Testimony of Joanna Blotner, Director of Government Affairs, Committee on Executive Administration and Labor

Good afternoon, Councilmember Bonds, members of the Committee on Executive Administration and Labor, and committee staff. My name is Joanna Blotner, and I serve as the Government Affairs Director at DC Action, where we utilize research, data, coalition building, advocacy, and a racial equity lens to break down barriers that stand in the way of all kids reaching their full potential. We are also the home of DC KIDS COUNT, an online resource that tracks key indicators of child, youth, and family well-being. I am testifying today on the critical role paid family and medical leave plays in promoting the well-being of the District’s children and working families. DC Action encourages this committee to reject the Mayor’s budget proposal to reduce paid leave benefits to create tax relief for big business interests. 

DC Action was an early supporter of the DC Paid Family Leave Campaign, signing on as a coalition partner to the legislative effort in 2015 because data shows that paid parental, medical, and family caregiving leave promotes infant and maternal health, child development, family economic security, and racial equity.  More broadly, we know that when working families face some of the most challenging moments in their lives, paid leave helps ensure that a health crisis or tragedy does not also become a financial crisis, a housing crisis, or a crisis of conscience, forcing someone to choose between caring for a loved one and receiving a paycheck. The Mayor’s continued hostility toward paid leave and working families directly undermine her supposed commitment to growing our economy and making the District a competitive and desirable place to work, instead promoting displacement, inequality, and instability for DC families and businesses.  

At DC Action, we are a small nonprofit of roughly 20 employees. The District’s paid family and medical leave insurance program has been a significant financial asset for us because of its very low cost yet very robust benefits (benefits not available on the private market when it comes to family caregiving including paternity leave). Multiple members of our staff have benefited from paid leave – some for parental leave and some for personal medical leave, which required the utilization of all 12 weeks of UPL benefits to undergo cancer treatment. With multiple staff members currently caring for aging parents, the family caregiving component of the District’s paid leave insurance program is becoming an increasingly important part of our benefits package and strategy for retaining top talent while keeping things affordable organizationally. 

Since the launch of the program, data from DOES has shown that workers regularly do not request or qualify for all the weeks of medical or family caregiving leave the District allows; there are legislative and regulatory guardrails against extended leave, meaning that in the few instances that someone does qualify for all 12 weeks, they truly, truly need it – like my dad did when he was recovering from guillain-barré syndrome for nearly 5 months. Cutting back on paid leave benefit levels by $153 per week (for all leave types) or the weeks of leave by 4 and 6 weeks for personal and family caregiving leave, respectively, means families lose anywhere from $1,836 to $6,918 in needed income when they welcome a child, care for a loved one, or tend to a personal health crisis. With local and federal attacks on social safety net programs that help DC families stay afloat, now is not the time to retreat from the financial stability that paid leave can help provide to working families. And we need to be honest about who these proposed policy changes will hit the hardest: it’s women as they are still the primary caregivers in family dynamics, it’s workers with aging partners and parents who are most likely to require family caregiving leave, and its DC’s Black families and children who already face disproportionate levels of financial stress, job insecurity, and poverty.       

If the Mayor and Council are concerned about the business tax burdens they created last year by raising the payroll tax to fund our general operating budget, they should consider business tax reforms such as implementing a Business Activity Tax. A BAT would close loopholes that allow some of our wealthiest business operators living out of state to avoid contributing their fair share to our tax base’s resilience. DC Action believes we must invest in children and families and grow our economy from the bottom up – that is why we support the tax justice proposals of the Just Recovery DC ‘All in for DC’ platform. Balancing budgets on the backs of working families is unacceptable. We call on this committee to protect paid leave for all by rejecting Budget Support Act subtitle H of Title IV, as sent down by the Mayor.

Thank you for your consideration and I would be happy to answer any questions.