Sen. Marco Rubio Marco Antonio RubioFlorida state senator announces bid for Demings's House seat GOP senators introduce resolution condemning antisemitic violence amid 'horrific' spike in attacks The Hill's Morning Report - Presented by Uber - One year later — has George Floyd's killing changed the world? MORE (R-Fla.) on Thursday rolled out legislation to create a paid parental leave benefit, furthering a push from Republicans to take action on the topic. Rubio’s bill would allow new parents to receive early Social Security benefits to use for paid leave, in exchange for delaying the collection of Social Security benefits by about three to six months when they retire. “For the Republican Party [paid leave is] a new issue. It’s an issue that’s traditionally associated with the Democratic Party and the left,” Rubio said at a press conference Thursday. “But I don’t think issues that are good for our children and good for families should be ideological or partisan.” ADVERTISEMENT Republicans have been traditionally been reluctant to push for federal paid family leave programs due to concerns about increasing taxes and the size of government. But more recently, Republicans have been expressing interest in taking on the issue. The tax-cut law President Trump Donald TrumpTrump lashes out after grand jury seated for New York criminal probe Schumer tees up vote on Jan. 6 commission bill Senators struggle to save Jan. 6 commission MORE signed in December provides tax credits to companies that provide paid leave to their workers. And paid family leave has also been an issue stressed by Ivanka Trump Ivanka TrumpMichael Cohen predicts Trump will turn on family after revelation of criminal probe Eric Trump buys .2M home near father's golf club in Florida Melinda Gates tapped divorce lawyers in 2019 after Epstein links to husband: report MORE, the president’s daughter and adviser. Ivanka Trump said Thursday at an event hosted by Axios that she’s looking forward to reading the text of Rubio’s bill “and reacting to it.” She also acknowledged that a bill on the paid leave issue is unlikely to become law this year. “Really, at this point, we’re curating ideas with the hope of being able to build consensus, but it will take time,” she said. “I’m cautiously optimistic that it can happen next year.” Rubio agreed that it would take time to pass legislation because it’s “pretty significant reform.” He said that Ivanka has encouraged Congress and stakeholders to have a “competition of ideas,” and that he sees is proposal as an “opening bid” and hopes other proposals also emerge. Under Rubio’s bill, which he introduced this week, a new parent that elects to participate would receive an amount equal to three months of what they’d get in Social Security benefits. Households that receive the benefit can use it however they want as long as they take at least two months of leave, and spouses in two-parent households would be able to transfer the benefits to each other, according to Rubio’s office. Rubio’s office said that most parents making below the median family income of about $70,000 would be able to have the benefit cover more than 70 percent of their wages for two months, and that many parents on the lower end of the income spectrum would be able to use the benefit amount to help finance longer-term parental leave. Parents are eligible to receive the benefit if they meet certain work-history requirements. Stay-at-home parents who have past substantial work history would be eligible. The bill includes a three-year expiration date, which Rubio’s office said was included because the bill wouldn’t be scored accurately by the Congressional Budget Office without a sunset. Rubio said his goal is to create a permanent policy. Rubio spoke about his bill at a press conference with Rep. Ann Wagner Ann Louise WagnerMissouri Republicans move to block Greitens in key Senate race Democratic Kansas City, Mo., mayor eyes Senate run The Hill's Morning Report - Presented by Emergent BioSolutions - House GOP drama intensifies; BIden sets new vax goal MORE (R-Mo. ), who plans to introduce similar legislation in the House in September. Wagner said that her bill would also allow new parents to receive paid leave through early Social Security benefits, but that her measure would be paid for by having participants in the program have a small reduction in their retirement benefits for a period of time, rather than a delay of benefits at retirement. Addressing frequent conservative concerns, Rubio and Wagner stressed that their approach would not create new mandates for businesses or raise taxes. “It’s a practical, conservative solution for America’s families,” Wagner said. “It’s a smart policy that enables families to make their own financial planning decisions.” Rubio and Wagner’s proposals are based on a proposal from the conservative Independent Women’s Forum. The group’s president, Carrie Lukas, praised Rubio's measure. “The Rubio bill is a win-win for everyone: women, families, employers, employees, and the economy. Republicans