A whopping 80% of voters in the United States want the federal government to create a paid family and medical leave program, according to a new survey released Friday.
Navigator, a progressive polling firm, found that 89% of Democrats, 76% of Independents, and 70% of Republicans support the establishment of a federal program that would enable people to take paid time away from work to attend to serious illnesses or provide care for loved ones, including sick or disabled family members and newborn or newly adopted children. Just 12% of voters are opposed.
A majority (52%) of voters — including 68% of Democrats, 57% of Black Americans, and 61% of Hispanic Americans — would be more likely to vote for a candidate who publicly supports paid family and medical leave, according to the survey.
In addition, over half (51%) of voters — including 65% of Democrats, 58% of Black Americans, and 61% of Hispanic Americans — would be more motivated to vote in the upcoming midterm elections if Congress supported the passage of a national paid family and medical leave program, the poll found.
New from @NavigatorSurvey: 80% of Americans support #PaidLeaveForAll. A majority would be more likely to support a candidate who supports it—and they’d be more motivated to vote. pic.twitter.com/IkBwM5N7tj
— Dawn Huckelbridge (@dhuckelbridge) September 23, 2022
“Our nation’s leaders must stop ignoring what the data tell us time and time again — that paid family and medical leave is a critical support that families need, it is what Americans want, and it is what they deserve,” Jocelyn Frye, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families, said in a statement.
Dawn Huckelbridge, director of Paid Leave for All, told Common Dreams that the new survey “mirrors what Paid Leave for All Action has seen in midterm battleground states — 4 in 5 voters support paid family and medical leave, and this is an issue that motivates all voters, but particularly the progressive base and key persuadable groups like Independent women.”
“Paid leave is an issue that all candidates should be running on — and then delivering,” Huckelbridge added.
Six arguments in favor of paid leave were deemed convincing by more than three-quarters of respondents.
Voters were compelled by the fact that the U.S. is one of only seven countries in the world without federally guaranteed paid family and medical leave; far outpacing the U.S., the average length of maternity leave worldwide is more than six months.
The need for a federal paid family and medical leave program was clear to an overwhelming majority of respondents after they were informed that just 15% of workers in the U.S. — typically high-wage managers — receive such benefits through their employers.
Also persuasive were studies showing that paid leave policies increase the likelihood that women return to the workforce following childbirth and decrease reliance on public assistance programs.
The three most convincing arguments for paid leave focused on how it:
- enhances household well-being, including better early childhood development and more economic security for parents;
- improves health outcomes for infants, mothers, and the elderly; and
- boosts workplace morale and reduces employee turnover.
In a Common Dreams opinion piece published Thursday, Vicky Badillo of the Workers Defense Project in Austin wrote that “it’s time for our lawmakers to deliver what so many people are calling out for: a national paid leave policy.”
“Paid leave is a human right and a matter of dignity — it’s something every single one of us should have access to, regardless of who we are, where we live, or what we do,” Badillo continued. “Lives are on the line.”
“There is no economic and racial justice without access to paid leave,” she added. “Ensuring people have the time they need to be with and care for themselves and their families is morally the right thing to do — and it also makes sense for our economy and our national well-being. Investing in paid leave will help our families, our communities, and our nation.”
Poll results are based on online surveys conducted among a sample of 1,001 registered voters from September 8 to September 11.
This story has been updated to include a statement from Dawn Huckelbridge, director of Paid Leave for All.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment. We are presently looking for 340 new monthly donors in the next 5 days.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy