We’ve all heard stories like these.
A baby is born early and needs to stay in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, possibly for weeks. The parents, exhausted and worried sick, do what they can to be at their child’s side, but neither has a paid family and medical leave benefit at their jobs, forcing them to choose between being with their family and going to work to ensure that they can still afford to pay their rent or mortgage, not to mention the medical bills they’ll face even if they have good insurance.
Then, thank goodness, their baby pulls through and is healthy enough to go home. Then what? It’s difficult to find child care – not enough places have openings and the ones that do are highly expensive. Child care facilities need more qualified workers, which is difficult since those jobs frequently pay far less than those workers deserve. So, then the parents have another decision to make: should one leave the workforce and stay home, sacrificing their income because it’s the only option available? Can they take the child to work, if that’s even safe?
All too often, families have to make wrenching decisions like these due to financial constraints and a society that doesn’t do nearly enough to support them. In this example, the parents in question are fortunate in some ways – they have jobs that pay decently enough, and both parents are present and working to find a solution. So many more people find themselves in more difficult situations.
Caregiving, whether as new parents or caring for a sick or injured loved one, is one of the most important vocations someone is called to do. And far too often, we hang caregivers out to dry.
But this session in the Legislature, we recognized the vital role caregivers play.
The State budget we recently passed funds the creation of a new paid family and medical leave program, so Mainers will no longer have to choose between a paycheck and caring for themselves or a loved one in need. I sit on the committee which heard this bill, and I heard countless stories similar to the scenario I mentioned above. These stories resonated with my own experience of helping my parents when they were caregivers for my grandfather in the last six months of his life. I saw the emotional toll it took on them, even though their own financial situation was stable.
I know all too well how difficult it is to parent a newborn – my wife and I have done it twice. Even with my wife’s maternity leave, a week that I was able to take off due to unused sick time and family members nearby, we were exhausted (and almost certainly not our best selves at work), and we knew we were comparatively lucky.
The paid family and medical leave program we are creating will provide support for families and caregivers who currently have little to none. This is a big deal, and we should celebrate it.
The budget also takes significant steps to improve the current lack of available and affordable child care. It will invest more than $35 million to double the wage stipend for child care workers while expanding eligibility for assistance to more families – a major boost for our economy and one that will help expand the availability of services.
It also funds a new, refundable $300 child tax credit, enabling more families to pay their bills while lowering the rates of food insecurity and child poverty.
Collectively, these investments make clear what Maine values – our families and our communities. These programs will have a profoundly positive impact on our state.
I told the story at the beginning of this piece because the work we do in Augusta is tied to the experiences of real Mainers who live in every community in this state. We can still do more for families like these, and we must.
Please do not hesitate to share your thoughts with me on this or any other topic or concern you might have about your state government. I can be reached at marc.malon@legislature.maine.gov.
Rep. Marc Malon is serving his first term in the Maine House, representing a portion of Biddeford. He serves as a member of the Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee and the Labor and Housing Committee.
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