Vast majority of workers still don’t have paid leave, though federal workers do

During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump backed an idea from his daughter, Ivanka Trump, to provide paid maternity leave for workers, rather than the 12 weeks of unpaid leave offered by the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993.

Trump did enact landmark unpaid leave legislation for a small slice of the workforce: federal employees. But the vast majority of workers still do not have a guarantee of paid parental leave.

The National Defense Authorization Act signed by Trump in December 2019 included provisions that cover most of the federal workforce. The program takes effect in October 2020. 

The legislation included up to 12 weeks of paid leave for most civilian federal employees after the birth, adoption or fostering of a child. That's more than double the length of leave Trump had promised.

Democrats, including Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York and Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, played key roles in reintroducing the Federal Employee Paid Leave Act in March 2019.

Trump fully embraced the provision in a letter he released after signing the defense bill. "Before I was President, I promised to deliver Paid Family Leave for workers across the nation. I am proud to report that after decades of empty promises and inaction, the legislation I have signed into law provides 12 WEEKS OF PAID PARENTAL LEAVE FOR FEDERAL EMPLOYEES," Trump wrote.

The law does not include paid leave to care for a sick relative, but it does cover both maternity and paternity leave. Megan Sholar, a lecturer at Loyola University Chicago, praised the law's gender neutrality.

"Singling women out with maternity leave, rather than gender-neutral parental leave for all, would have negatively affected women's employment prospects by painting them as potentially more expensive workers," Scholar said. "It would have also reinforced the idea that women are and should be the primary caregivers."

The new law represents a significant advance for the 2.1 million-employee federal civilian workforce. But the other 150 million-plus workers outside the federal government remain in the same situation as they were when Trump made his pledge: They lack a legal guarantee of paid leave for a new child. Federal data shows that only between 12% and 25% of the overall civilian workforce had paid parental leave in 2018. The remainder were not helped by the law Trump signed.

We rate this a Promise Broken.