Ivanka Trump leads a meeting on human trafficking at the White House May 17, 2017. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
On the campaign trail, President Donald Trump promised six weeks of paid leave for new mothers. His official 2018 budget goes a step further, extending the benefit to new fathers and adoptive parents, as well.
Like the plan Trump proposed in September 2016, the budget calls for a paid leave program rooted in the existing unemployment insurance system. The program would require states to adopt six-week paid parental leave policies, while giving the states leeway in how they administer it.
The White House anticipates the program would cost about $18.5 billion over 10 years, according to the budget document. Financing would come from reforming unemployment insurance — including reducing fraud, helping unemployed individuals get back to work and encouraging states to maintain unemployment trust fund reserves.
The budget does not specify how much money a family would receive during their paid leave period.
The United States is the only industrialized nation that does not guarantee paid leave for new parents. Only 12 percent of private-sector workers have paid family leave through their employers, according to the Department of Labor.
Trump's daughter, Ivanka Trump, often gets credit for encouraging her father to make paid family leave a priority.
White House budget director Mick Mulvaney told reporters that he supports the paid leave program because he believes it would help the economy grow.
"We try and create the environment where people are more comfortable going back to work and staying at work knowing that if they do have a child, they'll be able to spend time with that child under the paid parental leave program," he told reporters May 22.
The White House budget is only a proposal. Congress would have to pass legislation for Trump's six-week paid leave plan to become reality. It could hit roadblocks among Republicans who oppose paid leave and Democrats who support a more robust program.
But the document reflects Trump's policy priorities, and so we rate his promise to provide six weeks of paid maternity leave In the Works.
