Paid leave's demise tough on backers in Manchin's home state
West Virginia Sarah Clemente snuggles with daughter Penelope Clemente, 6, at their home in Charleston, W.Va., on Saturday, Oct. 30, 2021. Clemente supported a paid family medical leave proposal that was removed from President Joe Biden's social spending plan because of opposition from West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin. (AP Photo/Jay Reeves)
Brittanie Hairston, right, hands out candy at a Halloween festival in Charleston, W.Va., on Friday, Oct. 29, 2021. Hairston supported a paid family medical leave proposal that was removed from President Joe Biden's social spending plan because of opposition from West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin. Hairston said paid leave would ease worries about what would happen in one of her sons got sick. (AP Photo/Jay Reeves)
JAY REEVES
Sun, October 31, 2021
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Jessi Garman, the mother of 3-year-old twin girls, has been searching for a job while also trying to have a third child with her husband, who's in the military. Optimistic that Congress finally would approve paid family medical leave, she thought the time seemed right.
But that was before opposition by Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia torpedoed the proposal. Both having another baby and getting full-time work doesn't seem feasible now, and Garman's hopefulness has turned into anger.
“It almost feels personal because Joe Manchin is my senator,” said Garman, of Milton.
Supporters of a decades-old proposal to let workers take time off for medical needs including childbirth, surgeries and end-of-life care are dealing with another disappointment in Manchin's home of West Virginia, a poor state with one of the nation's oldest populations.
State activists are still working on Manchin — a pro-leave group planned to rent an airplane and fly a banner over one of his political fundraisers at a resort this weekend, said Kayla Young, a member of the state House of Delegates who also is helping with an advocacy group, Paid Leave Works for West Virginia. They hope some version of paid leave may still be included in President Joe Biden's social spending package.
“It’s disheartening, but I don’t think it’s over yet,” said Young.
Sarah Clemente hopes Young is right, since paid leave would have made things easier with all three of her children. Instead, she said, she had to take off a total of two years and return to work just a week after the birth of her youngest — Penelope, now 6 — whom she and husband Ryan adopted from a relative who couldn't care for her.
“We followed the textbook on what you’re supposed to do to be responsible, successful adults. And while we are there now, there was a lot of suffering and heartbreak,” said Clemente, a 40-year-old health care manager. “And it's still hard.”
Biden initially proposed 12 weeks of paid leave for new parents, people caring for loved ones or people recovering from an illness, but it wasn’t included in a $1.7 trillion framework released by the White House on Thursday after Manchin’s opposition became clear. Manchin, whose support is crucial because of the slim Democratic edge in the Senate, said he wanted to avoid turning the United States into “an entitlement society.”
Democrats continue lobbying the senator, but he hasn't shown signs of budging despite proposals to trim leave from 12 weeks to four or to restrict it to just new parents. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York said she has spoken extensively with Manchin and he asked good questions, but he wasn’t focused on specifics of the proposal and had concerns about its cost.
In Manchin’s home county in northern West Virginia, Amber Gabor allowed that some time off would have come in handy when one of her kids — ages 2, 7 and 9, with another one expected in a couple of weeks — had to stay home for two weeks after a coronavirus case at his school. But 12 weeks of paid leave sounded excessive to her.
“I don’t see why you would need all that at one time, unless it was a maternity type of leave. But most (work) places offer that anyway,” said Gabor, who works from home doing customer service for a power company.
In the rural town of Spencer, dental receptionist Samantha Camp is one of those who say they will continue to get by without a paid leave option just as they always have — with difficulty.
Camp will keep paying about $50 monthly for the disability insurance she buys as a hedge against having to miss work because of a bone problem that resulted in hip replacement surgery last year. After the operation, she felt she had no choice but to return earlier than doctors recommended to her job at a small law firm where she worked at the time.
“It was very worrisome being with no income,” said Camp, 34. “The doctors wanted to put me off for about six weeks. I just knew I couldn’t do that financially. I was actually off only two and a half weeks.”
Chris Hedges, a partner in the law firm, said it gave Camp all the vacation time it could scrape together and having government-funded leave would have made things so much better.
