Expanded paid family leave could help businesses better compete | Opinion

Alison Weber is a Ph.D. candidate at Brown University School of Public Health.

Advocates have been pushing to expand paid family leave in Rhode Island for years, with some major wins this legislative session. On March 28, the Senate passed a bill, S2121, that would double the current amount of paid family leave to 12 weeks and expand the definition of eligible family members to include siblings and grandchildren. The companion House bill is up next for consideration.

To many, expanding paid family leave is a no-brainer. Opponents of the bill argue that expansion is bad for business, yet data show the opposite. Expanded paid leave allows parents to stay in the workforce after the birth of a child. Nearly half of new mothers with a high school diploma and one-third of mothers with a bachelor’s degree drop out of work in the first year of a child’s life. These workers are desperately needed in Rhode Island, where nearly 75% of the job postings were for positions requiring less than a bachelor’s degree. Paid family leave also reduces employee turnover, yielding cost savings in training, onboarding and hiring.

More: Are Rhode Islanders happy at work? Here's a look at the stats.

The Temporary Caregiver Insurance (TCI) program in Rhode Island allows small businesses to better compete with large organizations who can afford to offer paid leave benefits. TCI is paid entirely through employee contributions, with no direct cost to an employer. Eligible employees are eligible for up to six weeks of paid leave, at about 60% wage replacement, to care for an immediate family member. This program fills a critical need for fathers or non-birthing parents, most of whom take less than two weeks of leave after a birth or adoption. All Rhode Island parents are eligible for TCI.

Beyond the moral argument, expanding TCI may save costs for small businesses. For example, the small, nonprofit early learning center that I support has a workforce of nearly all women in their 20s and 30s, consistent with the demographics of the national care workforce. When employees take TCI, our center’s policy is to pay any difference between an employee’s regular weekly wage and the weekly value of any benefits received. In essence, we ensure employees are made financially “whole.” Further, we provide a minimum of 12 weeks of paid leave, so the center pays an employee’s full compensation after their state benefits are exhausted. For our small business, doubling TCI benefits to 12 weeks would save us money.

Rhode Island is falling behind our neighbors, with Massachusetts and Connecticut each offering 12 weeks of paid parental leave. In a poll on expansion of a similar 12-week paid parental leave program in California, run for more than 20 years, more than 70% of small businesses said the state benefit program helped with employee retention and helped them compete with large businesses. Moreover, 80% of business owners supported proposals to expand the program.

More: RI Senate approves bill to extend 'family leave' requirement to 24 weeks. What comes next?

The United States and only six other countries are without a national paid leave program, including the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea and Tonga. Nationally, only about 50% of workers have access to any sort of paid leave for caregiving. With efforts to pass paid family leave at the federal level floundering, states have an opportunity to step up and close this gap.

Improving the paid leave program would give Rhode Island businesses an opportunity to be more competitive in the job market, both regionally and nationally. Business owners: Think again about whether expanding TCI would actually hurt your bottom line. It might be worth another look.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: The Temporary Caregiver Insurance allows small businesses to better compete with organizations who can afford to offer paid leave benefits.