Paid Sick Leave

I Put My Career on Hold to Raise Five Children and Care for My Disabled Mother. America Depends on Women Like Me.

PUBLISHED 7/28/2026 by

Front & Center amplifies the voices of Black women navigating poverty—highlighting their struggles, resilience and dreams as they care for their families, build careers and challenge systems not built for their success. Now in its fourth year, Front & Center is a collaboration between Ms. and Springboard to Opportunities, a nonprofit based in Jackson, Miss., working alongside residents of federally subsidized housing as they pursue their goals.

Christy is a Jackson, Miss.-based mother of five, family caregiver and entrepreneur. She is caring for her disabled mother while pursuing her dream of one day growing her catering business into a food truck.

“Taking care of my children and my mom at the same time is rewarding, but it is also hard. I really don’t get much help with my kids from their dad, so most of the time I’m here with them.

“What would make caregiving for two generations of family easier, is a break. If my mom had places to go, or if somebody could take her every other weekend or even every weekend sometimes, that would give me time to myself to breathe and live a little bit. My siblings are far away, my car situation makes it hard to get around and I’m always here, so having a little peace would help me and my kids too.

“Childcare vouchers … helped a lot with after-school care and transportation, but when I recently had to recertify, I was cut off because I missed getting a copy of my ID in by the deadline and ended up on a waiting list.”

No Equality Without Paid Leave

PUBLISHED 6/18/2026 by

The U.S. remains one of the only wealthy nations without a national paid leave program.

That failure has profound consequences for women’s economic security, caregiving responsibilities and ability to participate fully in public life: Every day, workers are forced to choose between caring for a new baby, recovering from illness or supporting a loved one and keeping a paycheck. Those impossible choices fall disproportionately on women, reinforcing gender inequities at work, at home and in civic life.

Paid leave is not simply a workplace benefit; it is a cornerstone of a more equitable democracy. When women are pushed out of the workforce, lose income or shoulder the overwhelming burden of unpaid care, they have less time, fewer resources and fewer opportunities to participate in their communities and shape public life.

Change is possible. States across the country have already demonstrated paid family and medical leave works, and overwhelming majorities of voters support it. If we are serious about creating a more inclusive future, guaranteeing paid leave for all workers must be part of the agenda. Women cannot be equal citizens without it.

(This is part of a new miniseries FEMINIST 250: Democracy’s Feminist Future, a special Ms. series examining the next chapter of American democracy through a feminist lens. As the nation approaches its 250th anniversary, the series explores how women and marginalized communities have shaped democratic progress, what lessons history offers for the challenges ahead, and how a more inclusive, representative and equitable democracy can be built for the next 250 years.)

91% of Voters Support a National Paid Leave Program. How Do We Make It Happen?

PUBLISHED 6/2/2026 by

The United States is one of only seven countries lacking a federal mandate for paid maternal or family leave. Within the country, only 13 states and D.C. have paid family and medical leave programs, acting as a lifeline for families.

Often considered by lawmakers to be a program too expensive to start, it’s the cost of inaction that lawmakers should be concerned with, according to Dawn Huckelbridge, executive producer of a new short film Lifelines and founding director of Paid Leave for All. 

“A lot of people miss their baby’s first smile. … They’re not there to hold their parent’s hand because they can’t get the time off work. … However it is funded in the long run, it is putting money back into the economy. It is saving jobs.”

Keeping Score: Supreme Court Blow to Voting Rights Will ‘Silence Our Voices’; Conservative Judges Try to Restrict Mifepristone; Moms Worry About Putting Food on the Table

PUBLISHED 5/14/2026 by | UPDATED 6/30/2026 at 11:13 A.M. PT

In every issue of Ms., we track research on our progress in the fight for equality, catalogue can’t-miss quotes from feminist voices and keep tabs on the feminist movement’s many milestones. We’re Keeping Score online, too—in this biweekly roundup.

