning. But those of you who have studied and fought on these issues for so many years, you know: we have a long way to go and many great challenges ahead of us.

"Indeed, while it is our new Democratic majority that even made this summit possible. I believe it represents a great deal of progress toward putting the issues we care about front and center.

"But, we have no illusions. Frankly, it is a battle everyday to turn the tide in our favor on behalf of families. And with a 15 seat margin in the House and 1 seat in the Senate, a Summit alone is not going to transform prospects for our families overnight. The fact is we have just begun to make our case and we face an economic reality much different than when we last controlled the Congress, 12 years ago.

"In recent years, the shape and role of America 's working and middle class families have has changed. So have its economic prospects. In 1975, less than half of mothers of school-age children worked outside the home, now it is nearly 70 percent. Today, one in four households are caring for an elderly relative and that number is expected to rise.

"According to the Work and Family Institute, in 1977, 34 percent of Americans said they felt work and family responsibilities conflicted ‘a lot' or ‘some.' In 2002, that number rose to 45 percent.

"These days, with the rising cost of living and the need to balance work and family, parents are stretched thin, struggling to make sure their children get the attention and care they deserve.

"Yet our federal policies have not made it any easier. Especially over the last 6 years of rising deficits, reduced domestic investment across the board, a free-for-all approach to outsourcing, and war spending that costs us $8 billion every month, we have seen more and more middle-class families struggling, in a volatile economy that is growing only in fits and starts.

"For most families they only see the downsides. Wage growth has slowed significantly. Household debt rose to an unprecedented 132.4 percent of disposable income last December. And personal savings continue to plummet: the NEGATIVE 1.0 percent rate for the first quarter of 2007, marked the eighth quarter in a row with a negative personal saving rate.

" America 's families cannot catch a break. It is a cliché, I know, but it is true: The promise of working hard and playing by the rules has been compromised.

"In the past, strong communities and stable employment in combination with strong labor and employer-based benefits meant you would probably be alright even in times of downturn. Strong growth would follow most downturns and its benefits would reach huge swaths of Americans, making it possible for more and more families to join the middle-class.

"But that is not happening these days. Despite the fact that the economy grew 4.2 percent last year, very little of this growth is reaching many families. Six million more Americans are without health insurance. Poverty is on the rise. Weekly wages in March 2007 are a mere 2.1 percent greater than they were in March 2001.

"It comes down to the basics - the soaring cost of health care and still sky-high energy prices - where the workers and families feel the pinch everyday. These are the factors which continue to widen the gap between a wealthy few and all those struggling just to get by.

"We have seen an unprecedented erosion of employer-provided health and pension benefits in recent years. Where in 1979 nearly 70 percent of those in the workforce had health insurance provided through their employer, today that share is less than 55 percent.

"And we are seeing this trend across the board economically, from high school graduates to college graduates who have seen the percentage of entry level jobs with health care drop by 7 percent in 5 years' time.

"As health care spending has soared, it has translated into skyrocketing costs for patients. Since 2000 insurance premiums have risen more than four times as fast as wages. At the same time, employees have to bear more of their cost. In 2003 one out of five Americans paid more than 10 percent of their income for health care.

"That may sound like just one more statistic - but consider it in light of the fact that half of all personal bankruptcies are due, in part, to medical costs and crises.

"It illuminates a pretty significant transformation in the way our social safety net functions. Jacob Hacker, an economist at Yale calls it the Great Risk Shift. In other words, we have seen a slow dismantling of our social safety net, a shifting of greater and greater risk onto individuals.

"Our fortunes are increasingly tied to an evermore volatile economy. Incomes and benefits are rising and falling far more sharply and suddenly, yet ordinary people are far less equipped to endure the roller coaster ride. When things do not go as planned, we are on our own with very limited protection and very little means to recover.

"But we can do better. What the political change in November 2006 says is that we are no longer powerless. I believe our policies as a nation should reflect a belief in the common good and a faith in mutual responsibility. History has shown that we can drive profound social progress and tremendous economic growth by empowering our communities and our families, with the basic rights and the best tools they need to thrive.

