Lowe’s Joins Other Big Employers in Offering Paid Parental Leave
Under the policy, which goes into effect May 1, birth mothers will have 10 weeks of paid leave,
and all other parents — including fathers and adoptive, foster and same-sex parents — will have two weeks of paid leave.
Hourly employees are generally much less likely than salaried employees to receive paid leave,
but they are also less likely to be able to afford unpaid leave or newborn child care.
In the absence of a federal paid leave policy — the United States is the only industrialized country not to have one — companies
and some states and cities have been starting their own.
Lowe’s, which had been the only one that gave no employees paid time off after
they had a baby, announced a new leave policy for all new parents on Thursday.
By Claire Cain Miller
The 20 largest employers in the United States now offer paid parental leave to at least some of their workers.