“For small businesses to be able to afford paid leave is just about impossible," Hedges said. “The paid leave that would have come about through Biden’s bill would have helped. It would have helped us retain employees.”
On Charleston's west side, which is home to many working class and poor people, Brittanie Hairston said paid leave would have eased her worries about what would happen if one of her sons, ages 6 and 10, were to get sick with COVID-19 or something else.
“I can't go back to work until they're clear,” she said.
And Mildred Tompkins, who works with a health and education nonprofit in the state capital, said her own two daughters, who are in their 20s and working in relatively low-paid health care jobs, would have benefited from paid leave.
“For people that are just regular, right at the poverty line and working," she said, “it would make a difference.”
___
Associated Press writers John Raby in Fairmont, W.Va., and Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington contributed to this report.
JAY REEVES
Sun, October 31, 2021
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Jessi Garman, the mother of 3-year-old twin girls, has been searching for a job while also trying to have a third child with her husband, who's in the military. Optimistic that Congress finally would approve paid family medical leave, she thought the time seemed right.
But that was before opposition by Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia torpedoed the proposal. Both having another baby and getting full-time work doesn't seem feasible now, and Garman's hopefulness has turned into anger.
“It almost feels personal because Joe Manchin is my senator,” said Garman, of Milton.
Supporters of a decades-old proposal to let workers take time off for medical needs including childbirth, surgeries and end-of-life care are dealing with another disappointment in Manchin's home of West Virginia, a poor state with one of the nation's oldest populations.
State activists are still working on Manchin — a pro-leave group planned to rent an airplane and fly a banner over one of his political fundraisers at a resort this weekend, said Kayla Young, a member of the state House of Delegates who also is helping with an advocacy group, Paid Leave Works for West Virginia. They hope some version of paid leave may still be included in President Joe Biden's social spending package.
“It’s disheartening, but I don’t think it’s over yet,” said Young.
Sarah Clemente hopes Young is right, since paid leave would have made things easier with all three of her children. Instead, she said, she had to take off a total of two years and return to work just a week after the birth of her youngest — Penelope, now 6 — whom she and husband Ryan adopted from a relative who couldn't care for her.
“We followed the textbook on what you’re supposed to do to be responsible, successful adults. And while we are there now, there was a lot of suffering and heartbreak,” said Clemente, a 40-year-old health care manager. “And it's still hard.”
Biden initially proposed 12 weeks of paid leave for new parents, people caring for loved ones or people recovering from an illness, but it wasn’t included in a $1.7 trillion framework released by the White House on Thursday after Manchin’s opposition became clear. Manchin, whose support is crucial because of the slim Democratic edge in the Senate, said he wanted to avoid turning the United States into “an entitlement society.”
Democrats continue lobbying the senator, but he hasn't shown signs of budging despite proposals to trim leave from 12 weeks to four or to restrict it to just new parents. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York said she has spoken extensively with Manchin and he asked good questions, but he wasn’t focused on specifics of the proposal and had concerns about its cost.
In Manchin’s home county in northern West Virginia, Amber Gabor allowed that some time off would have come in handy when one of her kids — ages 2, 7 and 9, with another one expected in a couple of weeks — had to stay home for two weeks after a coronavirus case at his school. But 12 weeks of paid leave sounded excessive to her.
“I don’t see why you would need all that at one time, unless it was a maternity type of leave. But most (work) places offer that anyway,” said Gabor, who works from home doing customer service for a power company.
In the rural town of Spencer, dental receptionist Samantha Camp is one of those who say they will continue to get by without a paid leave option just as they always have — with difficulty.
Camp will keep paying about $50 monthly for the disability insurance she buys as a hedge against having to miss work because of a bone problem that resulted in hip replacement surgery last year. After the operation, she felt she had no choice but to return earlier than doctors recommended to her job at a small law firm where she worked at the time.
“It was very worrisome being with no income,” said Camp, 34. “The doctors wanted to put me off for about six weeks. I just knew I couldn’t do that financially. I was actually off only two and a half weeks.”
Chris Hedges, a partner in the law firm, said it gave Camp all the vacation time it could scrape together and having government-funded leave would have made things so much better.
“For small businesses to be able to afford paid leave is just about impossible," Hedges said. “The paid leave that would have come about through Biden’s bill would have helped. It would have helped us retain employees.”
