On February 1, 2023, Democratic lawmakers marked the 30th anniversary of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) with a press conference announcing a new legislative package to establish a paid family and medical leave program and to expand and modernize FMLA. The FMLA program has successfully allowed employees to take reasonable time off to
On Thursday, January 19th, 2023, Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen announced that the United States had officially reached its debt limit and that the Treasury Department is deploying “extraordinary measures” — in this case, suspending investments in government retirement funds — to avoid defaulting. In a letter to Congressional leaders, Secretary Yellen urged Congress
CSH released a new, first-of-its-kind national needs assessment of supportive housing, which was developed by looking at data across a spectrum of public systems and found that an estimated 1,125,000 homes are needed to meet the need for supportive housing. From the Summary: “Supportive housing is affordable housing with flexible services that help vulnerable people
On January 10th, 2023, New America announced updated and improved state paid leave briefs as well as information on wages, benefit caps, and payroll contributions for the coming year. The announcement offered resources that discussed the federal FMLA and the State Paid Family and Medical Leave Programs as well as information on duration and utilization
This past Congress has certainly had its challenges. Throughout the last Congress, CWLA has joined with national stakeholders and coalitions to increase funding levels across 44 separate funding programs – many of which received an increase in the spending omnibus, and some remained at level funding. While a notable disappointment was the failure to reauthorize
Last week, Congress continued to forge ahead on negotiating an Appropriations deal. Democrats and Republicans reached a topline spending agreement for a fiscal 2023 omnibus, three of the four top appropriators on Capitol Hill said late Tuesday, December 13th, 2022. Senate Appropriations Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said in a statement that negotiators had "reached a
The Continuing Resolution (CR) that Congress passed in September to avoid a government shutdown is set to expire this Friday, December 16th, 2022, and no Appropriations deal has been reached at this time. This week will be critical in determining if the twelve Appropriations bills will get done, or if another CR will be necessary.
The First Five Years Fund (FFYF) released the findings of two new polls conducted immediately following the 2022 midterm elections by the bipartisan team of Hart Research Associates and New Bridge Strategy. The surveys found that voters and small business owners across the political spectrum overwhelmingly endorse federal government action on child care and agree
The Continuing Resolution (CR) that Congress passed in September to avoid a government shutdown is set to expire next Friday, December 16th, 2022, unless lawmakers can pull together a budget or pass another CR. Reports from the Hill indicate that the Four Corners (the four leaders of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees) have continued
On November 30th, 2022, the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee (JEC)—led by Chairman Don Beyer (D-VA)—released a new report that highlights how the expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC) drove the largest-ever decline in child poverty in a single year in 2021. Child poverty fell to 5.2%, the lowest rate on record according to Census Bureau
