Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division. February 5, 2003.
“A Workable Balance: Report to Congress on Family and Medical Leave Policies” marks the tenth anniversary of the FMLA’s passage. The DoL found that the FMLA covered about two-thirds of American workplaces (66.1 percent), while well over half of the labor force is covered by the law (54.9 percent).
The differences in coverage are vast between workplaces covered by the law and those that don’t meet the requirements: Over 90 percent of covered workplaces provide more than 12 weeks of leave, while only 32.3 percent of those without mandatory coverage only offer parental leave and 41.7 percent offer leave to care for an ill spouse, parent or child. Employers were only minimally affected by the law. The vast majority reported that the FMLA created either no additional costs or very few and “Between 86.4 and 95.8 percent report no noticeable effect on productivity, profitability and growth.”
