On Dec. 22, 2017 the President signed the GOP-backed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act into law. While it’s most known for the sweeping tax cuts it’s aptly named for, the bill also includes a number of provisions, including a tax credit related to paid leave. This makes it the first paid leave measure at a national level.

Unlike other recently proposed paid leave bills this provision does not actually require employers to roll out paid leave to their workforce. Rather, starting this year, it will provide a tax credit to those employers that offer at least two weeks of leave and compensate their workers at a minimum of 50 percent of their regular earnings. To qualify for the credit employers must offer both full-time and part-time workers paid leave if they have been employed at the organization for at least a year. This overall effort can be viewed as a trial as it will end after 2019, unless extended by Congress.

For more on this, join Ernst & Young LLP professionals for a Jan. 31, 2018 webcast on important developments in employment-related federal business tax credits and what to watch for in 2018.

This is the most comprehensive article on paid leave we’ve seen in a long time.

Here are 10 story highlights – and why this news is so significant to American workers, business and the U.S. economy:

• Starbucks just announced it is expanding paid leave to hourly workers.
• This follows the same recent news by Walmart.
• These are two huge employers of U.S. workers = huge impact in terms of increasing U.S. workers’ access to paid leave. Walmart employs 1.5 million in the U.S. alone.
• Chart/ visual shows paid leave at about 20 of the U.S. largest companies.
• Most important takeaway in this news: 1) We are increasing access for hourly workers, not just corporate employees. This is huge progress for equality. 2) Let’s acknowledge the role of the new tax credit at play here. It’s a sign that the effects of low unemployment have reached companies that rely on low-wage workers. Both companies credited tax cuts. 3) This is particularly significant because the retail industry is traditionally known to have low profit margins, making it more challenging to offer extra employee benefits and supports. 4) The tipping point. Industries benchmark against competitors. This news will have a domino effect.
• “A corporate person having a child versus someone lower having a child, there’s no difference — that child still needs its parents,” said Paris Mendez, who loads trucks at a Walmart distribution center in Smyrna, Del.
• Paid leave is becoming a gender neutral conversation… men are caregivers too!
• And paid leave helps keep women in the workforce which is good for business and good for the U.S. economy.
• Americans are not ambivalent about whether paid leave helps workers. In a recent Pew Research Center survey, 94 percent said it would help families, and two-thirds said it would help the economy.
• Business leaders and decision makers are asking us to “show them the ROI of paid leave.” Here it is: Research has found that mothers who take paid parental leave are more likely to be working a year later, and less likely to receive public aid. It also improves mothers’ physical and mental health; the duration of breast-feeding; babies’ health and development; and gender equity. When fathers take such leave, research shows, they are more involved in their children’s lives years later; their children are healthier; and mothers have increased earnings and better mental health.

Find the full story here. 

What happens when 280 companies get together to talk about the benefits and challenges of paid leave programs? Insightful conversation. Evolving perspectives. Even an emerging consensus.

Earlier this month we at The Paid Leave Project and the Disability Management Employer Coalition (DMEC) hosted an interactive, national webinar to discuss a developing workforce trend: paid leave as an important component of building a 21stcentury workforce.

More than 280 organizations nationwide joined the wide-ranging discussion about what’s required to build the business case for paid leave. We were lucky to be joined by two outstanding co-presenters:

• LeaveLogic: CEO Anna Steffeney made the conversation real by walking through the data that demonstrates the actual business advantages of paid leave programs.
• Nestlé USA: Veronica Scalzo, manager of benefits strategy and excellence at Nestlé USA, talked about Nestlé’s experience creating a best-in-class parental leave program.

It’s no secret: the environment facing U.S. employers is complex. Legal mandates related to paid leave programs are being proposed at city, state and national levels. Five states and the District of Columbia have already passed paid leave laws, and more than 18 states are actively discussing enacting a law. Employers, especially those who operate across state lines, often have more than one (sometimes up to six) paid leave laws to navigate.

One underlying thesis was confirmed by those attending the webinar: companies know that paid leave will help them attract top talent and keep good employees. But the path to establishing a paid leave program can be vague and complicated.

