An earlier piece of reconciliation adopted through the House Ways and Means Committee is the creation of a paid family and medical leave program. The version the House Committee has envisioned could start as early as 2023, and lost wages would be replaced on a sliding scale formula based on a worker’s annual income.
An employee could receive up to 12 weeks of leave for the birth or care of a child (including the adoption of a child) or for the care of another family member. Research cited by Pew Research highlights that the United States is out of step with much of the rest of the world when it comes to family leave. In the PEW research, across 41 countries, America is the only one that does not mandate paid leave. The US similarly lags behind peers in paid sick leave, with no federal sick leave mandates.
As far as national action, the only time the United States acted on a national policy was in 1993 at the start of the Clinton Administration when the current law was enacted, but the 1993 law did not mandate paid leave but just limited time off and it applied only to “large” employers.