Women and Their Families
12.10.2009
PAID FAMILY LEAVE, PAID SICK DAYS, FMLA EXPANSIONS AND WORKPLACE FLEXIBILITY
Women have become the primary breadwinners or co-breadwinners of America’s families and continue to serve as the primary care giver for family members across three generations. This combination negatively affects the ability for families to function successfully in today’s working environment.
In developing comprehensive workplace flexibility policies to help families contend with handling childcare, elder care, maternity leave and tending to sick family members the following questions must be answered:
1. What guidelines can be used in developing policies to provide paid leave for employees (i.e. sick leave, maternity leave, etc.)?
2. Does FMLA (Family Medical Leave Act) adequately serve the needs of America’s families, and if not, how can it be expanded upon?
3. What guidelines can be created, regarding working hours, to help employees manage their everyday lives without placing a burden on employers (i.e., flex time, forced overtime, job sharing, etc.)?
Following are my recommendations for a National Paid Family Leave, Paid Sick Days, FMLA Expansions and Workplace Flexibility that I will take with me to the U.S. Senate:
Recommendations on Paid Family Leave:
Provide a maximum of six weeks of partial pay (e.g. 55%) each year while taking time off from work to:
• Bond with a newborn baby, adopted or foster child
• Care for a seriously ill parent, child, spouse or registered domestic partner (both parents)
Most workers receive up to 55% of their weekly wages for up to 6 weeks per year (the maximum is $959 per week in 2009), and the program may be 100% employee funded through worker payments into an employer-sponsored disability plan. Workers would not need to take all 6 weeks at one time.
Recommendations on Paid Sick Days:
• Guarantee workers the right to earn paid sick days from the first day of employment and to begin using accrued days the 90th day of employment.
• Employees earn one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked.
• Employees of a small business (10 or fewer employees) may use up to 5 accrued sick days a year; all other employees may use up to 9 accrued sick days a year.
• Paid sick days may be used for diagnosis or treatment of a worker’s or family member’s health condition, preventive care, or care and services related to domestic violence or sexual assault.
• Employers are prohibited from retaliating against employees for using paid sick days.
• Unions may opt-out if their collective bargaining agreement meets specified conditions.
Recommendations on FMLA Expansion:
• Reverse the most restrictive Bush Administration FMLA regulations (HR 2161);
• Include businesses with 25 or more workers (HR 824);
• Allow workers to attend their children’s educational activities (e.g. school conferences), or for routine family medical needs, including doctor’s visits (HR 824);
• Include airline flight crews by changing the calculation of qualifying hours for these workers (HR 912); and
• Include part-time workers by eliminating the requirement that employees work 1,250 hours to be covered (HR 389).
Recommendations on Workplace Flexibility:
Provide incentives to employers of all types to adopt flexible work arrangements to deal with everyday needs of families, including:
• flexible scheduling
• telecommuting
• job sharing
• career customization
• taking babies to work
• part-time work options
Provide incentives to employers who adopt policies:
• Allowing workers to take time off for children’s' educational activities (required of employers in 12 states – California requires 40 hours per year)
• Guaranteeing personal days off for self and family needs
• Restricting mandatory overtime so employees can plan a reasonable home life, including protecting nurses from mandatory overtime altogether except in emergency situations, with no retaliation permitted against any nurse who refuses overtime.
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR A NATIONAL CHILD CARE POLICY
President Obama has called for a “new era of responsibility.” Childcare should be part of that era. Federal funds should be spent with greater accountability. States should take responsibility for ensuring that children are protected and in a setting promoting healthy development when they are not in the care of their parents. We can do better.
1. What guidelines could be implemented to increase the quality of childcare (i.e. licensing requirements for daycare, curriculum standards, safety standards, etc.)?
2. What can be done to lower the cost of childcare?
PARENTS AND THE HIGH PRICE OF CHILDCARE
The Issues:
Childcare prices are higher than other household expenses. In every region of the United States, average childcare fees for an infant were higher than the average amount that families spent on food. In every state, monthly child care fees for two children at any age exceeded the median rent cost, and were nearly as high as, or even higher than, the average monthly mortgage payment. In 39 states and the District of Columbia, the average annual price for childcare for an infant in a childcare center was higher than a year’s tuition at a four-year public college.
Childcare is particularly unaffordable for single parents. The average annual price of care for two children (one infant and one 4-year-old child) ranged from 48 percent to 103 percent of the state median income for single parents. In 32 states, the average price of care for two children (one 4-year-old child and one infant) exceeded 60 percent of the median household income for single parents.
