00:02:45.360And frankly, they need to feel some heat on this issue.
00:02:53.700Dawn, I am so glad that you're here today because you are fighting so incredibly hard for one of, I mean, I truly believe this is one of the biggest issues of our age, of our time.
00:03:07.080This is something that I talk about all the time that I desperately, desperately want to see fixed in the very near future.
00:03:29.540And it feels like such a simple fix. And yet we have a government that has made it so much more complicated because so many families are struggling to make ends meet. So many women are pushed out of the workforce because we do not have paid leave. And yet and yet and yet, for some reason, our government cannot get it together to figure this out.
00:03:55.900So talk to me. I want to dissect the entire issue here. What does paid leave mean, first and foremost, paid leave for all?
00:04:04.060It's a great question. And it's confusing to a lot of people. Frankly, sometimes even we'll meet with members of Congress.
00:04:11.220I mean, I understand why it's confusing. It is complex because there's all different kinds of paid leave.
00:04:16.120We talk about it differently in different countries. There's paid sick days. There's paid time off. There's paid vacation.
00:04:23.020What my campaign is fighting for, we support all of those things, but specifically we're fighting for a federal law that creates a paid family and medical leave program.
00:04:33.040That means anyone in the country would have access to it.
00:04:37.120There's different ways you can pay for it, but either way, or in all of the ways, in the long run, it truly saves money.
00:04:43.680It saves money in terms of other public spending.
00:04:46.400It saves money in terms of, you know, the life changes and catastrophes and new children in our family.
00:04:53.840It's a way to sort of spread those costs out.
00:04:56.900So it means if you got sick, if you were caring for a loved one who was seriously ill, or if you were caring for a new child in your family, you would have the guarantee of a paycheck and a job while you took that time.
00:05:11.200It's something that will impact every single one of us in some way.
00:05:42.400yeah i couldn't agree more and i think sometimes people hear paid leave and they think oh it's just
00:05:49.940for moms that is not the case at all right it is for everyone it is for everyone and the truth is
00:05:56.380increasingly all of us are going to have to start giving more care to multiple people and our
00:06:02.680families our loved ones at once and i'm sure you've heard the sandwich generation it's growing1.00
00:06:07.380by the day, I think it's more than 11 million, will continue multiplying because boomers are0.63
00:06:13.680aging. We're having kids. We're caring for ourselves. We're caring for family members.
00:06:20.360So it is truly something that applies to everyone, whether you're a rail worker who went on strike a
00:06:26.580couple of years ago, whether you are a new mom, whether you are a living human being on this
00:06:32.240planet dealing with the realities of life, this will impact you. Exactly. And, you know, I am a
00:06:38.780member of this sandwich generation, right? In fact, my father-in-law just passed away last week
00:06:45.100at 95. And now we're figuring out how to help care for my mother-in-law. We recently moved my
00:06:51.740own mother closer to us for that very reason, you know, because she is aging and we want to try to
00:06:59.720create a more elegant solution for this but right now it often does feel like we're just teetering
00:07:08.340on the edge of precarity if we if we had if we had to take a break from paid work in order to
00:07:14.980care for a sick parent or an ill child or our own illness right completely and it's something that
00:07:23.620we i'm starting to get worried about with my parents as well and you know we talk about this
00:07:29.340often as it's a continuum of care it's it's paid leave is so critical but then there's other things
00:07:34.100like being able to afford child care being or i should say even finding child care and finding
00:07:39.480child care yeah i mean i think there's so many of us live in child care deserts where there's not
00:07:44.420even child care available absolutely right um and then and in most states in this country i think
00:07:50.160it's exceeded the cost of you know college um and then when you think about aging and disability
00:07:55.240care, I mean, the costs are astronomical. It can vary between 60 to hundreds of thousands of
00:08:01.980dollars a year. And Senator actually, Andy Kim, talks about this a lot because his father's
00:08:05.720dealing with Alzheimer's. I say, I'm a U.S. senator and I don't know how I'm going to afford
00:08:10.700the cost of this. So I truly don't know how people are even getting by day to day. I mean,
00:08:17.240we've been doing it too long with sheer will and duct tape and glue. And the truth is it's
00:08:22.800It is really harming people. They're struggling. And in some cases, without things like paid leave, without access to the time to care for yourself, it's costing lives as well. So it is something we try to say all the time is too far this has been considered sort of probably because women have been disproportionately doing it.
00:08:42.740a very you know it can be it can be put off it's social it's soft it's not economic it's not bread
00:08:48.440and butter but the truth is this is as bread and butter as they come so that's what we're shouting
00:08:54.380from the rooftops this is as bread and butter as they come this is a kitchen table issue and this
00:09:01.080is a quality of life issue and this is something we should all be talking about and frankly the
00:09:07.140majority of voters want it right i mean it's wild so we you know we do polling all the time
00:09:12.740And truly, every time we do a new poll, the numbers have gone up.
