Academic Experts Make It Clear: Paid Family and Medical Leave Is a Smart Business Decision

NEW HAVEN, CT—Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) today hailed a letter by 203 business school faculty members supporting paid family and medical leave. The authors specifically cited the Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMILY) Act, authored by DeLauro, as legislation that “would help people to care for themselves and their loved ones while promoting workplace climates that are supportive and respectful.”

The letter can be read in its entirety here. Among the letter’s signers are three professors with the Yale University School of Management, located in DeLauro’s congressional district. They are: Amy Wrzesniewski, Olav Sorenson and James Baron.

“The Family and Medical Leave Act transformed American workplaces into more family-friendly, more productive and more efficient environments. Giving employees a modicum of leave to care for family has been good for business. The problem is that current law only requires unpaid leave and many eligible workers – as many as eight out of ten – simply cannot afford to take it. Being a working parent should not mean choosing between your job and taking care of yourself and your family. And, as the letter points out, paid family leave leads to a higher rate of retention, which benefits businesses seeking to control costs and maximize productivity. The FAMILY Act is good for American families and businesses. We can make this a reality for all workers. It is time.”

The FAMILY Act would establish a national paid family and medical leave insurance program, ensuring that American workers would no longer have to choose between a paycheck and caring for themselves or a family member. It would create an independent trust fund within the Social Security Administration to collect fees and provide benefits. This trust would be funded by employee and employer contributions of 0.2 percent of wages each, creating a self-sufficient program that would not add to the federal budget. Benefit levels would equal 66 percent of an individual’s typical monthly wages up to a capped monthly amount that would be indexed for inflation. The proposal makes leave available to every individual regardless of the size of their current employer and regardless of whether such individual is currently employed by an employer, self-employed or currently unemployed, as long as the person has sufficient earnings and work history.

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