and Democrats should get behind this important approach to paid leave,” she said in a statement. But the ideas in the bill have drawn some opposition. Some on the left are critical of the fact that the bill only focuses on leave for new parents and doesn’t also provide benefits for people caring for a sick relative or tending to their own medical issues. They’re also concerned it would lead to a cut in Social Security benefits for those who take the paid leave. Democrats have rallied behind a bill introduced by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand Kirsten GillibrandDemocratic feud erupts over scope of military sexual assault bill Overnight Defense: Austin, Bidens thank National Guard as Capitol mission ends | CBO estimates nuclear arsenal to cost 4B over 10 years | Senate Armed Services chairman backs change in prosecuting military sexual assault Senate Armed Services chair throws support behind changing roles of military commanders in sexual assault prosecutions MORE (D-N.Y.), that would create a paid family leave program that’s paid for through a slight payroll-tax increase. Shilpa Phadke, vice president of the Women’s Initiative at the Center for American Progress, on Wednesday said Rubio's proposal was a “sham parental leave-only proposal” saying it was “out of touch with the needs of working families.” Rubio and Wagner rebutted the criticism that their proposals would force people to choose between their children and their retirement security, stressing that receiving the paid-leave benefit would be optional and that many people currently have no paid-leave option. “It doesn’t do anything to undermine your retirement. It keeps the same retirement, it just allows you to use a portion of it at a different stage in your life when you might need it more,” Rubio said. There have also been concerns from groups on the right that a paid-family leave proposal that takes the form of early Social Security benefits would hasten the insolvency of the Social Security trust funds, since most people that would collect the benefit in the near term won’t retire until after the trust funds’ expected exhaustion date. Rubio’s bill addresses this issue by having Treasury provide the Social Security program with a loan that would be paid back later with the savings realized once paid-leave recipients retire, the senator’s office said.<doc-sep>A bipartisan gathering of legislators is meeting Wednesday on Capitol Hill for a hearing on paid family leave. The hearing, held in front of a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Finance, is an attempt to shine a light on a crucial opportunity that research shows would strengthen both the economy and American families. But not all family leave plans are created equal. As a country, we already know what kinds of paid family leave systems work well, because they exist or will soon start in six states and Washington D.C. Building on that precedent, there’s a bill currently before Congress that would make the same type of program national. The FAMILY Act, co-sponsored by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, was first introduced in 2013. Unfortunately, Republicans have refused to back Gillibrand’s plan. Instead, Sen. Marco Rubio is backing a different, deeply flawed plan that critics say would undermine social security and ignore the caregiving needs of most Americans. (Having gotten a promise from Rubio during the 2016 election that he would educate himself on paid family leave, I’ve been especially disappointed.) Ivanka Trump’s apparent refusal to work across the aisle is particularly frustrating given how outspoken she has been on so-called women’s issues. Rubio has worked closed with Ivanka Trump, who publicly and repeatedly has supported the idea of paid family leave. But she also has refused to back the FAMILY Act. Sources tell Politico that she likes Rubio's plan and would "probably support it if it picked up support in Congress." This apparent reluctance to work across the aisle, however, is frustrating given how outspoken Trump has been on so-called women’s issues. If Trump really was committed to helping families, she would not be leaning towards a plan that will likely disadvantage large families and low-wage parents, as Elizabeth Breunig noted in the Washington Post recently. To make all this clear, we have to start with what currently exists in the United States, and what “paid family leave” even means. Under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), businesses that meet certain criteria are required to provide unpaid leave of up to 12 weeks for certain medical or caregiving needs, including caring for a new child. Unlike almost every other country on earth, the U.S. has no paid leave system even for mothers after giving birth. The term “paid family leave” has been used by the U.S. government to refer to policies that provide funds for people to care for family members. That can include caring for a new child, but it can also include caring for an elderly parent, for example. When many people