News & Stories

The moral and ethical bottom line of family leave insurance is clear: No one should have to risk their job to care for a loved one; nor put loved ones at risk in order to keep a job. But opponents of the idea are not fond of talking about the hard choices facing working families […]

New Jersey Star columnist Thurman Hart takes good aim at specious arguments used by some opponents of family leave in his state, and he challenges those who disagree with him to back up their own points with facts instead of ideological opinions. With family leave insurance now the law in Washington, all families can look […]

A few corrections and clarifications to the January 28th op-ed in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer by Carl Gipson of the Washington Policy Center: 1) “The committee failed to find a funding mechanism, even though benefits kick in Oct. 1, 2009.” The Joint Legislative Task Force on Family Leave recommended using the state general fund for start-up […]

Amber Campbell’s recent column in the Beacon Hill News & South District Journal is a case study of how a lack of affordable quality child care is hobbling Washington’s current and future economic growth: Heidi Baxter – first-time mom, Valley resident and career lawyer – said the search [for childcare] “was such a nightmare” that […]

From the New Jersey Star-Ledger: Lawmakers will put…[a] paid family leave bill back on the table tomorrow, when a Trenton hearing considers whether to expand New Jersey’s temporary disability insurance program to pay six weeks of publicly funded wages to workers who take time off from their jobs to care for families. One of the […]

The Labor Department announced proposed changes to regulations governing the Family and Medical Leave Act. If approved, the changes would be the first in more than a decade to regulations that give workers unpaid leave to deal with family or medical emergencies. The Seattle Times/AP article doesn’t give many details: While refusing to outline the […]

Seems like we’ve always got a reason to say “thanks, Mom!” no matter how old we get. MomsRising.org – the so-called “naptime activists” – have been a potent force behind many state and local government efforts to promote policies that make work more family-friendly – including Washington’s paid family leave law. State and local governments […]

A great article in Monday’s Oregonian details why unpaid leave (in this case, sick child leave, but it’s equally applicable to family leave) just doesn’t go the distance for working families: …parents are more likely to take ailing children to child care and providers are more likely to feel pressure to keep them. Frazzled parents […]

Great day in Olympia for family leave – a group of four mothers from MomsRising.org, with babies and toddlers in tow, visited legislators to deliver fortune cookies to legislators with messages from MomsRising members like: Voting for fully funded Family Leave Insurance makes your constituents very happy! Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown (Spokane) got the […]

Add this to the pile of research showing Washington’s minimum wage, which includes an automatic cost of living increase, is a smart step for our state: The state’s controversial law calling for an automatic review of the minimum wage each year does little to harm business and benefits the vast majority of low-paid workers, says […]

Gary Crooks writes in the Spokesman-Review: “The best argument against Washington state’s minimum wage is that it is the highest in the country. That’s not to say that it is historically high when adjusted for inflation, because it isn’t. But being No. 1 in that category can turn off businesses that might otherwise move here. […]

A small correction to the Olympian’s coverage of paid family leave: “…the paid-family-leave program…is scheduled to offer new parents $250 a week for up to five weeks beginning in 2009. Democrats couldn’t agree on how to pay for the program last year and instead created a task force to study the subject. “The group suggested […]

Robert Kuttner is co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect magazine, as well as a Demos Distinguished Senior Fellow. He has also authored eights books. For four decades, Bob’s intellectual and political project has been to revive the politics and economics of harnessing capitalism to serve a broad public interest. He has pursued this ideal […]

Add this to the list of reasons why: 1) Washington State is making the right decision by funding paid family leave for new parents; and 2) Why Washington legislators should fund full-day kindergarten within the next five years, rather than waiting for ten: A new study by the Educational Testing Service – which develops and […]

You’ll hear opponents of paid family leave bemoan the costs. Leaving aside the fact that family leave insurance strengthens families, promotes early learning and public health, and bolsters our state’s commitment to giving every child a strong and healthy start in life, such arguments also ignore the fact that paid family leave can actually save […]