This week:
—The Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, slashing protections against racially discriminatory voting laws.
—A record high amount of books were censored from libraries in 2025, often due to LGBTQ characters or plotlines addressing racism.
—A third of moms living on low incomes have gone into debt or skipped meals so their kids could eat.
—Just 22 percent of American voters have significant confidence in the Supreme Court.
—In 2025 the number of abortions in the U.S. remained stable, but more patients in states with bans turned to telehealth services instead of traveling out of state.
—The Department of Justice announced plans to expand the use of the federal death penalty.
—An Epstein-Maxwell survivor, who asked to remain anonymous, laments, “I kept my identity protected as Jane Doe. I woke up one day with my name mentioned over 500 times. While the rich and powerful remain protected by redaction, my name was exposed to the world.”
—The Trump administration launched a Moms.gov site on Mother’s Day that refers pregnant people to unregulated crisis pregnancy centers.
—A Ms. piece on solitary confinement by Kwaneta Harris and her daughter Summer Knight won Kwaneta second place in the Collaboration category of the Stillwater Awards for prison journalism.
—Liberation, a play about 1970s feminism by Bess Wohl, won the Pulitzer Prize for drama. It was also nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play. Wohl was inspired by her own life: Her mother, Lisa Cronin Wohl, was an early Ms. contributor.

… and more.

Equal Pay Is Getting Pushed Further Away. We’re Pushing Back.

PUBLISHED 3/25/2026 by and

Amid the celebrations of Women’s History Month, it is a bitter irony Equal Pay Day—marking how far into the year women must work to earn what men did in the previous year—has been pushed back to March 26. The end of the month is shadowed by the knowledge that the gender pay gap still exists and is widening.

Black women, women with disabilities, moms and all women of color are paid significantly less than white men in comparable positions. Affordability is already a concern, with prices rising at the gas station and the grocery store. The pay gap is compounding these concerns to create further financial disparities for women of color.

Keeping Score: Trump Attacks Iran, Pressures Senate Republicans to Pass ‘Show Your Papers’ Voter Registration Bill; States Expand Access to Childcare and Paid Leave

PUBLISHED 3/19/2026 by

In every issue of Ms., we track research on our progress in the fight for equality, catalogue can’t-miss quotes from feminist voices and keep tabs on the feminist movement’s many milestones. We’re Keeping Score online, too—in this biweekly roundup.

This week:
—Dolores Huerta breaks her silence at 96: “I have never identified myself as a victim, but I now understand that I am a survivor.”
—Trump pressures Senate Republicans to pass the SAVE America Act, a “show your papers” policy that would require U.S. citizens to show a passport or birth certificate in order to register to vote.
—A performative personnel exchange at DHS: from Kristi Noem … to Markwayne Mullin?
—The U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran, killing at least 1,332 people.
—March 10 is Abortion Provider Appreciation Day.
—DHS Secretary Kristi Noem was fired, as ICE reports 32 deaths in detention facilities in 2025.
—Access to early prenatal care is declining in the U.S., especially in states with abortion bans.
—A record one-third of American workers not have access to government-mandated paid leave.
—The U.S. deported a gay woman to Morocco, where her sexuality is illegal and she faces violence from her family.
—Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton claimed gender-affirming mental healthcare for trans youth is “child abuse.”
—New Mexico and New York take steps towards free universal childcare.
—Jessie Buckley took home the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her role in Hamnet. The film was directed by Chloé Zhao, one of nine women to ever be nominated for the award of Best Director and the only woman nominated this year.

… and more.

Denmark’s Generous Childcare and Parental Leave Policies Erase 80 Percent of the ‘Motherhood Penalty’ for Working Moms

PUBLISHED 2/13/2026 by

For many women in the U.S. and around the world, motherhood comes with career costs. Can government programs that provide financial support to parents offset the “motherhood penalty” in earnings? Killewald with Therese Christensen, a Danish sociologist, set out to answer this question for moms in Denmark, a Scandinavian country with one of the world’s strongest safety nets.

In an article to be published in an upcoming issue of European Sociological Review, Christensen and Killewald show how mothers’ increased income from the state, such as from child benefits and paid parental leave, offset about 80 percent of Danish moms’ average earnings losses.

