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On Sunday, Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand said that now is the time for Democrats to implement a national paid leave program for workers. She is looking to sway fellow Democratic Senator Joe Manchin to back including the policy in President Biden’s social spending and climate change package. Gillibrand said, “Paid leave is one of the solutions if your main concern is strengthening social safety nets like Social Security. I’m hopeful that if I can use the next three weeks to impress upon Senator Manchin that some things can only be done with Democrats only, that now is the only time to do that, perhaps in the next decade”. Gillibrand has been a leading proponent of a paid family and medical leave program and said she has been speaking with Manchin about the terms of a proposal that would garner his support.

However, President Biden’s initial sweeping plan to expand the nation’s social safety net included 12 weeks of paid leave, a revised version of his proposal omitted the policy because of objections from Manchin. The House reinstated a scaled-down paid family leave provision and provided 4-weeks of leave in its bill, called the Build Back Better Act, which cleared the lower chamber Friday. The legislation that ultimately passes the Senate is expected to differ from the House’s bill. Gillibrand said she would be grateful if the Senate’s version matches the 4-week program. She said, “That would be a great start to have universal paid leave for all people, all workers, and we know paid leave helps people get back to work. We know if it’s parental leave, parents, mothers are 40% more likely to get back to work if they have paid leave”.

Gillibrand added, “It goes to Senator Manchin’s concern that he wants to strengthen our social safety nets. He wants to strengthen Social Security. That’s what paid leave does. It gets people back to work. It allows people to stay in the workforce even when there’s a family emergency”. She said Manchin has come a long way in moving toward support of paid leave, but she warned that while the senator from West Virginia is hoping for bipartisan support of such a measure, that is unlikely. Gillibrand also said, “The bipartisan ideas he has, they will not come to fruition with the Republican senators that are interested in paid leave today because they aren’t interested today in a universal plan that’s an earned benefit. So that’s why I think for Senator Manchin, now is the time if he has a vision for what he wants to do. Putting it in this Dem-only proposal is the only opportunity in my opinion”.