00:12:26.060We just saw recently the first state in the South in Virginia created a new policy. There is a bill that has bipartisan support. It would be the most bipartisan program in the country if it passed, but it's ready to go in Pennsylvania. We just need leadership to push it over the edge and get the votes and get it done.
00:12:47.260And I'm also heartened by the fact that, you know, we bring together, we just brought together the advocates and legislators who are behind that progress.
00:12:53.840And they're also invested in a federal guarantee.
00:12:57.140And we're going to be organizing them in the months to come to make sure Congress hears from their own constituents all over.
00:13:05.100But I do think that this is, it proves this is a bipartisan issue.
00:13:38.400My husband also used to run his own company.
00:13:41.340and he was desperate to give everyone the paid leave that they deserved for all of life's
00:13:49.280different circumstances. I mean, particularly, you know, this came up for maternity leave,
00:13:54.440but for small businesses, those costs can be crippling despite small businesses wanting to do
00:14:01.920the right thing and give people the need and give people the leave that they deserve.
00:14:08.160You've been working a lot with small businesses. I was reading the story of Sophie Blake in Virginia who recently talked to the Secretary of Commerce about this. What positive impact could passing something like this have on small businesses and entrepreneurs who just can't front this bill for paid leave themselves?
00:14:28.800It's a great question because it's, I think, one of the most commonly misunderstood parts of the policy, which is you'll hear opponents of paid leave say it's a job killer, hurts businesses, bottom lines.
00:14:41.520We can't they can't possibly afford it. It's just this unfunded mandate.
00:15:06.080Because again, yeah, to your point, small businesses often want to do the right thing
00:15:09.620and can't just pay out of pocket for every single leave that will come up.
00:15:13.920And actually, a big part of our campaign is a small business coalition, the Main Street Alliance.
00:15:18.900And we have them speak at hearings and testify and talk to the media because it is a small business issue.
00:15:25.160And a federal program would really help them. It would create a more even competitive playing field. Bigger employers obviously are more able to weather those costs and those transitions.
00:15:37.020systems. So we often say that, you know, this is actually, it's a boost to businesses. It's a
00:15:42.620particular boost to small businesses. And all of the evidence shows, as I said, a positive return
00:17:00.920There are a lot of loopholes. There's a lot of, you know, litigation that ensues. But I think people confuse that with paid leave. I think people don't realize what an outlier we are as a country. I think it's obviously confusing the difference between state programs, what's offered by your employer and what's national.
00:17:18.360So I understand the confusion, but it's really important, I think, for people to understand that we don't have to live this way. And right now in the private sector, only one in four of us has paid family leave from our employers. And across the country, only 14 states and D.C. have passed programs.
00:17:38.760So it's not like this is something most of us take for granted and have. Tens and millions of us don't have it. Face financial hardship or ruin. You know, face unimaginable choices between life and livelihood, family and work.
00:17:54.480So, yeah, it's trying to make people understand, one, how how really urgent and awful the situation is, but then also understanding how much better it can be and what's possible and what's actually not radical at all.
00:18:07.260You know, every every country but us and some small island nations have figured it out.
00:19:31.320I mean, I think that and also probably not as much in the past, but we with so many of these corporations are simply out to maximize shareholder value and will not solve these situations.
00:19:44.260And the numbers in the private sector haven't budged for years.
00:19:46.640So if the market was going to solve it, it would have improved at least by now.
00:19:51.080But we produced recently this little short film, kind of to your point, because what we wanted to do was show in a storytelling, narrative, emotional way that the government can work to help our lives.
00:20:04.640And so it follows a couple of families and states that have paid leave programs and shows how and, you know, some of their most unexpected or hardest moments, how easy it was for them to access the program, the difference it made in their lives, how, you know, it helped them go on with some normalcy and some joy and some healing.
00:20:24.440um but very much to your point we think constantly about how the ways we can both
00:20:29.840convince people about specifically the value of paid leave but also just that um it's not radical
00:20:36.420these are things that our government should be providing and and we know that it works we know
00:20:40.980that it helps people's lives uh i mean you look at the countries that have programs like this
00:20:45.680and more are some of the happiest countries in the world um and and it's how we deserve to live too
00:21:09.940And of course, I'm sure people hear about sort of the Nordic country is really, really kind of leading the way and modeling not just tremendous amounts of time and improving the policy.
00:21:21.740by the amount of pay you get and trying to make it really gender equal and friendly.
00:21:26.040But I mean, even like Estonia had a remarkable number of weeks, as I recall.