Keeping Score: 137 Women Are Killed by Partners or Family Per Day; Bipartisan Push for Epstein Files; Trans Day of Remembrance and Native Women’s Equal Pay Day

PUBLISHED 12/9/2025 by

In every issue of Ms., we track research on our progress in the fight for equality, catalogue can’t-miss quotes from feminist voices and keep tabs on the feminist movement’s many milestones. We’re Keeping Score online, too—in this biweekly roundup.

This week:
—137 women and girls are killed by intimate partners or family members every day.
—Congress votes overhwlemingly to force the Justice Department to release their Epstein files.
—Donald Trump snaps at women journalists: “Quiet, piggy” and “you are an obnoxious—a terrible, actually a terrible reporter.”
—Violence against trans women remains high.
—DACA recipients are being targeted and detained under the Trump administration.
—Higher-income college students often receive more financial support than they need, while low-income students struggle.
—Tierra Walker died from preeclampsia in Texas after being repeatedly denied an abortion.
—Viola Ford Fletcher died at age 111. She was the oldest living survivor of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. 
—North Dakota’s total abortion ban was reinstated after the state’s Supreme Court reversed a temporary injunction from a lower court. There are now 13 states with total bans.

… and more.

Are We Ever Off Work, or Just Out of Office? The OOO Messages Exposing America’s Care Crisis

PUBLISHED 11/25/2025 by

A new public awareness campaign, “Out of Office for Care,” launched this week invites employees to set their “OOO” automated email replies to accurately reflect the array of care responsibilities that pull them away from work, and then share those messages publicly.

People across industries—artists, founders, caregivers, cultural influencers, nurses, educators, nonprofit leaders, small business owners and parents—can give the country an unfiltered look at why they step away from work, and what it costs to do so without paid leave.

OOO replies range from clever to catastrophic. Some name the person they are caring for; others reveal the exhaustion of trying to do it all. All together, they show a country exerting caring in every direction and a policy landscape that hasn’t caught up.

Among those making the rounds:
—”I’m OOO because inexplicably school ends at 3 and work ends at 5 at best. … I can’t keep up, I need sleep, I’m getting a cold, everything is expensive and unnecessarily hard, and the holidays are coming.”
—”I’m OOO because my parents are getting older and I can’t manage their RX and 500 unread emails at once. In-home care is $60K and I have limited PTO. WiIl get back to you ASAP!”
—“Hi, sorry to miss you! I’m OOO because I just gave birth, but like 1 in 4 women in the U.S. I’ll be back at work in a couple weeks.”

Keeping Score: Diddy’s Incomplete Conviction ‘Failed to Protect Survivors’; Inhumane Conditions in Alligator Alcatraz; What’s in the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’?

PUBLISHED 7/14/2025 by

In every issue of Ms., we track research on our progress in the fight for equality, catalogue can’t-miss quotes from feminist voices and keep tabs on the feminist movement’s many milestones. We’re Keeping Score online, too—in this biweekly roundup.

This week:
—Trump’s reconciliation bill will prevent millions from accessing healthcare and food assistance.
—IWMF announced this year’s Courage in Journalism Awards.
—Many prison systems lack accommodations for pregnant inmates.
—Sean “Diddy” Combs found not guilty of sex trafficking.
—The Supreme Court’s decision on LGBTQ books in public schools lays the foundation for new assault on books of all kinds in schools.
—Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) called out the hypocrisy of “pro-choice” members of Congress in a House Rules committee meeting: “They say they’re pro-life because they want the baby to be born, go to school and get shot in the school.”
—A group of actors including Jane Fonda and Rosario Dawson wrote a letter to Amazon, after allegations that the company has frequently refused to accommodate pregnant workers. 
—Mahmoud Khalil is suing the Trump administration for $20 million.
—July 10 was Black Women’s Equal Pay Day, marking when Black women’s earnings catch up to what white men earned in 2024.

… and more.