R.I. receives B+ for enacting workplace policies supporting new parents

RHODE ISLAND RECEIVED a grade of B+ on the for enacting workplace policies that support new parents, according to a report released this week from the nonprofit National Partnership for Women & Families. / COURTESY NATIONAL PARTNERSHIP FOR WOMEN & FAMILIES
RHODE ISLAND RECEIVED a grade of B+ on the for enacting workplace policies that support new parents, according to a report released this week from the nonprofit National Partnership for Women & Families. / COURTESY NATIONAL PARTNERSHIP FOR WOMEN & FAMILIES

PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island received a grade of B+ for enacting workplace policies that support new parents, according to the report Expecting Better: A State-by-State Analysis of Laws That Help Expecting and New Parents.
The report, released this week from the National Partnership for Women & Families, came in advance of the 23rd anniversary of the day the federal Family and Medical Leave Act took effect – Aug. 5, 1993. The National Partnership said the study shows few states have expanded upon the FMLA’s unpaid leave protections or adopted other supports to assist expecting and new parents who are employed.
Rhode Island and Connecticut, which both received B+s, had the best grades among the New England states. Massachusetts and Vermont received Bs, while Maine received a B- and New Hampshire, a D.
It said Rhode Island fares “well-above average,” and added it has made significant progress, even though the state’s working families “still lack some basic protections.” The B+ grade is an improvement from when the study was last done in 2014 – that year, Rhode Island received a B.
“Rhode Island earns a grade of ‘B+’ for its policies, including its adoption of a paid family-leave insurance program (temporary caregiver insurance) in 2013 and pregnancy accommodation law in 2015,” the study states.
It said that in Rhode Island, 276,115 women were in the labor force, comprising 49 percent of the state workforce, and 77 percent of the state’s children live in families where all parents work. Those figures are based on U.S. Census data from 2014.
California was the only state to receive an A. The District of Columbia and New York eared grades of A- and 11 states, including Rhode Island, earned B grades. Ten states received Cs, and 15 states received Ds, with 12 states receiving Fs for failing to enact a single workplace policy to help expecting or new parents, the National Partnership said.
States and the District of Columbia were graded based on their passage of select laws that offer greater leave or workplace protections than federal law provides, the National Partnership said.
The first edition of Expecting Better was released in 2005. This is the fourth edition. The report notes that over the past 11 years, key workplace policies have been adopted in:

  • New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island, which joined California in enacting paid family-leave programs;
  • California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Oregon, Vermont and the District of Columbia, which enacted laws guaranteeing workers the right to earn paid sick days;
  • Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin, which expanded workers’ access to unpaid, job-protected family and medical leave.

“Despite some meaningful progress, too many working families in this country struggle at the very time they should be focused on giving children their best possible starts in life. Twenty-three years after the country took its first major step to help people manage job and family by implementing a national unpaid family and medical leave law, our new study reveals that people in too few states are guaranteed access to paid leave and other workplace protections they urgently need,” Debra L. Ness, president of the National Partnership, said in a statement.

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