On Charleston's west side, which is home to many working class and poor people, Brittanie Hairston said paid leave would have eased her worries about what would happen if one of her sons, ages 6 and 10, were to get sick with COVID-19 or something else.
“I can't go back to work until they're clear,” she said.
And Mildred Tompkins, who works with a health and education nonprofit in the state capital, said her own two daughters, who are in their 20s and working in relatively low-paid health care jobs, would have benefited from paid leave.
“For people that are just regular, right at the poverty line and working," she said, “it would make a difference.”
___
Associated Press writers John Raby in Fairmont, W.Va., and Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington contributed to this report.
Manchin said paid-leave programs could entice fraud, inquired about work requirements: report
John L. Dorman
Sun, October 31, 2021
Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Manchin pointed to potential fraud as one of his concerns about paid leave, per The Washington Post.
Manchin's opposition to federal paid leave has caused consternation among many of his colleagues.
Sen. Patty Murray said last week that she objected to "one man" denying US women paid leave.
For months, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia has served as a moderate Democratic bulwark against the most ambitious elements of the "Build Back Better agenda" championed by President Joe Biden, which ranged from two years of tuition-free community college to a broad expansion of Medicare to cover dental and vision benefits, among other proposals.
However, one of the most sought-after proposals among Democrats was the implementation of paid family and medical leave for the millions of Americans who currently aren't able to access such benefits.
The White House earlier this year sought to subsidize 12 weeks of paid sick and parental leave, costing $500 billion over a decade, in what would have been a larger $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill - which had already come down from the $6 trillion figure that Senate Budget Chairman Bernie Sanders of Vermont had envisioned.
With the reconciliation bill being pared down from $3.5 trillion to roughly $1.75 trillion, the proposal for paid leave, which had been at 12 weeks, was reduced to 4 weeks - but by week's end, the entire paid-leave plan was seemingly cut from the framework being crafted by Biden and congressional Democratic leaders.
Manchin has stood firm against paid leave, citing its cost and potential strain on the federal budget.
However, according to a Washington Post report that detailed the push by Democratic women to save the family leave last week, Manchin has a series of "evolving concerns" about the benefit program, based on the statements of five individuals who spoke anonymously.
Manchin was reportedly concerned that a paid-leave program could generate fraud, comparing such malfeasance to people who were able to illegally obtain unemployment benefits, per The Post.
The Mountain State senator also reportedly brought up work requirements, despite employment already being a key tenet of eligibility for paid-leave, according to several of the sources who spoke with The Post.
In stating his opposition, Manchin has also emphasized the logistical burden that small businesses might face due to federal paid-leave legislation and expressed concerns about the "solvency" of a new social spending program.
"To expand social programs when you have trust funds that aren't solvent, that are going insolvent - I can't explain that, it doesn't make sense to me," the senator said earlier this month. "I want to work with everyone as long as we can start paying for things. That's all. I can't put this burden on my grandchildren."
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York has lobbied Manchin to support paid leave. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
According to Pew Research, the US is a notable outlier when it comes to paid parental leave. Across 41 countries, America is the only that does not mandate paid leave. The US similarly lags behind peers in paid sick leave, with no federal sick leave mandates.
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, a fellow moderate who has also stymied Democratic leadership over the size of the reconciliation bill, introduced bipartisan family leave legislation in 2019 that would have given the families the option of advancing up to $5,000 of child tax credits to parents in the first year of a child's life or the first year of adopting a child. However, the bill stalled in Congress.
The senator was reportedly one of several female Democratic senators who called Manchin to lobby his support for paid leave, according to a source who spoke to The Post.
Numerous studies have found that paid leave has a positive effect on the economy and workers. Paid leave may lead to higher earnings for women, healthier children, and stronger economic growth, according to a study by the think tank, New America. An analysis from the University of Massachusetts Amherst found that paid leave would increase Americans' incomes by $28.5 billion every year.
Among the Democratic caucus, Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Patty Murray of Washington have been extremely vocal about the need for paid leave.
Gillibrand, who has championed the issue for years, worked the phones on Friday in an attempt to move Manchin on the issue, telling him she'd "meet him in DC or anywhere in the country" to discuss the issue, as she described to The Post in an interview.
