This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Family and Medical Leave Act, sometimes called the FMLA, which President Clinton signed into law in 1993. The legislation allows up to 12 weeks of “unpaid” leave for qualifying employees to recover from major illness, or childbirth, or to take care of sick family members. 

It was a groundbreaking achievement for its time, but also limited. According to a Labor Department key-facts.html#:~:text=About%2044%20percent%20of%20workers,%2C%20Appendix%20Exhibit%20B2%2D1.">survey, about 44% of workers are not eligible for FMLA-leave because they work for small employers who are exempt from the law, or they don’t work enough hours to qualify, or they haven’t worked there long enough.And some people just can’t afford to take the unpaid leave from work. 

Now Democratic lawmakers are renewing their push to make paid family leave federal policy. On February 1st, Representative Rosa DeLauro and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand push-for-national-paid-family-and-medical-leave-program.html">reintroduced the FAMILY Act. And a day later, President Biden announced his recommitment to expanding the federal law to include paid family leave.

We speak with Natasha Pearlman, Glamour’s executive editor about the efforts to expand the Family and Medical Leave Act.