Clinton Touts Plans to Help Working Parents

GRAMBLING, La. —  President Clinton on Sunday declared that America’s working parents need to spend more time with their children, and he offered two government-subsidized family leave programs to help make it possible.

Citing a new federal study that says working parents must contend with a worsening “time crunch,” the president said both plans aim to give people the financial flexibility they need to take time off from work to tend to family needs.

“Parents should not have to fear a boss’s wrath because they left work to take a child to the doctor. They shouldn’t have to call in sick to attend a parent-teacher conference at the school,” Clinton told nearly 500 graduating students at Grambling State University, a historically black university in northern Louisiana.

The first plan offered by Clinton allows states to essentially underwrite family leave for parents after a birth or adoption, tapping into surplus unemployment benefits to help pay their salaries while they are off work. The plan does not require congressional approval.

In a companion idea, Clinton directed government officials to let federal employees take up to 12 weeks of accrued sick leave to care for seriously ill family members, a significant increase from the 13 days currently allowed. And he challenged private employers to follow suit.

Clinton has focused repeatedly in recent weeks on combating the roots of hatred evident in the Littleton, Colo., school massacre and the “ethnic cleansing” in Kosovo, and he expanded on that theme in the first of three commencement addresses he will deliver in coming weeks.

“It all begins with family,” he told a supportive audience at Grambling.

Unveiling the results of a study conducted by his economic advisors, Clinton said Americans are suffering because they are spending far less time with their families than a generation ago. And, he warned, “unless we act now, that problem will get worse.”

Clinton’s plan for underwriting parental leaves reflects the interest expressed by several states in putting to use surplus unemployment insurance--a benefit of declining joblessness--to help new parents take time off from work.

Officials said Maryland, Massachusetts, Washington and Vermont have sought permission from the federal government to use their surpluses to offset the salaries of new parents taking leave from work to be with their children.

Clinton’s plan directs the Labor Department to draft regulations to allow such diversions if states choose to enact legislation financing the parental leaves. More than half the states have unemployment insurance surpluses, officials said. Recent unemployment insurance figures for California were unavailable Sunday.

Clinton’s directive to permit about 2 million federal civilian employees to take expanded sick leave would cost the government about $60 million a year, spread across all federal agencies.

Officials expect that about 0.5% of the federal work force, or about 10,000 employees, would use the full 12 weeks of sick time to tend to ailing family members, a White House official said.

Noting that the first bill he signed as president was the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, Clinton said the two new plans represent bold and significant expansions of current laws protecting workers who need to take time off.

“To be truthful, the current law just meets a fraction of the need. Too many people, too many family obligations aren’t covered at all. Too many families can’t take advantage of the law because they can’t afford to take time off because they can’t live without their paychecks,” he said.

“For all of this nation’s pro-family rhetoric, the hard truth is that other countries with advanced economies do a lot more to support working parents than we do,” Clinton said. “We must think bigger and do better.”

He urged private employers to develop more on-site day-care programs for the children of employees and to expand telecommuting and other work options to give working parents more flexibility in managing their time.

The study, prepared by the Council of Economic Advisors, focuses on a growing “time crunch” for families, tracing trends in the hours that Americans are spending at work and home since 1969.

The report found a “dramatic shift” in women leaving the home to join the work force, with 68% of married mothers holding paying jobs in 1996, up from 38% in 1969.

That, in turn, has caused a 14% reduction in parents’ discretionary time, which they might spend with their children. An increase in single-parent families has also fueled the problem, the study said.