Marco Rubio has a plan for paid parental leave. The fact that this isn’t something you might expect from a conservative Republican running for president makes it a pretty good indicator of how popular the idea has become. According to one survey last year, two-thirds of Americans think employers should have to give new parents paid time off to care for their child, a belief shared by majorities of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.
One likely reason support for paid parental leave is so popular is because it’s in such noticeably short supply in the United States. As voters have been reminded in more than one stump speech, the U.S. is the only industrialized country that doesn’t have any paid parental leave laws on the books at a national level.
