Caring for babies or family with medical issues takes people away from their jobs. Some, especially the lowest wage earners, don’t get those jobs back. To support care work, Oregon was the ninth state to pass a Paid Family and Medical Leave Act.
The Build Back Better Act, which failed to pass the Senate last December, included some paid family and medical leave, or PFML. Andrea Paluso is Executive Director of Family Forward, an advocacy group that helped shape Oregon’s law. She told KLCC, “That we’re going to emerge out of a pandemic with no standards for sick time or medical leave, and remain one of the only countries in the world, that gives no protected leave at the national level, is shocking to me.”
For now, states are passing their own bills. Oregon’s supports people who are welcoming a new child through birth, adoption or foster care, or who are ill or caring for sick family, with up to 12 weeks of paid time off. Paluso said, “We’ve seen historically the impacts of not having this program in place are really held most by women and by people of color.”
She noted other states with PFML pay a flat percent of earnings. They argued for better coverage in Oregon. “We really wanted to approach having a structure that was more accessible by having our lowest wage workers earn 100 percent of their wages while out on leave,” Paluso said, “because if you’re earning minimum wage you really can’t get by with less.”
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