The U.S. Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau has funneled $1.1 million U.S. in grants to research how paid leave programs can be developed across the country.
Currently, just 12 per cent of Americans working in the private sector have access to paid family leave through their employers, according to a release from the Department of Labor, meaning they can’t care for their young children and aging parents without risking their jobs and losing money.
The grants add to the Paid Leave Analysis Grant Program that has, since 2014, awarded more than $3 million to support researching paid family- and medical-leave programs in 17 states and municipalities.
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The programs aim to help businesses reduce training costs and to keep workers on leave attached to the labour force.
“While Congress refuses to take action to make paid leave the law of the land, we have seen tremendous leadership at the state and local levels to expand access to these programs,” U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez said in a release. “The grants we are announcing today will help innovative state and local officials design paid-leave policies that work for their citizens.”