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When Where You Work Determines if You Can Get an Abortion

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After the Dobbs v. Jackson decision, many women are discovering that their employer can shape major decisions in their lives even more than it did a week ago.When Breanna Dietrich was 18 and working at a restaurant in West Virginia, she got pregnant. The father was a man she knew she wouldn’t marry. She considered getting an abortion. But the nearest clinic was four hours away and she couldn’t afford to take off work — so she had the baby girl.That girl is now 17 and working at a restaurant chain that has not told its employees whether it will cover abortion-related travel expenses, though abortion is now prohibited in West Virginia. This past week, Ms. Dietrich urged her daughter to find an employer that would cover the expense.“It would be awesome for her to move to a state that offers it, or at least work for a company that says, ‘Hey, we’ll foot the bill,’” Ms. Dietrich said, recalling her own struggle years ago to consider the logistics of an abortion. “How was I, at 18, going to be able to drive four hours away, pay for it, take off work? There would’ve been no way.”In the week since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending nearly 50 years of federal abortion rights, dozens of large U.S. companies have said they will cover expenses for employees who need to travel out of state for abortions. Some companies even said they would relocate employees from states where abortion is banned.Some business leaders now talk about access to reproductive health care as a benefit, akin to dental or egg-freezing coverage. Many of the companies quickest to come forward are those known generally for generous policies on paid leave, health care and other perks that proliferate in competitive industries. Abortion-related benefits are more divisive, of course, given that 37 percent of Americans say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases.As the post-Dobbs v. Jackson landscape comes into focus, many women are discovering that, even more so than a week ago, where they happen to work can determine the shape of their lives outside work, too. Their job could be the difference between being able to get an abortion or not.Employers have long held sway over workers’ reproductive health care — whether they can take paid leave to have a baby, afford child care or get access to birth control. About half of Americans have health care tied to their employers. But the involvement corporations now have in abortion access illuminates a stark divide.For high-income women, an employer’s offer to cover abortion-related travel might be viewed partly as a signal of psychological support or a political stance. For women in low-income jobs, a company’s policy will determine whether or not they can afford to cross state lines for an abortion.About 40 percent of American women cite financial reasons as a factor in their decision to get an abortion, yet many of the companies that employ the country’s low-wage workers have not announced that they will cover out-of-state abortion expenses. Some of the largest companies in retail and hospitality, industries whose work force is predominantly female, haven’t made a statement on the question.Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer, has not said if it will cover travel for out-of-state abortions.Shutterstock“In low-wage sectors, this is going to become one of those issues where people are leaving low-paying jobs for slightly better-paying jobs,” said Bianca Agustin, director of corporate accountability for United for Respect, a nonprofit labor advocacy group. “Given the spread of companies that have public commitments, I imagine there will be some movement on this.”Walmart, Darden Restaurants, McDonald’s, Home Depot, Hilton, Dollar General and FedEx, which together employ millions of people across the country, have not said whether they will cover travel for out-of-state abortions. A spokeswoman for Walmart, which has 1.7 million U.S. workers, said the company regularly reviews its benefits based on demand from employees, and the company is now “looking at the evolving federal and state landscape” as it considers its offerings. The rest of the companies listed did not respond to multiple requests for comment.“We are working thoughtfully and diligently to figure out the best path forward, guided by our desire to support our associates, all of our associates,” wrote Doug McMillon, Walmart’s chief executive, in a memo to staff on Friday.Amazon, the country’s second-largest private employer after Walmart, said it would cover out-of-state abortion travel for its employees, most of whom are hourly workers. But that benefit applies to employees on its health care plan, not the contractors who make up a substantial portion of its work force, such as its vast network of delivery drivers.As the list of companies covering abortion-related travel grows longer, some workers wonder why their employers won’t do the same. Isabela Burrows, 19, who works at a PetSmart in Howell, Mich., learned that Roe v. Wade had been overturned from a customer last week and grew frustrated that her company hadn’t said anything. Michigan has an abortion ban that has been blocked in court and that Democratic leaders have said they will not enforce.