Of the 38 countries in the OECD, 37 guarantee some form of paid family or maternity leave. The United States is the one that does not. The result, documented by the Department of Labor, is that roughly 1 in 4 American mothers returns to work within two weeks of giving birth, because they cannot afford to stay home longer.
This is the only rich country where childbirth doubles as a financial emergency. Thirteen states and D.C. have built their own programs to plug the gap. Congress, since 2013, has refused to.
The Numbers Are Not Close
Across the OECD, paid maternity leave averages 17.3 weeks, with 13 countries replacing 100% of lost wages. America offers zero weeks at the federal level. The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 grants up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave, but only to workers at firms with 50 or more employees who have logged at least 1,250 hours in the past year. That excludes roughly 40% of the workforce.
The consequences land hardest on the people with the least cushion. The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis put it in the simplest possible terms: about a quarter of new mothers are back at work two weeks after birth, while the average leave runs 7.2 weeks. Mothers at the bottom of the income distribution take the shortest leaves, because they cannot afford anything else.
Childcare does not fill the gap either. Bipartisan Policy Center data show families spending an average of 22% of household income on childcare, and in 85 of the 100 largest U.S. metro areas the cost of care for two children now exceeds the median rent.
This Is a Policy Choice, Not a Budget Problem
The Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act, the FAMILY Act, was first introduced by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Representative Rosa DeLauro in 2013. The current version, S.2823 in the Senate and H.R.5390 in the House, would provide up to 12 weeks of paid leave for every worker, full-time or part-time, employee or self-employed, regardless of employer size. It is funded by a small payroll contribution split between worker and employer, roughly 0.4% of wages.
The bill has sat for 12 years. It has never received a Senate floor vote.
Roughly 1 in 4 American mothers returns to work within two weeks of giving birth. In every other rich country on earth, this would be considered an abuse, not a workforce statistic.
The state programs that exist already function as a controlled experiment. In California, where wage replacement rose to 90% for low earners in January 2025, take-up climbed 16% year over year. Stanford's Institute for Economic Policy Research found that small businesses in California, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and New York report overwhelmingly positive or neutral effects on productivity. The economic upside at national scale, according to New America, is up to 5 million additional women in the labor force and a $775 billion lift to economic activity.
The Balanced Middle Looks Like This
Forget the markets-versus-government framing. The real question is whether the world's richest economy can do what Mexico, Estonia, and Slovakia already do. A national paid leave program does not nationalize childbirth or eliminate private employers. It pools risk the same way Social Security and Medicare do, so a paycheck does not disappear the week a baby arrives or a parent gets a cancer diagnosis.
The argument against is always "the cost." The cost of the current system is paid in 12 days of leave for a quarter of new mothers, in $14,760 a year for infant care, and in the women who never come back to the workforce at all. Calling that a free market is generous. It is a hidden tax on every family that wants to have a child and earn a living at the same time.
Twelve years is long enough.
Sources
- U.S. Department of Labor, Paid Family and Medical Leave Fact Sheet (June 2024)
- Bipartisan Policy Center, Paid Family Leave Across OECD Countries
- Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Baby Is Here. How Much Leave Do Parents Take? (2026)
- FAMILY Act, S.2823, 119th Congress (Congress.gov)
- FAMILY Act, H.R.5390, 119th Congress (Congress.gov)
- Bipartisan Policy Center, National and State Child Care Data Overview (2025)
- Stanford SIEPR, Easing the Burden: Why Paid Family Leave Policies Are Gaining Steam
- New America, Why Comprehensive Paid Family Leave Is Beneficial for Workers and Families
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