The
New Parents Act, introduced by Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Mitt Romney (R-UT), would give parents the option to pull forward a portion of their Social Security benefits to use for paid parental leave after the birth or adoption of a child.
Under the bill, parents would be able to choose a Social Security benefit of one, two, or three months to finance parental leave, including “stay-at-home” parents with an earnings history that meets eligibility requirements. According to a one-pager on the bill, parents below the median household income of about $60,000 will be able to take significant leave at a rate of two-thirds of their prior wages.
Parents taking the option would choose to either increase their Social Security retirement age by 3 to 6 months per benefit taken or receive a proportionate reduction in monthly retirement benefits for the first 5 years of retirement, as determined by the Social Security Administration each year.
The bill, which does not include medical leave, takes a much narrower focus than the Democrats’ reconciliation bill paid leave proposal, providing the paid leave option only to new parents. Qualifying reasons for leave under the Democrats’ paid leave reconciliation proposal, on the other hand, would cover all FMLA leave while expanding upon leave eligibility to include an extensive list of family relationships and “any other individual… whose association with the [covered] individual is equivalent to a family relationship.”
Sen. Romney said in a statement, “We are reintroducing the New Parents Act in order to give parents the flexibility to take time off from work with pay during the first weeks of their children’s lives, without growing our national debt, raising taxes, or creating a new entitlement program.”
History: The bill, initially introduced in 2019, joins the CRADLE Act by Sens. Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Mike Lee (R-UT) in proposing to allow new parents the option of drawing from Social Security benefits as a funding source for paid parental leave. The idea is still in its early stages as sponsors socialize it on Capitol Hill.
The original bill did not provide relief from the patchwork of state and local paid leave laws. As bill text is not yet available, it remains to be seen whether the current version will do so.
Looking forward: The New Parent Act comes at the 11th hour of negotiations over the reconciliation bill, which features a national paid leave program. It is not expected to impact these negotiations, but provides yet another paid leave alternative by Republicans and reflects a larger trend of congressional members from both sides of the aisle pushing for a federal paid leave measure.
