What would a policy that really values families look like? 

Parents need real programs, not just rhetoric, that help them take care of their children or sick family members and supports the decent wages and health care all families need. 

Here's the good news: progressive leaders at the state level across this country have been enacting policies to help American families and, while no state has pulled all the elements together, there is a pretty good blueprint for a policy program that values families out there.   Teaming up with MomsRising, the Progressive States Network has pulled these policies together in a set of on-line resources outlining the whole array of policies that progressives can and are promoting across the country.

You can find these State Legislative Models at:

http://www.progressivestates.org/momsrising

Check them out but here's a few highlights (built around MomsRising M*O*T*H*E*R typology of issues), with a lot more at the link above. 

M- Maternity/Paternity Leave (Family Leave)

These include issues like:

• The California Paid Family Leave Law gives employees up to six weeks of paid leave

• Going beyond federal unpaid leave, which covers firms with at least 50 employees, Vermont's law extends leave to employers with 10 employees or more for medical leave and 15 employees or more for parental leave.

 O- Open Flexible Work 

• San Francisco voters look poised to enact a ballot proposal to guarantee up to nine sick days per year for full-time workers at large businesses

• Like a number of states, Illinois law limits overtime for nurses, a model that could be extended to other job categories to ease the overtime burden on many families.

 T- afTer-School Programs

• California's Proposition 49 was approved in 2002 with the goal of providing afterschool programs for all children.

• The National Governors Association's Support Student Success details best practices in designing afterschool programs.

 H- Health Care for All Kids

• The new Illinois AllKids law provides an affordable health care plan for all children in the state on a sliding fee scale based on family income.  

• Laws in Maryland and New York City and proposed bills in Chicago and New York State are designed to reinforce the employer contribution to health care coverage in our system.

• San Francisco enacted the first law in the nation creating universal health coverage in a jurisdiction; the California legislature passed a Single-Payer bill (which was vetoed) to extend coverage to everyone in that state and leaders in Wisconsin have proposed an innovative Employer-Based Universal Coverage bill.

 E- Excellent Child Care

• State Dependent Care Tax Credits help subsidize child care for parents through the tax code.

• The Oklahoma Preschool Program has helped that state achieve the highest rate of 4-year olds in preschool of any state in the country.

 R- Realistic & Fair Wages

• San Francisco now has a city minimum wage law that pays $8.82 per Hour, the highest minimum rate in the country and one that is indexed to inflation.

•  A number of areas have enacted or proposed laws raising wages in specific business sectors, including Santa Fe's Large Employers Minimum Wage Law, the Emeryville CA Large Hotel Minimum Wage Law and the proposed Chicago Large Retailer Living Wage Law

• Hundreds of local jurisdictions have enacted living wage laws for government contractors

• To strengthen enforcement of wage laws, states have created other enforcement models, including California's Labor Code Private Attorneys General Act to allow labor advocates to enforce state laws, the California Sweatshop Accountability Law to hold garment firms responsible for their subcontractors, the NY Bus. Corp. Law which holds large shareholders liable for wage claims in cases of bankruptcy, and a range of Laws Preventing Independent Contractor Misclassification.

• To protect parents from suffering wage discrimination, laws like the District of Columbia Human Rights Act specifically bar discrimination based on "family responsibilities" or parental status.

There are a lot more resources- links to model legislation, talking points and articles about these initiatives at http://www.progressivestates.org/momsrising

What's clear is that progressives have a broad family-friendly agenda; they just need to promote it more publicly.