“I wish they would do something,” Ms. Burrows said of her employer. She said her greatest source of relief has come from reading about the companies that have announced new reproductive health care benefits. “They cared enough that they would send you to go get the help and care you need.”PetSmart has not announced plans to cover abortion-related travel for its employees, and the company did not respond to a request for comment on whether it plans to do so.A company’s policies on reproductive health care access could affect how desirable it is to job candidates in what remains a tight labor market. A survey of college-educated workers, commissioned by the Tara Health Foundation, found that 70 percent said companies should address abortion access as part of their gender equity efforts. A survey from Morning Consult, also commissioned by the Tara Health Foundation, found that 71 percent of adults said people should consider a state’s social policies when deciding whether to move there.Vanessa Burbano, a management professor at Columbia Business School, said that for workers who live in states where abortion is no longer legal, the policies their employers set do more than just signal a company’s politics.“There’s a tangible, real world implication for your own personal health care,” she said, adding that employers are striking a delicate balance. “They’re trying to walk the very fine line of not making these big, broad, public blanket statements about the issue while simultaneously trying to address concerns of their employees.”Gina Lindsey, 48, a public-school teacher, recalled that when she sent her daughter off to college four years ago, she advised her to make pay, benefits and sense of purpose priorities when looking for a job. Now Ms. Lindsey urges her daughter to take into consideration the employer’s approach toward out-of-state abortion coverage.“That’s going to become part of the calculus,” said Ms. Lindsey, who lives in Ohio, where abortion is now banned after six weeks of pregnancy.She worries, though, about the many people her daughter’s age whose employers will not cover their abortion-related travel expenses. “How many people are able to get a job at Google?” she asked. “How many people are able to get a job at Disney? How many people truly have that opportunity, especially in states where the bans are in place?”Most people don’t plan to need abortion-related travel benefits: “Very rarely do people think that they themselves are going to need an abortion,” said Diana Greene Foster, a demographer at the University of California, San Francisco, and the principal investigator of the Turnaway Study, which looked at the economic consequences of having or being denied an abortion. “I doubt they would switch jobs because they think they themselves will be affected.”And if they do want to switch, finding a job with expanded reproductive health benefits can be difficult. Rhonda Sharpe, an economist and the president of the Women’s Institute for Science, Equity and Race, said the women in low-wage jobs most likely to need these benefits are least able to conduct a job search — and cover the expenses in child care and time off work that can come with it.Relying on employers to bridge the gap between workers and reproductive health services will become more difficult, legal experts warn, as anti-abortion groups say they will try to ban out-of-state abortions and penalize the companies that fund them. While employers determine how to actually roll out their new travel policies, weighing issues related to privacy and taxes, they’re also facing the prospect of legal challenges.“The employers we’ve been counseling are looking at it all different ways and trying to minimize the risk to everyone,” said Amy Gordon, an employee benefits partner at the law firm Winston & Strawn.Ms. Dietrich, in West Virginia, had to quit her food service job last year because of health issues related to another pregnancy. Her employer at the time didn’t offer maternity leave. She wants to help her daughter find a workplace that’s more caring — and they’re starting by looking at those that will cover abortion-related travel.“It shows they’re listening to workers,” she said. “They’re saying, ‘Hey, look, I will help you to get where you need. You’re not trying to figure it out yourself.’” More

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    Why Paid Family Leave’s Demise This Time Could Fuel It Later

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    In failing to secure a benefit with bipartisan appeal, President Biden joins a long line of frustrated politicians. But some Republicans say it could be resurrected on its own.WASHINGTON — In late 2019, with bipartisan backing, including from the iconoclastic Senate Democrat Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, President Donald J. Trump’s daughter Ivanka hosted a summit at the White House to promote her vision for paid family and medical leave.As with many domestic initiatives of the Trump years, the effort went nowhere, thanks in part to the former president’s lack of interest in legislating. But it also stalled in part because of opposition from Democrats like Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, who saw the plan not as a true federal benefit but as a “payday loan” off future Social Security benefits.Ms. Gillibrand believed she could do much better.Last week was the Democrats’ turn to fail. A 12-week paid family and medical leave program, costing $500 billion over 10 years, was supposed to be a centerpiece of President Biden’s social safety net legislation. But it fell out of his compromise framework, a victim of centrists who objected to its ambition and cost.The demise of the effort, even amid bipartisan interest, in part reflected the polarization surrounding Democrats’ marquee domestic legislation, which Republicans are opposing en masse.Some business groups and G.O.P. proponents of a paid leave program believe that if it had been broken out and negotiated with Republicans, the way a $1 trillion infrastructure package was at Mr. Biden’s urging, it could have survived, and some think it still could resurrected as a bipartisan initiative.They said the problem lay with the Democrats’ decision to put paid family leave in the expansive social policy and climate bill — a multitrillion-dollar package financed by large tax increases on businesses and the wealthy — which they knew that Republicans and mainstream business groups would never support.