The price of childcare is rising faster than inflation. Overall, states reported increases in child care fees from 2007 to 2008. For infant and 4-year-old care in a center, states reported an overall average increase of 4.8 and 6.2 percent, respectively, in fees charged from 2007 to 2008, outstripping increases in the inflation rate of 3.8 percent for the same period (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics).
School age care, although part-time is just as expensive as full-time care. Parents of school-age children can pay just as much for childcare as parents of infants or 4-year-old children – and school-age children are in care part-time.
Childcare continues to consume a large portion of a two-parent family income. Hawaii, at $10,720 was the least affordable state for school-age care in a childcare center, comprising 13.2 percent of a two-parent family income.
The price of childcare is often dramatically higher in urban areas. The price of care in urban areas was generally higher than the price of care in rural areas, with urban parents often paying $1,600 more for an infant in a center, and $1,100 more for a 4-year old in a center.
Quality childcare is even more expensive. Among the 35 states, which reported data, full-time accredited care for an infant in a center ranged from $4,560 to $16,835 per year. Accredited care can cost over 30 percent more.
Recommendations
National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies’ (NACCRRA) has proposed leveraging a mixture of public and private investment to raise the bar of quality child care for all children and increase fee assistance to families who need it most. These recommendations include:
• Increasing federal and state investments in child care fee assistance and quality improvement efforts.
• Providing resources for planning and developing childcare capacity to increase the availability of child care options for working families.
• Reducing barriers in the subsidy administration process that prevent families from accessing assistance, such as making the re-certification process less time-consuming and cumbersome for working families using technology and other strategies.
• Ensuring that public pre-kindergarten programs and Head Start are designed to meet the childcare needs of working families by offering full day, year-round services.
• Designing a system to help underwrite the cost of childcare so that all families, not just wealthy families, can afford the cost of quality childcare.
• Improving federal and state tax codes to help families at all income levels pay for care.
• Requiring the Department of Health and Human Services in conjunction with the National Academy of Sciences to determine the cost of quality childcare and report back to Congress.
When it comes to childcare, families should no longer have to sacrifice quality for affordability. High-quality childcare should be accessible and available for all children.
Recommendations for a National Child Care Policy:
The reauthorization of CCDBG (Child Care and Development Block Grant) in the 111th Congress provides an opportunity to establish requirements to ensure public funding is tied to greater accountability for the quality of child care regulations and monitoring efforts consistent with the NACCRRA state score card. The score card sets minimum protections for children and would strengthen the CCDBG law to:
1. Require background checks, based on fingerprints, for all childcare center employees.
2. Require states to establish minimum health and safety regulations and enforce them through quarterly unannounced inspections of all licensed childcare programs (the same standard Congress requires of the military child care system).
3. Require states to post inspection findings on the Internet for easy parent access so parents can make informed choices when choosing childcare.
4. Require all childcare workers to have at least 40 hours of pre-service training (including CPR, first-aid and other basic safety and health training in addition to child development). Require all childcare workers to complete 24 hours of ongoing annual training.
5. Authorize the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to withhold funding from states that do not require minimum protections for children and that do not conduct regular unannounced inspections of childcare settings.
Provide Incentive Funding to States that Improve Regulation and Oversight:
The reauthorization of CCDBG (Child care and Development Block Grant) in the 111th Congress provides an opportunity to establish requirements to ensure public funding and incentives for the states are tied to higher standards, better regulation and greater oversight for quality and accountability of child care in the U.S.
States have made progress in regulating child care centers in some areas since NACCRRA issued the last report in 2007, but much more is needed. NACCRRA recommends all childcare centers and family childcare homes caring for one or more unrelated children on a regular basis for a fee be licensed and inspected. Staff should have background checks and receive training. The following changes to regulations and oversight will make child care centers safer, healthier and more educationally appropriate for young children. In addition, states should:
1. Ensure adequate oversight by reducing licensing caseloads to a ratio of no more that 50:1 to improve accountability for meeting state regulations. Require licensing staff to have a Bachelor’s degree or higher in early childhood education or a related field.
2. Require childcare center directors to have a Bachelor’s degree or higher in early childhood education in order to promote program quality.
3. Require lead teachers in each classroom to have a Child Development Associate (CDA) credential or an Associate’s degree in early childhood education or a related field or to be enrolled in a program to receive such a credential.
4. Require all childcare center staff to complete a minimum of 40 hours of pre-service training in child development and guidance and other basic health and safety practices prior to working alone with children. Require all childcare center staff to complete at least 24 hours of ongoing annual training that will lead to a CDA credential.