Companies may initially be deterred by what they think a paid leave program will cost or because they don’t know how to establish metrics to accurately assess the success of a program. Faced with these challenges, leading drivers for adoption often end up being employee demand, industry pressure or a legal mandate.

Yet paid leave programs are becoming increasingly important. Today’s millennials, who are steering the way toward a 21stcentury workforce, demand more workplace flexibility than ever. Companies need to get creative to develop programs that attract top performers and support their bottom-line business objectives.

That’s where The Paid Leave Project and LeaveLogic can both help. We have resources to help companies create paid leave programs that work for them and their employees.

During the webinar, I was honored to share an overview of The Paid Leave Project Playbook, a suite of tools and resources that help employers successfully build or expand their paid leave benefits. Anna Steffeney, CEO of LeaveLogic, spoke about ways to measure the ROI of paid leave, including employee retention, talent attraction and costs. Veronica Scalzo, manager of benefits strategy and excellence at Nestlé USA, shared what Nestlé has learned and the early results the company sees.

I think you will find the discussion interesting: listen to the archived event or access the presentation deck. For additional resources, visit:

• Disability Management Employer Coalition
• LeaveLogic
• Nestlé USA Parent Support Policy

My sincere thanks to DMEC and my co-presenters for sparking such an intriguing discussion of how paid leave programs can help shape our 21st century workforce. This is one conversation that is just beginning.

Policy is the newest resource to help employers bring effective paid leave benefits to their business

SEATTLE, November 6, 2017 – The Paid Leave Project today released a template to help employers create an effective paid leave policy. The template is a new resource in the Paid Leave Playbook, which helps companies build a business case for offering paid leave to all employees.

The Paid Leave Project’s step-by-step Playbook equips companies to design custom paid leave programs that fit their culture and values. It provides comprehensive guidance and tools for human resource (HR) teams, legal and compliance officers, and business leaders who are ready to explore how paid parental, caregiver, and medical leave benefits make sense for their business and employees. The need for a policy template was surfaced through strategic conversations with large employers nationwide.

“Employers are facing new demands of the 21st century workforce,” said Angela Romei, director of The Paid Leave Project. “We’re finding paid leave to be a major benefit consideration for employees, and employers are working to figure out how to administer and pay for it.”

The environment facing U.S. employers is complex. Five states and the District of Columbia have already passed paid leave laws, and more than 18 states are actively discussing the potential for policy. As a result, arming employers with resources to successfully implement or expand their paid leave offerings is becoming critical.

The policy template was created in partnership with Jeff Nowak, partner, Franczek Radelet P.C., and author of the FMLA Insights blog, which provides practical guidance to employers when administering leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act. It is based on research conducted by Panorama and the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) over the past year. In February 2017, BCG and Panorama released Why Paid Family Leave Is Good Business, a summary report from initial research into the paid leave practices of more than 250 U.S. companies. The team also interviewed more than 55 HR and benefits administrators from some of the largest employers in the United States for their detailed experience creating and managing paid leave programs.

Employers can access the new policy template here. The Playbook also offers industry benchmarking and a cost calculator. To address the changing needs of employers, The Paid Leave Project will continue to expand the Playbook to help HR, benefits, and company leaders design custom paid leave programs that fit their culture and values.

The team from Ladies Get Paid sat down with Panorama’s own Angela Romei, to learn more about her advocacy work for paid family and medical leave at Panorama, a non-profit action tank working to solve global problems.

Continue to the full article at Ladies Get Paid.

When I first heard my daughter Lincoln cry as she came out of the womb at 6 a.m. on a Tuesday morning last September, I was numb, sleep-deprived, and in disbelief. The baby had arrived, and however brave a face I tried to put up, I was not ready. The day before, I had a life of my own that I shared with my pregnant partner Kara. The next, I was responsible not only for myself and an exhausted partner, but also a living, breathing, newborn daughter being handed over to me to claim as my own.

The disorientation was profound. And yet, as a father, I had not endured hours of labor and delivery. Nor did I have to carry a fetus for nine months. Nor did I have months of breastfeeding awaiting me.

Continue to the full article at The Good Men Project.