Indiana is getting a grant to study paid family-leave programs. It’s the latest round of money being handed out by the Obama administration to states, counties and cities. Sarah Fleisch Fink with the National Partnership for Women and Families says only 13 percent of workers in the U-S have access to paid family leave through their workplace, and only four in ten have it through short-term disability insurance. She says this kind of assistance can benefit the health of mothers and babies.
In this round of grants, just over one-million-dollars is being split between Indiana, Pennsylvania, and cities or counties in Colorado, Ohio and Wisconsin. The idea is for each to come up with the best ways they would implement a paid-leave program, then present their findings to the U-S Department of Labor – with the ultimate goal of advancing a national paid-leave standard.
Fleish Fink says this is the third year the grants have been awarded, but there’s no indication of whether they will continue once a new president takes office.
California, New Jersey and Rhode Island are the only states with paid family-leave programs. This year, New York adopted a paid family-leave program that will be phased in beginning in 2018. Some cities and counties around the country have put family-leave programs in place for government workers.