5. Require state childcare center licensing regulations to include 10 basic health and safety standards.
6. Require states to post inspection results and complaints online.
To work toward optimum quality:
1. Center directors should be required to have a Bachelor’s degree or higher in early childhood education or related field.
2. The lead teacher in the classroom should be required to have a Child Development Associate (CDA) credential or an Associate’s degree in early childhood education or related field.
3. Center staff should be required to have orientation training and training in fire safety and other health and safety issues. At least one staff on duty in centers must be first aid and CPR certified.
4. All lead teachers should be required to have 24 hours or more of annual training.
5. Required background checks include state and federal checks of criminal history records using fingerprints, child abuse registries and sex offender registries.
6. Programs are required to offer activities, which address six developmental domains (social, physical, language/literacy, cognitive/intellectual, emotional and cultural).
7. Licensing regulations address 10 basic health and safety standards:
a) Immunizations
b) Guidance and discipline
c) Diapering and hand washing
d) Fire drills
e) Medication administration
f) Incident reporting
g) Placing infants on their backs to sleep to prevent Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)
h) Hazardous materials
i) Playground surfaces under outdoor equipment
j) 10.Emergency preparedness
8. Programs encourage parent involvement and daily or ongoing communication with parents and allow parental visits at any time their child is present.
Unfortunately, the regulations and oversight for childcare centers vary widely across the states and often are not sufficient to ensure even minimum-quality care. A National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) study found that only about 9 percent of child care arrangements in the United States provided very high-quality childcare. In more than 82 percent of the settings, care was less than high quality, to the detriment of the children. In 8 percent of childcare arrangements, children experienced very low-quality childcare (National Early Child care Research Network, 2005). In addition, a NACCRRA study (2009) found that states set the bar at different levels for different types of early learning programs, and young children experience unequal opportunities depending on which type of state-regulated program they attend. In most states, childcare center licensing regulations do not provide the impetus for the high quality, center-based care that state-funded pre-kindergarten programs mandate. This is significant because the majority of preschool-age children are in childcare settings.
Other Recommendations for State Policy for Which Federal Incentives May be Offered
Efforts that cost little money but that would have a large impact on the quality of care in which children spend so much time:
1. Publish family childcare regulations that are easy to read and understand, separate from regulations for other types of childcare.
2. Ensure providers are informed about policy manuals or other interpretations of the regulations used by licensing staff.
3. Identify basic health and safety practices that child care providers should know so that children are safe and providers are better prepared to respond to the children in their care as well as their needs to develop in a healthy manner (i.e., use safe sleeping techniques to avoid SIDS, etc).
4. Develop basic policies for family childcare providers to follow in communicating and interacting with parents.
5. Post the results of inspection reports and inspection report violations on the Internet so that the information is publicly accessible and parents can make informed choices.
6. Develop emergency preparedness plans for natural disasters or periods of emergency.
7. Require the state licensing department to share timely information about family child care home provider status with CCR&Rs and others who help families find childcare.
Efforts that require more personal responsibility for those who choose to care for unrelated children:
1. Require comprehensive background checks for paid providers caring for unrelated children every week as a business (i.e., use fingerprints to check the state criminal history database and the federal FBI database as well as checking the sex offender and child abuse registries).
2. Require providers to complete 40 hours of initial training including training in CPR, first aid, child development, child abuse prevention, learning activities, health and safety, child behavior/guidance, and ways to avoid the spread of communicable diseases. Require 24 hours of annual training.
Efforts to promote accountability with taxpayer funds:
1. Require all paid family child care providers caring for one or more unrelated children on a regular basis to be licensed and inspected, both before a license is granted and once or more a year.
2. Provide the appropriate number of licensing personnel to ensure family childcare regulations are appropriately enforced.
3. Expedite background check processing and promote information sharing among separate state systems.
Other Recommendations for Federal Policy
Efforts that cost little money but that would have a large impact on the quality of care in which children spend so much time:
1. Re-establish the Childcare Bureau as an independent office within the Administration for Children and Families, separate from the Office of Family Assistance since families do not have to be on welfare to receive childcare assistance.
2. Authorize the Childcare Bureau to impose financial penalties against states that fail to develop childcare state plans and regulations consistent with the intent of the CCDBG law.