However, the senior senator from West Virginia was not phased by her personal appeal to him.
Murray, who has served in the Senate since 1993 and has also long sought a paid-leave program, was unrelenting in continuing her fight.
"We're not going to let one man tell all the women in this country that they can't have paid leave," she said on Capitol Hill last week.
John L. Dorman
Sun, October 31, 2021
Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Manchin pointed to potential fraud as one of his concerns about paid leave, per The Washington Post.
Manchin's opposition to federal paid leave has caused consternation among many of his colleagues.
Sen. Patty Murray said last week that she objected to "one man" denying US women paid leave.
For months, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia has served as a moderate Democratic bulwark against the most ambitious elements of the "Build Back Better agenda" championed by President Joe Biden, which ranged from two years of tuition-free community college to a broad expansion of Medicare to cover dental and vision benefits, among other proposals.
However, one of the most sought-after proposals among Democrats was the implementation of paid family and medical leave for the millions of Americans who currently aren't able to access such benefits.
The White House earlier this year sought to subsidize 12 weeks of paid sick and parental leave, costing $500 billion over a decade, in what would have been a larger $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill - which had already come down from the $6 trillion figure that Senate Budget Chairman Bernie Sanders of Vermont had envisioned.
With the reconciliation bill being pared down from $3.5 trillion to roughly $1.75 trillion, the proposal for paid leave, which had been at 12 weeks, was reduced to 4 weeks - but by week's end, the entire paid-leave plan was seemingly cut from the framework being crafted by Biden and congressional Democratic leaders.
Manchin has stood firm against paid leave, citing its cost and potential strain on the federal budget.
However, according to a Washington Post report that detailed the push by Democratic women to save the family leave last week, Manchin has a series of "evolving concerns" about the benefit program, based on the statements of five individuals who spoke anonymously.
Manchin was reportedly concerned that a paid-leave program could generate fraud, comparing such malfeasance to people who were able to illegally obtain unemployment benefits, per The Post.
The Mountain State senator also reportedly brought up work requirements, despite employment already being a key tenet of eligibility for paid-leave, according to several of the sources who spoke with The Post.
In stating his opposition, Manchin has also emphasized the logistical burden that small businesses might face due to federal paid-leave legislation and expressed concerns about the "solvency" of a new social spending program.
"To expand social programs when you have trust funds that aren't solvent, that are going insolvent - I can't explain that, it doesn't make sense to me," the senator said earlier this month. "I want to work with everyone as long as we can start paying for things. That's all. I can't put this burden on my grandchildren."
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York has lobbied Manchin to support paid leave. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
According to Pew Research, the US is a notable outlier when it comes to paid parental leave. Across 41 countries, America is the only that does not mandate paid leave. The US similarly lags behind peers in paid sick leave, with no federal sick leave mandates.
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, a fellow moderate who has also stymied Democratic leadership over the size of the reconciliation bill, introduced bipartisan family leave legislation in 2019 that would have given the families the option of advancing up to $5,000 of child tax credits to parents in the first year of a child's life or the first year of adopting a child. However, the bill stalled in Congress.
The senator was reportedly one of several female Democratic senators who called Manchin to lobby his support for paid leave, according to a source who spoke to The Post.
Numerous studies have found that paid leave has a positive effect on the economy and workers. Paid leave may lead to higher earnings for women, healthier children, and stronger economic growth, according to a study by the think tank, New America. An analysis from the University of Massachusetts Amherst found that paid leave would increase Americans' incomes by $28.5 billion every year.
Among the Democratic caucus, Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Patty Murray of Washington have been extremely vocal about the need for paid leave.
Gillibrand, who has championed the issue for years, worked the phones on Friday in an attempt to move Manchin on the issue, telling him she'd "meet him in DC or anywhere in the country" to discuss the issue, as she described to The Post in an interview.
However, the senior senator from West Virginia was not phased by her personal appeal to him.
Murray, who has served in the Senate since 1993 and has also long sought a paid-leave program, was unrelenting in continuing her fight.
"We're not going to let one man tell all the women in this country that they can't have paid leave," she said on Capitol Hill last week.
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