"These enduring values have the power to change the way we understand today's workplace - to transform the relationship between employers and employees and renew our commitment to corporation citizenship.

"Here is how - and here is why legislation like our Healthy Families Act is so important. Paid sick days are a basic right of people in the workplace. More than half of the workforce already has the right to take time off work when they are sick, or when they need to stay home to care for a sick child or elderly relative.

"But the truth is that 94 million people in our workforce do not have that right - something I think most Americans would find shocking. I think most Americans believe that being a working parent should not mean having to choose between your job, taking care of yourself, and taking care of your family - that paid sick leave is a matter of common sense - of values.

"Yet unlike 145 other nations, the United States does not guarantee a single paid sick day to workers - not one day. To be sure, we do have the federal Family & Medical Leave Act, which provides leave for serious illnesses. But that is unpaid and only covers about 60 percent of the workforce.

"As a result, nearly half of private sector workers, including more than three-quarters of low-income workers, have no paid leave of any kind - no paid sick days, no paid vacation, and no paid personal days. Nothing.

"Ensuring that employees are productive and healthy will help businesses too. As many businesses already know and as the Journal of Managerial Issues found, offering workers the option of taking time off to care for a sick family member has a positive effect on morale - and profits.

"We discussed this in depth at Tuesday's Summit, Jody Heymann with the Project on Global Working Families, spoke about paid sick days playing an integral role in maintaining America's competitive edge in global economy. ‘All of the 20 most competitive countries,' she said, ‘with the exception of the United States , guarantee paid sick days and 18 of them provide 31 or more days.'

"What does it say when Lesotho and Papua New Guinea are implementing paid sick days to give their businesses and their entire nation a competitive edge, yet America still does not get it?

"Well, I know Speaker Pelosi gets it, she was particularly engaged on this issue Tuesday, and I hope to soon get a hearing in House of Representatives, because we all pay the price for denying employees paid sick leave. That is what working parents learn when they go to work sick and infect their entire office - especially if they work in the field of health care or child care or handle food at a restaurant or food processing plant. Indeed, only 15 percent of workers in the food service industry have paid sick days, lower than every other major industry in our country, putting at risk hundreds, even thousands of patrons.

"The Healthy Families Act, which I introduced with Senator Kennedy, would correct this injustice requiring employers with 15 or more workers to provide 7 days of paid sick leave annually for their own medical needs or to care for of a family member. This is really about simply setting the floor on what we all can agree is good corporate citizenship.

"Working women and their families, in particular, would benefit from our bill. We all know that the brunt of the responsibility for caring for children still falls upon women - that is the way it is. Half of all working mothers report that they must miss work when a child is sick - and half of them do not get paid.

"Add to that, the fact that nearly a third of all working mothers fear their job evaluation will suffer as a result of their absence and you start to understand what this legislation could mean to them: peace of mind.

"When it comes to strengthening our working and middle class families, there is no simple answer. And while paid sick leave will make an incredible difference, it is no silver bullet. We must embrace a comprehensive pro-family agenda.

"That also means closing the wage gap between women and men. In today's world, economic reality and economic insecurity mandate two-earner families, where possible. In many families, the inequity of the pay gap falls hardest upon children, because so many working women are the primary breadwinners in their households.

"In fact, nearly two-thirds of working women provide half or more of their household income, and 41 percent of women are their families' sole source of income. Short-changing women of their due, short-changes their entire families, undermines their dreams, and limits their hopes.

"Today, even education does not significantly close the wage gap. A typical college-educated woman working full-time earned $9,500 a year less than a college-educated man, sending the message that no matter how hard women work or how advanced their degree, they will not be compensated fairly.

"No one should be forced to consider a trade-off between a full wage, a family life, and a good job. Yet that is what is happening. Men with children appear to get an earnings boost, while women get just the opposite. According to the GAO, men with children earn about 2 percent more than men without children, while women with children earn about 2.5 percent less than women without children.