3. Require states to explain any category of license exempt care that includes children in significant numbers.
4. Prohibit self-certification of compliance with health and safety standards.
5. Separate relative care from unregulated friends and neighbor care in all federal childcare regulations.
Efforts that require more personal responsibility for those who choose to care for unrelated children:
1. Require comprehensive background checks for paid providers caring for unrelated children every week as a business (i.e., use fingerprints to check the state criminal history database and the federal FBI database as well as checking the sex offender and child abuse registries).
2. Require providers to complete 40 hours of initial training including training in CPR, first aid, child development, child abuse prevention, learning activities, health and safety, child behavior/guidance, and ways to avoid the spread of communicable diseases. Require 24 hours of annual training.
Efforts to promote accountability with taxpayer funds:
1. Require all paid family child care providers caring for one or more unrelated children on a regular basis to be licensed and inspected, both before a license is granted and once or more a year.
2. Provide the appropriate number of licensing personnel to ensure family childcare regulations are appropriately enforced.
3. Require all providers receiving CCDBG or TANF subsidies to be inspected to ensure compliance with basic health and safety standards.
4. Increase CCDBG funding and require states to set aside at least 12 percent of CCDBG funding for quality related activities (including activities such as inspections), rising to 25 percent on par with Head Start.
5. Support research on the regulations that promote quality family childcare.
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR EXPANDING OPTIONS AND ASSISTANCE FOR ELDER CARE
The AARP Public Policy Institute has found that a “typical US caregiver is a 46-year-old woman who works outside the home and spends more than 20 hours per week providing unpaid care to her mother.
It is estimated that in 2007 the economic value of care giving in the U.S. was $375 billion. This is based on 34 million caregivers age 18 or older providing an average of 21 hours of care per week to adults with limitations in daily activities at an average value of $10.10 per hour. This number comes from the number of adults providing care at any given point in time, a number estimated at 52 million.
The costs of care giving to caregivers is more than accounting of hours it also includes:
• Direct out-of-pocket Costs: Caregivers spent an average of $5,531 in 2007
• Economic insecurity due to changes in work patterns: Loss of wages, health insurance, retirement benefits and other benefits holds serious consequences. More than one third of caregivers over 50 reduce their work hours or quit their jobs. Women are far more likely to leave the labor force entirely.
• Health Effects and Costs: Caregivers are at risk of becoming “patients” themselves. The greater the intensity of the type of care, the greater the magnitude of health effects, which are largely due to chronic stress.
It is essential to prevent family caregivers from being overwhelmed by the demands placed upon them. The cost of funding more services for caregivers is minute compared to the value of their unpaid contributions. Moreover, caregivers help contain health and long term care costs by delaying or preventing the use of nursing home care and hospital inpatient care. The following policy recommendations could be implemented at small fractions of the value of unpaid caregivers’ contributions. These recommendations apply to policies at both the federal and state levels
• Implement “family-friendly” workplace policies that include flextime and telecommuting, referral to supportive services, and caregiver support programs in the workplace.
• Assess family caregivers’ own needs, such as through publicly funded home-and community-based service programs, and provide or refer them to supportive services.
• Provide paid leave to permit caregivers to care for an ill parent, including expanding FMLA to provide paid leave to cover more workers for longer periods.
• Provide financial assistance for family caregivers, such as tax credit for care giving. A $3,000 tax credit, the amount that would be provided as part of several federal legislative proposals, would help to offset some of the direct expenses of eligible caregivers. Many of these caregivers would still bear high costs associated with care giving, including lost wages and employment benefits, lower retirement benefits, poorer health status, and higher medical expenses of their own.
• Recognize and support the role of family caregivers in chronic care coordination programs and care transitions.
• Encourage nurses, social workers and other health care professionals to engage and include family caregivers as partners in care.
• Allow employees to receive donations of annual leave, vacation, compensating time off, personal leave and/or holiday credits from other eligible employees when the former are facing financial hardship due to injury or the prolonged illness of the employee, employee’s spouse, child, parent or spouse’s parent.
• Establish a national clearinghouse organization or task force for family care giving to identify and develop best practices, provide information on caregiver policies and programs, convene educational programs and web-based seminars, and provide a website with a national database of caregiver programs and resources.
• Provide a tax credit (suggested: $1200 annually) for eldercare expenses.
• Provide bankruptcy protections for caregivers who, within the last three years, experienced a downgrade in employment (reduction of pay, hours, or a loss of job) that resulted from caring for a relative or who, within the last year, incurred appreciable medical expenses for the care recipient (e.g., more than either $10,000 or 25% of the household income).
