Just before the State of the Union address this year, President Obama put the push of the White House squarely behind the issue of paid sick leave. In a PR blitz, Obama was seen lunching with workers, visiting businesses that provide paid sick leave to employees, and, finally, highlighting the issue in his State of the Union.

The plan

According to the White House, the President’s new paid leave proposal includes:

• Calling on Congress, as well as states and cities, to pass legislation that would allow millions of working Americans to earn up to 7 days of paid sick time per year;
• Proposing more than $2 billion in new funds to encourage states to develop paid family and medical leave programs and announcing that the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) will use $1 million in existing funds to help states and municipalities conduct feasibility studies; and
• Modernizing the federal workplace by signing a presidential memorandum directing agencies to advance up to 6 weeks of paid sick leave for parents with a new child, and calling on Congress to pass legislation giving federal employees an additional 6 weeks of paid parental leave.

Why this and why now?

The Obama administration points to the growing challenge of balancing work and family as a primary motivator for the paid sick leave initiative. Across married and single parent families, all parents are working in more than 60% of households with children, up from 40% in 1965, according to a White House statement.

More than 60% of women with children under the age of 5 participate in the labor force, compared with around 30% in the 1970s. And yet, the United States remains the only developed country in the world that does not offer paid maternity leave. It is time for this to change, says Obama.

The push gets results

On February 2, the DOL announced that part of the $2 billion budget will be used for a Paid Leave Partnership Initiative to help as many as five states launch paid leave programs following the example of California, New Jersey, and Rhode Island.

The DOL announcement said participating states would be eligible to receive funds for the initial setup and half of benefits for 3 years. The budget also includes a $35 million State Paid Leave Fund to provide technical assistance and support to states as they build the infrastructure needed to launch paid leave programs in the future, according to the DOL announcement.

What can employers expect?

Some states and cities already have passed laws requiring paid sick leave, and Obama is urging more states and cities to pass such laws. Oregon is one state with cities that have passed sick leave laws.

Calvin Keith, a partner in the Portland office of Perkins Coie, LLP, represents employers, and he says he hasn’t heard a lot of feedback yet since the Portland law is relatively new and the Eugene law doesn’t take effect until this summer. But he says Portland’s smaller employers find it difficult and costly to provide the leave and handle the recordkeeping.

“Most of my larger employers did not need to add additional leave. They already provided sufficient leave,” Keith says. “Recordkeeping can still be difficult, however, especially for employers with many locations. Union employers have sometimes been forced to provide additional leave beyond that negotiated in a bargaining agreement.”

Federal law

Although the President encouraged Congress to pass the federal Healthy Families Act, giving employees in every state up to 7 days of paid sick leave per year, the prospect of Congress doing so is bleak.

Similar pieces of legislation have been introduced in Congress for years, without success. The current state of deadlock in Congress means that the Healthy Families Act will be unlikely to move forward. Instead, the movement in paid sick leave will come from the states.

Paid sick leave in the states (and cities)

In case you are keeping track (and BLR^® is), at the time of publication, there were 19 jurisdictions with paid sick leave laws and ordinances currently in effect or due to take effect in 2015.

Most recently, Philadelphia and Tacoma, Washington, joined the growing list of jurisdictions with paid sick leave ordinances, which includes San Francisco, CA; Washington, D.C; Seattle, WA; Portland, OR; New York City, NY; Jersey City, NJ; Newark NJ; Eugene, OR; San Diego, CA; Passaic, NJ; Paterson, NJ; East Orange, NJ; Irvington, CA; Oakland, CA; Montclair, NJ; Bloomfield, NJ; and Trenton, NJ.

In an effort to thwart local sick leave ordinances, nearly a dozen states have passed so-call “pre-emption” laws banning local jurisdictions from passing paid sick leave measures. Most recently, Florida enacted a preemption law, joining Arizona, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. Similar bills are awaiting legislative action in Alabama, Indiana, and Michigan.