Hillary Clinton Campaign Press Release - Hillary Clinton's Agenda for Working Families: Helping Nevada Parents Balance Work & Family

956,000 private-sector Nevada workers could have access to paid family leave

Last week, Hillary Clinton announced an agenda to help parents balance work and family and ensure that Americans aren't faced with a choice between keeping their jobs and caring for a newborn baby. Her plan will extend the Family Medical Leave Act to cover 13 million additional workers across the country, and will ensure that the 635,000 Nevadans who do not receive paid sick days will receive a minimum of seven days a year.

Hillary's plan would set an ambitious goal for all states to implement a paid family leave program by the year 2016, and offer $1 billion per year in grants to encourage innovative paid family leave programs at the state level. About 956,000 private-sector workers in Nevada could benefit from paid family leave by ensuring they receive the time off they need to care for their families.

"Too many Americans feel trapped between being a good parent and being a good worker," Clinton said. "It's about time we stopped just talking about family values and started pursuing policies that truly value families. All Americans who are working hard and taking responsibility deserve the chance to do right by their children.

"With sound policies and sensible investments, we can give parents more choices to make the decisions that are best for them. We can make life a little easier for everyone – for mothers and for fathers – to do the most important job there is in any society: raising and nurturing the next generation. And that's the right decision for all of us."

Access to quality, affordable child care is critical for parents seeking to fulfill their work and family obligations. With 300,000 children set to lose access to child care by 2010, Hillary's plan would increase child care funding through the Child Care and Development Block Grant and foster public-private partnerships to expand child care options at the state level.

This bold new effort will give families the support they need to more effectively balance work and family obligations. And it will work in partnership with America's businesses to ensure that pro-family work policies and increasing workplace flexibility helps improve American competitiveness and economic growth.

The following details how Senator Clinton's plan to help balance work and family will benefit thousands of Nevada's families.

Families today are struggling to find quality time with their children while meeting their responsibilities to their jobs. More women have entered the workforce, and today's parents work longer hours than ever before. As a result, American parents have 22 fewer hours a week to spend with their kids than they did in 1969. A 2002 report by the Families and Work Institute found that 45 percent of employees say that work and family responsibilities interfere with each other, and 67 percent of working parents say they do not have enough time with their children. In Nevada, 78 percent of infants and preschool-aged children live in homes with working parents.[i]

Hillary Clinton believes that as these new challenges confront America's families, our policies need to catch up. That is why she has announced a new work-family agenda for our modern economy. This bold new effort will give families the support they need to more effectively balance work and family obligations. And it will work in partnership with America's businesses to ensure that pro-family work policies and increased workplace flexibility help improve American competitiveness and economic growth. Hillary's work-family agenda includes:

Expanding access to family leave for working families –The United States is one of only a minority of countries that provides no legal guarantee of maternity leave to new mothers. Hillary's national paid leave initiative will set a goal of having all states adopt family leave programs by 2016; provide generous grants to states to develop family leave programs in their states; and establish the federal government as a model workplace in providing family leave.

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• In Nevada, this policy could impact approximately 956,000 private-sector workers – 94 percent of all private-sector workers – who do not have paid family leave, according to the National Partnership for Women & Families.

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• Nevada has no laws guaranteeing job protection or benefits for new parents who work in the private sector. For parents who work in the public sector, there are no benefits beyond the federal Family and Medical Leave Act.[ii]

Ensure that all Americans have access to sick days – Forty-eight percent of private sector workers and 57 million total workers in the United States have no paid sick days at all. And 86 million workers do not have paid sick days that can be used to care for sick children. Hillary is proposing to make a minimum of 7 sick days a year standard.

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• In Nevada, this policy will impact more than half a million people. According to the National Partnership for Women & Families, about 635,000 Nevada workers did not have paid sick days in 2006. That number represents more than half of all Nevada workers – 10 percent higher than the national rate at which workers are without paid sick days.

Reward employers who help their employees balance work and family – Hillary will establish a new public-private partnership program on model workplaces at the Department of Labor that will recognize businesses that have innovative workplace flexibility programs. It will also provide grants to those and other businesses to expand their models to serve more employees. Hillary will also require federal agencies to set specific telecommuting goals for their workforces and invest up to $50 million annual in state and local telecommuting initiatives. And Hillary will work to expand access and improve the quality of child care in our country. Her plan includes helping states improve and enforce licensing and safety standards; supporting innovative public-private partnerships that will increase the supply of quality child care for families; promoting quality ratings systems that help families evaluate programs; and supporting workforce initiatives to make sure child care providers get the right training.

Protect parents from discrimination – Hillary believes that too many mothers and fathers who have care-giving responsibilities are not protected from discrimination. A pregnant woman should not be fired because her employer does not allow employees to take unpaid leave for a temporary disability. A father should not be fired because he has to care for his wife or his children. In 2005, there were nearly 600,000 family households in Nevada and about 278,000 of them had children of their own.[iii] As President, Hillary will work to prohibit discrimination against parents.

[i]Department of Human Development and Family Studies at the College of Human and Community Sciences at the University of Nevada, Reno, (2002), "Who cares for Nevada's Children? A Profile of the Demographic, Economic, and Quality Aspects of Child Care in Nevada," http://www.unr.edu/hcs/hdfs/eva_essa%5Cchildcareworkforcestudy.pdf

[ii]National Partnership for Women & Families, (2005), "Expecting Better: A State-by-State Analysis of Parental Leave Programs," http://www.nationalpartnership.org/site/DocServer/ParentalLeaveReportMay...

[iii]Nevada Kids Count, (2007), "Nevada Households by Type: 2005," http://kidscount.unlv.edu/2007/demo-households_2007.pdf