• Allow Medicare to cover adult day care services as a substitute for in-home care for those who are currently eligible for such services. The option would give Medicare recipients more care hours and more services, including physical and occupational therapies, meals and transportation provided by adult day centers, at an all-inclusive rate that is lower than many home health care services.
COLLEGE STUDENTS
A report prepared by Policy Matters Ohio and the national policy center Demos, titled "Building Ohio's Future Middle Class: Addressing the Challenges Facing Young Adults," finds that skyrocketing costs make it increasingly hard for students to stay in school and graduate, employment has become less stable, earnings have declined for workers without a four-year college degree, and young adults are increasingly saddled with debt. Our next Senator from Ohio must offer a bold federal policy agenda aimed at creating and keeping good jobs in both the private and public sectors. We must recognize that exploitation of our work force hurts all of us. Growing local companies and social service organizations that can partner with universities and groom young workers keeps our young people in Ohio, gives them an edge in a competitive job market and rewards Ohio companies for doing so.
Providing Job Opportunity to Students
I propose to give tax credits to businesses that offer internships to university students that allow them to gain college credit and for tuition assistance they provide to their employees.
I also propose to offer tax credits to insurance companies that provide comprehensive health care plans to universities for students and graduate students that matches the quality of the insurance pool to be created by the new federal health reform act. Health care is often a major determinant in job decisions for many Ohians and Americans, especially young people. People want to be able to make choices for themselves. Young people stand before many crossroads. We want to see them achieve their full potential, and this will help them do that.
Student Loan Reform
One of the issues about which I am most passionate is ensuring that our children and their families can afford the higher education they need today. This vital issue is linked to accountability on the part of bank bailout recipients, and is vital to our nation's economic future. I was the first in my family to graduate from college and law school, and I paid for my law school education through student loans that took 20 years to repay while my husband and I raised our three children and cared for three others in our extended family.
I support Senator Sherrod Brown’s recent "debt swap" bill that would allow college graduates with private student loans to refinance them into federal loans with lower payments. President Obama has been working with Congress to streamline the student loan process, making more dollars available to students and their parents by cutting out the boondoggle enjoyed by private lenders who make money on federally guaranteed student loans with little or no risk when defaults happen. Senator Brown’s bill takes student loan reform one step further to help those Americans already carrying expensive private student loans from banks like Citigroup, Bank of America and J.P. Morgan Chase, institutions that received federal bailout funds this year but still pay exorbitant sums to upper management.
These financial institutions have been irresponsibly permitted to damage our country’s economy, which affects all of us. While unemployment continues to rise, many college graduates cannot find jobs. If the government can give JP Morgan Chase $25 billion and Citigroup and Bank of America $45 billion apiece in taxpayer dollars, then it can certainly allow for the refinancing of private student loans under the terms of Senator Brown’s legislation.
Also, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor recently passed the Student Aid Fiscal Responsibility Act [.pdf], sponsored by Congressman George Miller, who chairs the committee. The legislation would redesign student loan programs and eliminate the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL), a $55 billion program which was once a hub for guaranteed student loans from banks. Under the FFEL program, banks can charge interest rates of 6.8 percent or higher, even though the federal government insures these loans against default risk by reimbursing the private lender for 97 to 99 percent of the loan’s value if the loan goes into default. Although the House legislation would save $87 billion dollars over 10 years [.pdf], Republican members of Congress are fighting against its passage, saying it is not fair for private businesses to be squeezed out of the $92 billion student loan market.
Ending the FFEL program will free up more federal dollars for more direct federal government loans, allowing more students and their parents access to a college education. I have yet to hear a valid argument against student loan reform legislation. American taxpayers want relief, not partisan power plays. Republican members of Congress should honor their constituents and get past party politics. Student loan reform legislation is good for our economy. Student loan reform legislation will strengthen the middle class by providing clearer pathways to achievement so our children can effectively compete for 21st century jobs.
Education improves the standard of living for Americans and their families and for communities as a whole. When I am elected to the U.S. Senate, I will work with members of Congress such as Senator Brown and Congressman Miller to help promote student loan reform efforts like the one pushed by President Barack Obama. I will fight for more and better ways to make higher education affordable and accessible for more Americans.
College Vote Ohio
Just as furthering one's education lays the groundwork for future success, civic engagement lays the foundation for furthering the success of our democracy. One of our nation's most fundamental rights is our right to vote. As Ohio’s Secretary of State and chief elections officer, I am aware that college and university students often face issues in trying to exercise this right. For this reaason I established College Vote Ohio, an online resource for assisting students with exercising their to vote.
