President Barack Obama entered office with plans to expand workers' rights and benefits. Obama promised that his administration would urge all states to adopt paid family and medical leave programs. Any initial costs that states would incur by adopting this policy would be offset by $1.5 billion in federal funds.

No such paid leave requirement exists on a national level. The Family Medical Leave Act of 1993 only guarantees American workers unpaid medical leave. Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., proposed the the Family Income to Respond to Significant Transitions Act in 2009. This bill would have fulfilled President Obama's promise by establishing $1.5 billion for states to use to set up paid family leave programs. The bill subsequently stalled in the House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections and expired.

President Obama proposed $50 million in his proposed FY 2011 budget for the State Paid Leave Fund. This amount, however, did not make it into the final FY 2011 budget that Congress passed in April 2011. The administration also proposed $23 million in its FY 2012 proposal. It is unlikely this funding will end up in the final bill given the Republican-controlled House of Representative's resistance to President Obama's proposals and its advocacy of spending cuts.
The $23 million does not appear in Rep. Denny Rehlberg, R-Mont., draft of the FY 2012 budget. Rep. Rehlberg is the chairman of Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, which is a part of the House Committee on Appropriations.

The Obama administration has clearly taken some action through its budget proposals to boost state adoption of paid medical leave, but it is dramatically short of the $1.5 billion goal.  And given the administration's failure in getting its budgetary proposals adopted, and the low probability that supportive legislation will pass through Congress, we rate Obama's promise as Promise Broken.