Giving Compass' Take:

• Sam Abbott urges the US federal government to take a lesson from existing state paid leave programs in assisting workers during COVID-19.

• Members of which communities are most disparately impacted by a lack of paid leave? What can you do to encourage legislation for more equitable paid leave programs?

• Find resources for donors to support displaced workers and other coronavirus relief efforts.

Even before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, addressing conflicts between family and job responsibilities without access to paid family and medical leave was a challenge for U.S. workers. The current public health crisis and related illnesses and school and business closures exacerbate this challenge. While some workers can count on their employers to provide them with paid leave, it is rare: Only 18 percent of private-sector workers have paid family leave and 44 percent have paid personal leave though their jobs. Access to these benefits drops precipitously for lower-income and part-time workers.

Filling these gaps, eight states and the District of Columbia have developed their own paid leave social insurance systems, expanding leave access to most of their states’ private-sector employees.

Then, Congress, recognizing the importance of paid leave during a public health emergency, passed the Families First Coronavirus Response Act. The new law provides the first federal guarantee to U.S. private-sector workers for paid sick days, which cover a short time away from work to deal with an illness, and paid family leave, which covers longer absences from work to care for a loved one.

This is an historic development for working families, but it is an imperfect solution. The law is temporary, carves out a wide swath of employees who cannot access paid leave, and only offers paid family leave for parents whose regular childcare provider is unavailable.

While more data on the new federal paid leave system are surely forthcoming, the existing state-level programs offer important immediate insights into how paid leave can support workers during a period of crisis. How they responded in the early days of the pandemic is an important lesson for policymakers considering a permanent and comprehensive federal paid leave program.

Read the full article about state paid leave programs by Sam Abbott at Equitable Growth.