Jody Heymann:
I think it’s important we talk about all three elements, the parental leave, which you already mentioned, the paid sick leave.
I want to highlight again we just came out of this pandemic, trillions of dollars because of the spread. We are one of the few countries — all of the countries that didn’t have national sick leave, they did worse in the pandemic. So there’s a lot of savings in pandemic years, but also in regular years with influenza, diarrheal diseases, lower rates of chronic conditions.
What about the third kind of leave, leave for a family member who’s sick? I think one thing we can think about is, can that leave be shared across multiple family members, so, for each family member, it’s shorter, but the total amount of leave is there?
Judy Woodruff And no question we are looking at many — in many cases, at individuals at the lower end of the income scale, the ones who most need this kind of support.
Jody Heymann, who’s with the WORLD Policy Analysis Center at UCLA, thank you very much.