hear the term, they assume it must be a requirement that businesses pay people for time off spent caregiving. That’s wrong. In California, New Jersey, Rhode Island and now also New York, Washington state, Massachusetts, and Washington D.C., paid family leave is an insurance system. Small payroll deductions, either from workers or from both workers and businesses, go into a fund. When workers need paid family leave to care for a child, a sick spouse, an elderly parent, or to recover from an illness themselves, they receive a portion of their pay from the fund. Businesses themselves are not required to pay salaries during leave. They can simply save the money or use it to pay temporary workers or overtime to existing employees. The results of paid family leave at the state level aren’t just good, they’re fantastic. In California, the overwhelming majority of businesses say it has had a positive, or at least neutral, effect on: “productivity (89 percent), profitability/performance (91 percent), turnover (96 percent), and employee morale (99 percent),” a study by researchers Eileen Appelbaum and Ruth Milkman found. And in New Jersey, when researcher Sharon Lerner visited 18 diverse businesses in 2014, she found that “six saw the law as neutral, while 12 felt it had a positive impact.” Meanwhile, the vast majority of voters — including majorities of Democrats, Republicans and Independents — support paid family leave. And why wouldn’t they? The studies have found that it helps grow the economy, keep people in the workforce and reduces dependence on public assistance programs. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. is co-sponsoring her own family leave plan. Jacquelyn Martin / AP file When I met with members of the previous Congress in 2015 to push them to support the FAMILY Act, the responses were consistent: Democrats said they support it and Republicans offered no arguments against it. But so far, no Republicans have been willing to sign onto it. Instead, Trump, Rubio and other conservatives have acted as though lawmakers need to create a solution from scratch. And now, according to numerous reports, Rubio based his plan on a proposal from a group called the Independent Women’s Forum. (Kellyanne Conway, counselor to President Donald Trump, is listed as a member of its board of directors emeritae.) Rubio's plan essentially would allow people to reach into their own Social Security funds to for leave. The problems with this approach are plentiful. As Slate notes, a study by the Urban Institute found that this plan “isn’t cost-neutral, as Republicans claim, and would cut or withhold Social Security benefits from future generations of parents — from a 3 percent reduction in retirement benefits for parents of one child to a 10 percent for parents of four children.” "Any plan that robs the Social Security trust fund will hurt low-income workers, seniors and women the most," Gillibrand said in a statement. "Women already receive less Social Security benefits than men, and this plan only exacerbates that problem." Rubio's plan essentially would allow people to reach into their own Social Security funds to for leave. The problems with this approach are plentiful. Also, the plan only offers parental leave, rather than paid family leave. The vast majority of people who take unpaid leave under FMLA actually use it to recover from illness or care for an ill relative — a spouse, child, or parent. Only 21 percent take it to care for a new child, according to the Department of Labor. "It is very encouraging that a growing number of lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle agree, at least in principle, that the United States needs a national approach to paid leave,” Vicki Shabo, vice president of National Partnership for Women and Families, told me for this column. (Like me, Shabo is part of a working group for paid family leave that advises Gillibrand’s office.) “But details matter tremendously,” Shabo adds, “and a program that covers only new parents and excludes millions of others who need family or medical leave, undermines social insurance protections without new revenue, fails to replace wages at rates that allow both lower-income and middle-income families to afford leave, and fails to provide employment security beyond what the FMLA provides is not the approach we support or the country needs." While many issues of our time are complex, paid family leave is an exception. As a nation, we already have all the information we need in order to know what works best and what American voters want. It’s time for the confusion and inaction to end. Paid family leave can happen through the FAMILY Act. It’s time to make it so. Josh Levs is an award-winning journalist, business consultant and the author of "All In." The United Nations named him a Global Champion of Gender Equality.