00:21:31.560And then we were talking to the campaign leaders in Brazil who said over the last year,
00:21:37.380they've quadrupled the amount of paid paternity leave.
00:21:44.420And then, you know, you hear Australia complaining about, you know, oh, they hate their policy.
00:21:49.080It's only what I forget exactly. It was like four or six or eight months or something.
00:21:54.500And in 2021, we were fighting tooth and nail to get four weeks for people.
00:22:00.000So, yes, there are certainly I think a lot of the Nordic countries in particular have really continued to try to improve it and, you know, kind of the best in show.
00:22:09.400But truly, almost everyone's getting it better than we are.
00:22:12.220Yeah. When I was writing the book How to Be Married, I spent a lot of time in Sweden looking at how their policies on paternity leave positively impacted fathers and not just in how they bond with their kids, but also how they bonded with other fathers and other women.
00:24:52.220Well, but, you know, what's more terrifying to me is not even the men that they're interviewing, because to me, you know, as someone who reports on influencers, they're just like the dude version of Trad Wives.
00:25:02.020Like they're mostly lying to you to get attention, to get attention and make money.
00:25:05.640I don't even think most of them believe in this, but their audience does.
00:25:09.900And they're swaying a lot of young men, not all, but a lot.
00:25:14.560And so I was most terrified watching the audience be interviewed and and to see how they've been been influenced.
00:25:24.240And because I'm raising a boy child, I have a nine year old son and, you know, protecting him from these ideas has become a full time job in a lot of ways.
00:25:34.540And I think it is for so many of us right now.
00:25:36.700Yeah, I have an 11-year-old, and he turned out to be remarkably very aware of gender and sensitive.
00:25:45.900But what I do see when I watch, like, boys around him is that I do sometimes believe in this idea that we raise daughters and love sons.
00:25:55.340Like, I see boys do the dumbest things, like, you know, on the playground or wherever, and I just watch, like, the parents kind of, like, laugh it off, you know, like.
00:26:04.820And so that's something we got it. We got to change the way we raise our kids.
00:26:10.060Yeah. Yeah. We truly do. I mean, I love the Gloria Steinem quote, which I'll mangle. But, you know, we raised our daughters the way we were start raising our sons.
00:26:21.020But we have not taught the boys, you know, how to relate to women. And we haven't raised our sons the way we raise our daughters, which I just totally mangled.
00:26:30.360sorry gloria uh in case you're listening and but it's but it is true and it's something that
00:26:35.800i'm trying to truly reverse in in my own life uh let's take one more quick break uh and when
00:26:43.660when we get back i want to talk about what people can do how can the average person
00:26:47.360support this and push for it and and help all of the great stuff that you're trying to do
00:27:00.360Okay, we are back. Give us a little bit more hope and tell us what we can do. Because I think
00:27:08.260I have so many friends who are just like brilliant people who are so burnt out by the crappy news
00:27:14.000cycle. And they've checked out. I mean, people that have never checked out of the news in their
00:27:18.400adult lives for the past 30 years are like, I don't even open the New York Times anymore. I
00:27:22.280don't even read news alerts because it's just all terrible news. But there are also people who want
00:27:27.860to get involved and do good things? Like, what can they do to support this? Thank you for asking
00:27:32.000that. Well, I think there's all kinds of things you can do from the easiest three second thing
00:27:36.080to the most involved. I would encourage you to follow Paidly For All on social media because
00:27:40.940we often offer easy ways to be involved, things to sign, events to go to. And then I would also
00:27:48.240say, like, right now, I think the most important thing, vote in every election. And in any way you
00:27:53.820can. Hold your electeds and the candidates trying to get your vote accountable. So ask them at every
00:28:00.220opportunity. You can at them on social media and use their handles. You know, call the office.
00:28:06.520If you're going to a candidate event, ask the question, what do they think about paid leave
00:28:11.080and what would they do to get it done? Because I do think this is a political problem that we have
00:28:17.900dissolve. And we have the public support and we need to create in Congress the political will.
00:28:24.800And so they need to feel some heat. And they also need to remember that they work for us.
00:28:29.540So never, ever shy away from from engaging with them. And and yeah, there'll be opportunities
00:28:35.520hopefully down the road where we'll put calls out for, you know, to make calls or to come to a
00:28:40.360rally. But at the end of the day, I think it's making sure your voice is heard, sharing your
00:28:44.980story in any way you can, because as we said earlier, stories really matter. And not giving
00:28:50.360up hope because, you know, the bad guys want us to do that. And we have to keep finding joy and
00:28:56.120we have to keep finding inspiration because things often, they can change really quickly.
00:29:00.480And that's what I remind myself is that as bad as things get, they can still change faster than
00:29:05.300we think. Yeah, I'm still very hopeful because despite all of the rollbacks that we have seen