Hillary's Plan: Balancing Work & Family

Hillary’s Plan for Working Families: Helping Parents Balance Work & Family was just posted on Hillary’s website and after a quick read of this plan I’ve got to say I’m impressed.  Dammit – this woman GETS IT.  She understands the conflict we face in trying to do our jobs well to earn a paycheck and keep our healthcare coverage, and be there for our children as they grow in to adults.

"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."

Make the jump...

This plan touches on so many of the core issues and I want to address a few of them here – for the full picture I urge you to go to the above link to see the entire plan.  It’s one of the most comprehensive I’ve ever seen from a candidate.  Here’s a thumbnail sketch of it...

Hillary’s work-family agenda will:

Expand paid leave across the country through a new State Family Leave Innovation Fund;
Extend the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) to cover 13 million additional American workers and guarantee workers at least 7 paid sick days per year;
Promote model workplaces with grants to support new workplace flexibility programs and a federal telecommuting initiative;
Ensure better access to affordable, high quality child care; and
Prevent parents from being discriminated against because of pregnancy or their caregiving responsibilities.

The plan goes on to provide a bit of background on these issues...

Families today are struggling to find quality time with their children while meeting their responsibilities to their jobs. More and more families are headed by two working parents, and today’s parents work longer hours than ever before. As a result, American parents have twenty-two 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.

(emphasis mine)

Seriously – 22 fewer hours per week with my kids.  I read that bolded part and thought... "so I’m not the only one who’s feeling like a non-custodial parent by the end of the workweek!"  No wonder really – I get maybe half an hour with them each morning, and I don’t get home until after 6:30 and they’re in bed by 8 most nights.  Sigh... wish I could hug them right now dammit.

Hillary’s plan addresses a very real and growing need in our society when it comes to finding quality and affordable child care for our children.  I remember when we were expecting our first child and the horrendous time we had in lining up daycare for our baby once I went back to work.  I visited a daycare center near us and there were couples there signing up for the waiting list with me – they weren’t even expecting a child yet but they got on the list because it was something like 2 years long.  Now this plan probably won’t help a family like ours (we’re not really low income) but I like the fact that it helps to increase the number of people who’ll qualify, and focuses on creating more options for parents.

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.

snip

Hillary has worked on expanding access and improving the quality of child care in our country for decades. The Bush Administration has essentially frozen the level of child care funding for the last eight years. As a result, the real purchasing power of child care subsidies has fallen significantly. According to the Bush Administration’s own estimates, 300,000 children will lose child care assistance by 2010, and 150,000 have already lost child care assistance since 2000.

Hillary believes we need to increase child care funding through the Child Care and Development Block Grant and return the program to it’s original intent: to serve working families. She will also work with Congress to reform the Dependent Care Tax Credit to address its shortcomings. And she will improve the quality of child care by investing in:

Helping states improve and enforce licensing and safety standards;
Supporting innovative public-private partnerships that increase the supply of affordable, high quality child care for working families;
Promoting and supporting quality rating systems that help families evaluate programs; and
Supporting workforce initiatives that help child care providers get the right training.

The part about ensuring that all workers have access to at least 7 days of sick leave per year would help us immensely.  Hubby works in a construction type trade and in that sort of work – if you’re sick and can’t work you don’t get paid.  Annual leave is rare and sick leave – forgetaboutit.  He hurt is leg over the summer and lost 2 weeks worth of pay because of it.  Hillary’s plan would mean a great deal to families like ours...

A State Family Leave Innovation Fund – To help states reach this goal, Hillary will commit $1 billion annually and ramp up as states develop initiatives in a Family Leave Innovation Fund to support state-level parental leave programs across the country. The Innovation Fund will work in partnership with states that create family leave programs by offering competitive matching grants to cover state start-up costs and a meaningful portion of program expenditures to states for these programs. The fund will not dictate from Washington what approach states should take. Instead, the fund would support all approaches to providing more leave to employees including through Temporary Disability Insurance or Unemployment Insurance programs, expansion of direct support programs like At Home Infant Care, or through individual and business tax credits. In addition, Hillary will direct the Secretary of Labor to develop model state legislation and employ technical assistance teams to provide support to states in passing and implementing such programs.

snip

Ensuring 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 7 sick days a year – to care for yourself or your children – standard. When people go to work ill or worrying about their sick child, they make other people sick and they run the risk of affecting the productivity of the organization as a whole.

As for my job... there’s a certain part of it that could be done via telecommuting and flex-time would mean a great deal to me – that would allow me to meet with my son’s therapists and teachers, and get the kids in for doctors appointments and the like.  Granted not all of my job could be done from home – but if I could even take one or two days a week to telecommute, it’d mean so much to us!

Empowering Employees to Request Workplace Flexibility – Hillary is proposing to empower employees to request workplace flexibility, such as change in work hours, telecommuting, working part-time or job-sharing. The proposal will not require that employers accept these requests, but simply that employers seriously consider them. However, by letting employees request leave, the provision can help change the working environment to one that is more responsive of the needs of parents. In the United Kingdom, after adoption of a similar law, 7 out of 10 requests made by employees were granted, and 80% of employers surveyed felt that flexible workplace arrangements were easily accommodated in their organization.

snip

Promote telecommuting by encouraging its use at federal agencies and supporting state and local initiatives. Telecommuting is becoming an increasingly attractive option for employers and employees. Well-designed telecommuting programs can be a triple win—giving workers much-needed flexibility; allowing employers to reduce office space needs; and improving the environment by reducing rush-hour car trips and lowering car emissions. Hillary Clinton will promote telecommuting by requiring the federal agencies to set specific telecommuting goals for their workforces, and she will require that each agency task a senior manager with oversight of its telecommuting policies. Hillary will also invest up to $50 million annually in state and local telecommuting initiatives.

I’m really amazed that other candidates aren’t putting forth plans like this.  These policies work for the business who’re trying these things and Hillary’s tuned in to this in a big way.

Employers have found that investing in work-family initiatives helps the bottom line through better retention and productivity. In a survey of 200 "Fortune 1000" companies that allowed flexible work arrangements through telecommuting, approximately 60% of employers reported that enabling greater flexibility for employees lead to reduced absenteeism and productivity increases of at least 20%. Approximately 65% of respondents reported improved retention, reduced costs for office space and reduced stress. Nearly 80% of respondents indicated that flexible arrangements improved employee morale.

The plan goes on to explain how Hillary will pay for this bold new initiative by closing tax loopholes and more fiscally sound policies – so it’s not a budget-buster.

As I’ve said, I can’t begin to say how excited I am about this new plan.  It will provide relief for millions of working parents around this nation and it tells me that Hillary’s paying attention to the day to day struggles we face in trying to keep the paycheck coming in and the health insurance in place, while getting quality time with our children, and helping them grow in to caring, compassionate and decent adults who’ll some day take over where we’ve left off.

REMINDER: For more information on Hillary's other initiatives you can visit her website HERE

And don't forget to visit us at HillarysBloggers.com