Family advocates rallied at the Hawaiʻi Capitol on Thursday in support of a measure to provide paid family leave to employees statewide.
Dr. Maya Maxym, with the Hawaiʻi chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said she often watches parents make the painful decision between being at their sick child’s bedside or keeping their job.
Maxym talked about a teenage patient she had with a brain abscess who had to be in the hospital for several weeks.
“I saw him trying so hard to be brave and tell his father, 'It's okay dad, you go to work. I'll be fine,'” she said.
“But when dad was gone, I could see that he was lonely, that he was scared, that he really wished that his dad didn't have to make that impossible choice and that he could have been there at the bedside day and night to help take care of him.”
Lawmakers are considering a measure that would create a paid family leave program.
The program is an insurance-based model. This means that both employers and employees would pay into a state trust fund through payroll deductions which would pay a percentage of the wages for people who take paid family leave for up to 12 weeks.
The Department of Labor and Industrial Relations would decide how much it needs in contributions to sustain the program.
“Everybody should have a basic safety net, right? That's the idea here,” said Hawaiʻi Children’s Action Network’s Executive Director Deborah Zysman.
“Often we see white-collar workers might have it as part of their employment package, but our working-class families do not, and they're the ones who often need it," Zysman said.
Employees would be eligible for the program if they work at least 20 hours a week and have worked for their employer for at least 14 weeks.
Family leave would cover multiple scenarios — from giving birth to caring for a family member with a serious health condition.
The amount of wages the program would cover depends on the amount a person makes in relation to the state’s average weekly wage. In 2023, that amount was $1,218.
For example, a person who makes 50% or less of the state’s average weekly wage would receive 90% of wages through the paid family leave program.
While contributions into the fund would start in 2027, payments for family leave wouldn’t start until 2028, so that enough funds could be collected to start the program.
The Department of Labor and Industrial Relations could also take out a loan from the general fund to jump-start the program, including operations costs, and it would be paid back from the paid family leave trust fund over time.
Hawaiʻi Chamber of Sustainable Commerce Executive Director Kim Coco Iwamoto said the insurance model helps employers give paid family leave to their employees.
“We're so happy that it's evolved to this model, where it's not all on the employer,” she said.
“Especially small businesses need the help and support to be the best employer that they can be.”
Iwamoto said companies that already provide paid family leave could use the fund as a base and add onto it internally, which would likely decrease its costs.
Zysman said although Hawaiʻi Children’s Action Network has a paid family leave program, it’s been difficult to keep up because the non-profit pays for 100% of the costs.
“We want to do it because we think it's the right thing to do for our employees. But if we had a paid family leave program, it would mean that my employee could then get paid out of that fund,” she said.
“I could use the salary savings from not having to pay the employee ... to hire the temp for the two months the employee needs to be out.”
The Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, which would run the program, opposes this model. It says it does not have the resources to administer the fund.
In its testimony, the department says that while it supports the concept of paid family leave, there are concerns about a provision that would require employers to provide health insurance benefits for up to 26 weeks and that state and county workers would not be included in the program.
The department also said that it would take 120 new positions to run the program, although House lawmakers in a February Labor and Government Operations Committee were skeptical of that number.
The measure passed its second reading and is awaiting a hearing in the House Finance Committee.