“In any area that is substantive, when members sit down to actually walk through whether or not we can build good legislation, there are possibilities,” Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, said. “We’re not being encouraged to work together to solve problems. What we’re being encouraged to do is line up with the team so that we can have the political messaging point.”At least for now, though, the United States is almost certain to remain one of only six countries with no national paid leave.“Fundamentally, to provide paid leave, you have to value women and value their work,” Ms. Gillibrand lamented, “and valuing women and their work is a hard thing for the United States.”The last-minute removal of the paid leave program underscored longstanding questions about how it can be that while 186 other countries have such a program, the United States does not.A rally for paid leave near the White House. The United States is one of only six countries that do not provide some sort of national paid leave.Valerie Plesch for The New York TimesMs. Gillibrand was highly skeptical that a bipartisan deal to address the issue was possible. She said she had been developing paid family and medical leave legislation for nearly a decade, had sought out numerous Republican and business partners, and had always found the parties too ideologically divided.But the issue driving interest in both parties — bringing more women into the work force and keeping them there — has only grown more acute since the coronavirus pandemic hit.White House officials say 95 percent of the lowest-wage workers lack any paid leave, and they are predominantly women and people of color. Some five million women lost their jobs during the pandemic, and many of them, struggling with access to child care and bedeviled by intermittent school closures and periodic Covid-19 outbreaks, have opted not to return.Mr. Trump campaigned on the issue and included six weeks of federally paid leave in his budgets, which were ignored by Republican leaders. Congressional Republicans had their own ideas. Legislation introduced in 2019 by Senators Sinema and Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, and Representatives Elise Stefanik, Republican of New York, and Colin Allred, Democrat of Texas, would offer new parents $5,000 during the first year of their baby’s life, which they would repay over the decade through cuts to their child tax credit.The Republican senators Marco Rubio of Florida, Mitt Romney of Utah, Joni Ernst of Iowa and Mike Lee of Utah similarly proposed offering workers parental leave benefits that would have to be repaid — with interest — through cuts in their Social Security retirement benefits.Senator Deb Fischer, Republican of Nebraska, championed and secured more modest legislation — tucked into the Republican tax cuts of 2017 — that gave small businesses a tax credit to fund family leave. She argued against broader versions, since many companies already offer employees paid leave.“If you have two or three employees, you cannot afford to do paid family leave because you can’t afford to hire somebody to take their place, which is why I think the tax credit that we have in law now is really beneficial,” Ms. Fischer said.According to the White House, fewer than a third of small businesses with 100 or more employees offer paid leave. Only 14 percent with fewer than 50 employees do. Ms. Fischer conceded that few small businesses have taken advantage of her credit, but she blamed the Treasury Department, under Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden, for dragging its feet on issuing detailed regulations and promoting it.To Democrats, those proposals are not true leave. They are either loans off other needed benefits or too limited to make a difference. Ms. Gillibrand said that optimally, a stable, generous family and medical leave plan would be an “earned benefit” like Social Security and Medicare: Workers would pay into the system and claim the benefit when they needed it, regardless of where they worked or how much they earned.But, she said, taxing workers has become politically difficult. Her 2013 bill envisioned family and medical leave insurance, financed by a small contribution from employers with each paycheck.This year, the Biden administration and Democratic leaders opted to fund paid leave out of general revenues, bolstered by tax increases on the wealthy and corporations. They said the program was part of a broader “human infrastructure” effort to help children and young parents, which included child care support, a child tax credit and universal prekindergarten — and therefore didn’t need a dedicated funding source.Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, opposed a plan for 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave, saying he worried that without a stable revenue source, it would be a drain on the Social Security system.Al Drago for The New York TimesThe House proposal would have guaranteed 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave annually to all workers, in private or government employment, gig work like Uber and Lyft, or self-employment. The benefit would have replaced 85 percent of wages or earnings for the lowest-paid workers, scaling back from there.That generosity was why the plan ran into a roadblock in the Senate. Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, saw an expensive new benefit without a stable revenue source that he worried would end up draining an already stressed Social Security system.Ms. Gillibrand and Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, have pleaded, cajoled and bargained with him. They said a paid leave plan would actually bolster Social Security’s finances by helping women get back to work, where they would pay Social Security taxes, and helping young families have more children, which would bolster the work force of the future. Democrats offered to scale back a 12-week leave plan to four weeks, then to limit it to leave for new babies, not medical emergencies.Mr. Manchin promised to consider the offers, but few are optimistic. Ms. Gillibrand sees societal issues at work. While it is true that virtually every country in the world has a paid leave program, that is somewhat misleading, she said.Most of those countries can afford to offer paid leave because they do not actually expect women to work once they begin having children. Long leave plans help couples get started having children, but most countries then do not help with child care because they assume women will stay home.The U.S. work force relies on women. Mr. Biden’s compromise framework does include generous subsidies for child care starting at birth and for universal prekindergarten for 3- and 4-year-olds. It now lacks the first step: helping parents through pregnancy and childbirth.“What we’re trying to achieve here is the ability of women to work effectively and to be most productive at work,” Ms. Gillibrand said.Advocates say lawmakers should not give up yet. Marc Freedman, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s vice president for employment policy, said the business group had been meeting with congressional offices before the pandemic, pressing for a national paid leave plan to replace the patchwork of state and local government plans popping up.The government would create a minimum benefit that businesses would be allowed to exceed for recruitment and retention, financed by a payroll tax paid by employees. Such a plan would help smaller businesses compete for labor with larger corporations, while offloading some of the burden on companies that already offer leave plans.“We very much want to restart those conversations,” he said.Some Republicans, especially Republican women, say they are ready to join those talks.“It’s an issue we need to address as a nation and look at and get creative with,” said Senator Shelley Moore Capito, Republican of West Virginia, who helped secure paid leave for federal workers.But as with the infrastructure deal struck over the summer, Democrats would not be likely to get all they want. Ms. Capito, for instance, said the plan that Mr. Manchin killed was too generous, with leave beyond care for new babies and sick family members.Ms. Gillibrand said she had already begun outreach. She talked to Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, about an interim step of helping small states pool with larger ones to create regional leave programs. She signaled flexibility on funding the kind of insurance mechanism that Mr. Freedman said the Chamber of Commerce favored.But none of those ideas would happen as quickly as the broad program that Mr. Manchin is opposing, she said.“There is work I can do over the next six months to a year, sure, but will take time,” Ms. Gillibrand concluded. “And it won’t be simple.” More

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    Biden's Paid Leave Plan at Risk as Lawmakers Seek Cuts

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    An initial proposal to offer workers 12 weeks of paid leave could be whittled down as Democrats try to trim their $3.5 trillion social policy bill.WASHINGTON — Christina Hayes, 34, stopped going to the doctor for treatment of her lupus when she was pregnant and working at a cable company in Michigan in 2013. She had used up her vacation days, and without paid sick leave, she worried about paying her rent and electricity bill if she took more time off.But after her blood pressure spiked, her doctors induced labor two months early, fearing that she might have a seizure. She and her baby ended up being fine, but Ms. Hayes, now an airline gate agent in Inkster, Mich., said that having paid leave would have allowed her to prioritize her health over her paycheck.“I would have been able to schedule doctor’s appointments better,” she said. “I might not have gone into premature labor.”Paid leave, a cornerstone of President Biden’s economic agenda, is one of the many proposals at risk of being scaled back or left out of an expansive social safety net bill that Democrats are trying to push through Congress. Mr. Biden’s initial $3.5 trillion plan called for providing up to 12 weeks of paid leave for new parents, caretakers for seriously ill family members and people suffering from a serious medical condition. Democrats proposed compensating workers for at least two-thirds of their earnings and funding the program with higher taxes on wealthy people and corporations.But as Democrats try to shave hundreds of billions off the overall policy package to appease moderate holdouts, paid leave could wind up shrinking to just a few weeks. That is alarming supporters of paid leave, who view this as the best chance to secure a crucial safety net for workers, particularly women.Researchers and economists say a federal paid leave program could provide a jolt to the labor market, lifting women’s participation in the labor force and increasing the likelihood that mothers return to work after having children. Research also has shown that paid leave policies would be particularly beneficial for people of color and low-wage workers, who are among those least likely to get such a benefit from their jobs.Only 23 percent of private-sector workers have paid family leave through their employers, and 42 percent have access to personal medical leave through an employer-provided short-term disability insurance policy, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.Under the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, workers at companies with at least 50 employees can take 12 weeks of unpaid leave. The United States is the only rich country without a federal paid leave mandate for new parents or for medical emergencies.Paid leave advocates say they have received assurances from the White House and congressional leadership that Democrats are continuing to push for the proposed program.