"That is why I have reintroduced The Paycheck Fairness Act, together with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, to help address this problem and give teeth to the Equal Pay Act. The marketplace alone will not correct this injustice - we need a legislative solution. And I am glad to report that for the first time since I introduced the bill in 1997, we held a hearing this year on the issue in the House of Representatives. It took place on Equal Pay Day: April 24th. By erasing this gap in the labor market we can help families gain the resources they need to ensure their children have access to a better future in the 21st century.

"The same values even apply to the food on our families' kitchen tables. As Chairman of the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee, I want to take the lead with the Nutrition title in the upcoming Farm Bill to fix the current food stamp benefit -- shockingly inadequate at about $1 per person per meal. By increasing the standard deduction to pre-1996 levels we can boost a typical family's monthly benefits by $24 and seriously reduce the number Americans suffering poor health and nutrition.

"The list goes on and on. There is no limit to what we can do to improve the odds for families' success. As Democrats, now with the majority, I believe we have a responsibility confront the unique challenges that INCOME INSECURITY places on working and middle class families.

"This is not just a question of trade or globalization - although that is critical. And we cannot talk about it in that way alone. To be sure, I think the economist Alan Blinder is accurate when he suggests we have only seen the tip of the iceberg when it comes to off-shoring. Digital bits of data zipping around the globe have put more and more work and business up for grabs. Once-stable jobs and services that were once performed and provided locally are suddenly at risk of leaving. And with a weak safety net stretched thin, individuals who bear the brunt have a very difficult time bouncing back.

"And so when we look at this as Democrats, we should recognize not just a changing definition of trade, but also a new sign - a clear sign that we need to strengthen working and middle class families' income security. There is a lot we can do:

"It is only a matter of time before the minimum wage passes benefiting millions of children and workers profoundly.

"And we need to support new initiatives such as providing families the resources they need to care for their children. Instead of giving money in vouchers to parents to put their kids in day care and get back to work, my legislation the Choices in Child Care Act would provide the money for one parent to stay home and care for their children in the first two years. Parents, not just upper-class parents, deserve to choose whether they rejoin the workforce or stay home to care for their infant child.

"We also need to make sure the EITC, Medicaid, and SCHIP reaches everyone who is eligible and then expand their reach further.

"And we need to create a better environment with a bigger pay-off for low-wage work. In other words we need constantly be asking how to "make work pay." That is what Gordon Berlin of the MDRC spoke about at our Tuesday Summit, when he gave us a wide-ranging summary of research that shows income support for parents - efforts like the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit - effectively boost employment, employment stability, increase earnings and income, reduce poverty, and even improve kids' school performance.

"I believe we can move in that direction most immediately by fixing the child tax credit which, under current law, fails to fully cover 20 million children in working families earning too little to get the full credit. Of those affected, 7 million get no credit at all. It is not unreasonable to expect our tax to help hard working families achieve the American Dream.

"Other members are bringing new ideas to the table as well - interesting initiatives like wage insurance and reexamining the way we compensate part-time and contract workers. You are probably familiar with Lynn Woolsey's omnibus bill "The Balancing Act" which makes major investments in our child care system and provide incentives for companies to offer their employees more flexible schedules.

"I am here to tell you that there is REAL movement in the Congress to confront income insecurity and help families deal with new economic pressures. We understand that it is critical to help families succeed and stay competitive as a nation.

"Regardless of any particular piece of legislation or policy - whether it is child care, paid sick days or pay equity - I believe, our decisions and actions must reflect a broader worldview that begins with equal opportunity, giving people who strive to better themselves the tools to succeed, honoring the work and responsibility that is the basis of our shared community.

"In the end, it is about coming together as a national community and facing the great challenges ahead of us - challenges that the federal government has the ability, the capacity, the resources, and the moral obligation to help us meet."

Source