<doc-sep>New parents face “the social insecurity of our time,” wrote Marco Rubio this morning in USA Today, with Missouri representative Anna Wagner. The pair were presenting a new parental leave bill, with a unusual “conservative” financing solution behind it. “It is estimated that just over one in 10 workers receives paid family leave from their employers,” wrote the politicians, “and those who do tend to be in highly paid and educated professions.” The US is one of only two countries worldwide (Lesotho is the other) that don’t force employers to offer parental leave. As Rubio correctly assesses, this causes “increased debt, welfare receipt, reduced birth weight and negative cognitive outcomes for children and increased family instability.” It also poses significant health risks for mothers and newborns. The bill, which will be introduced in Congress this week, proposes a solution unlike those that already exist in the rest of the world: Instead of mandating that employers cover family leave, or using taxes to pay for it, the new bill would ”give parents the option to pull a portion of their future Social Security benefits to finance paid parental leave.” In other words, parents would finance their time spent caring for infants with money borrowed from their future selves, according to the new bill. But that means choosing between their kids and their retirement. “Senator Rubio’s bill presents a cruel choice to American employees,” wrote in a statement Christine Blackburn, Policy Director of the American Sustainable Business Council (ASBC). “They should not be forced to choose between taking leave they need now or full retirement benefits.” Another solution to America’s absence of paid family leave was proposed in the Family and Medical Insurance Leave (FAMILY) Act in early 2017. Championed by Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, it would guarantee both family and paid medical leave to workers through a social insurance program modeled after a California policy which provides 12 weeks of paid leave.<doc-sep>
Sen. Marco Rubio says that going on leave from work to care for a family member should not be "bankruptcy-inducing event," as many workers across the country are forced to choose between taking a paycheck or spending time with their newborn children. Rubio, along with Rep. Ann Wagner, R-Missouri, plan to introduce the Economic Security for New Parents Act in the Senate on Thursday to help parents get two months of paid leave, offset by funds from their future Social Security benefits. It would be the first new leave option for families since the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) of 1993. That law ensures 12 weeks of unpaid leave for those seeking to care for a family member. Under Rubio's bill, employees would then delay taking their Social Security benefit for three to six months when they reach retirement age. "There's nothing we can do for our children that's better than allowing their parents to spend more time and be more involved in their lives, especially from their early days," Rubio told "CBS This Morning" on Thursday. He added, "I think it's wrong and we've all seen this -- people that work somewhere, and they have a child and after more than two weeks of a caesarean section or three weeks of giving birth, they have to hurry back to work because they can't afford to miss one paycheck." He said it was "startling" to hear how many first-time parents are forced to go on public assistance out of our fear they'd lose their jobs. Rubio told CBS that while he'd prefer funding for the leave to come from the private sector instead of through Social Security, "only 1 out of 10" employees have the ability to get their employers to cover paid leave. "If somebody has a better idea were open to it, if they have a better idea that doesn't raise taxes we're all open for it, but I can tell you this is a real problem," Rubio said. "If we are serious about helping our children, it begins from the day they are born." "What we're doing is giving people an option," he added. "No one is required to do this, but everyone will have the option of saying, 'I'm going to take some of my benefits,' these are your benefits, not anybody else's, and take a portion of that earlier because I need that money now." Meanwhile, as President Trump continues to push his own attorney general to end the ongoing Russia probe, Rubio told "CBS This Morning" that what he's focused on now is paid family leave, and is not going to "spend my time here in the U.S. Senate waking up every morning and responding to some tweet everyday." He noted, however, that after Republicans defeated an effort to provide additional funding for election security ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, that states "wouldn't even know what" to spend funding on if the measure had passed. "We've already provided a ton of money on election security," Rubio said. He added, "The money we've already appropriated is money that was based on professional assessment of what the needs were from a national level. If an additional amount is necessary in the future, we will provide it, but there's no outcry from states saying they need more money. They haven't even begun to spend the money they have now."