“We’re a critical voting bloc,” said Molly Day, the executive director of Paid Leave for the United States. “Women are not going to forget the decisions that were made now when we go to the ballot box.”Negotiators have discussed ways to bring down the cost of the program, such as reducing the number of weeks offered or the maximum benefit an individual could receive each month, according to people familiar with the talks. Lawmakers have also discussed trimming the number of weeks initially offered, then phasing in a 12-week benefit over a decade.Many top Democrats say they remain committed to the original paid leave plan and have urged their colleagues in Congress and the Biden administration to keep the program intact.Representative Rosa DeLauro, a Democrat of Connecticut, said she was worried about how the program might be pared back, particularly if the benefit is phased in.“I am concerned at how long it will take us to get to that 12 weeks,” Ms. DeLauro said. “It shouldn’t take 10 years to do that.”Some Democrats say passing a federal paid leave program has become more crucial amid a global pandemic that has exposed the need for workers to have access to medical and sick leave without worrying about how they will pay their bills. The social policy legislation is being fast-tracked through the Senate using a process known as reconciliation.“If we really want to achieve paid leave in the next decade, now is the only moment, through reconciliation,” Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York said. “If you want to get everyone working who wants to be working, paid leave has to be part of the strategy.”Research on California, the first state to offer paid family leave, has mostly shown that paid leave has a positive effect on women’s wages and participation in the labor force. Nine states and the District of Columbia have passed paid leave programs.Christopher J. Ruhm, a professor of public policy and economics at the University of Virginia, found that under California’s paid leave law, new mothers who had worked during their pregnancy were estimated to be 17 percent more likely to have returned to work within a year of their child’s birth. During the second year of their child’s life, mothers’ time spent at work increased.“The evidence is pretty strong that we’d see favorable effects,” Mr. Ruhm said. “It’s not going to lead to a huge increase in employment or labor force participation of women, but it would be a modest one.”Maya Rossin-Slater, an associate professor of health policy at Stanford University, said research found that policies offering up to one year of paid leave can increase labor participation among women after childbirth. Under California’s program, the biggest gain in leave-taking is seen for Black mothers, who became more likely to take maternity leave, according to Ms. Rossin-Slater’s research.“Implementation of paid family leave can reduce inequities,” Ms. Rossin-Slater said.Pepper Nappo, 33, a mother in Derry, N.H., said she was left alone to take care of her newborn son the day she was discharged from the hospital in 2016. She had required stitches after childbirth.As a barber, she did not have paid parental leave, and her husband could not afford to take more than a week off from his job at a landscaping company. The family downgraded their car and limited what they bought at the grocery store but still struggled to keep up with the bills.“If I had paid leave, we wouldn’t have been behind,” Ms. Nappo said.Public support for paid family and medical leave is strong, but Americans tend to differ over specific policies. A recent CBS News/YouGov poll found that 73 percent of U.S. adults surveyed supported federal funding for paid family and medical leave.Conservatives have signaled an openness to paid leave in recent years, although they have been more vocal about supporting leave for parents than for other types of caregivers or those suffering from illness. Many have also expressed concerns for small businesses. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Senator Mitt Romney of Utah reintroduced a proposal last month that would allow new parents to use a portion of their Social Security to fund their own leave after the birth or adoption of a child.While larger businesses have grown open to a paid leave program, some small business groups have pushed back against a federal mandate.Holly S. Wade, the executive director of the research center at the National Federation of Independent Business, said the group was concerned that a paid leave program would burden small employers since it would require more administrative reporting.“While covering the cost of some of these mandates could potentially be helpful, in the way that an owner sees it, it just comes with a lot of paperwork, a lot of confusion and a lot of challenges,” Ms. Wade said.Supporters of paid leave say they are still pushing for 12 weeks to be available immediately, but have conceded that they would accept a permanent program that would phase in the full amount over time. Dawn Huckelbridge, director of Paid Leave for All, spoke at a rally in Washington, D.C., where she urged lawmakers to keep paid leave in the bill.Valerie Plesch for The New York Times“We are very cleareyed that there are going to be cuts,” said Dawn Huckelbridge, the director of Paid Leave for All. “We think there can be a meaningful program accomplished at less than 12.”Ms. Huckelbridge and other paid leave supporters rallied near the White House last week, urging lawmakers and the Biden administration to keep the benefit in the bill.“There have been troubling signs,” Ms. Huckelbridge said, referring to reports about demands by Senator Joe Manchin III, a West Virginia Democrat, to reduce the bill’s size and scope. More