 Good, welcome everyone. Delighted to welcome new and returning representatives, both those joining us virtually this morning and those here in person. My name is Lieutenant Governor Molly Gray for those of you I haven't met. And I'm so thrilled that we're here today to talk about two issues that I think we are all feared about and have heard about over the last two years. Certainly we all have our own personal stories, but I want to just frame today's conversation. This is a legislative summit, but why are we here and how did it come to pass? I think over the last several months I've had a number of conversations with Speaker Kroinsky leading up to the summit. This is a joint effort, but certainly recognizing that over the last two years, federally, legislators have tried to do a lead and it just hasn't happened. Which means now with Republicans taking back the House and the Senate being what it is, it's very, very unlikely that nationally we're going to see painfully happen. So what does that mean? It means that it's gonna happen hopefully in Vermont. The same is true for childcare. I think it's important to note also what we've learned and we've talked a lot about the economic situation, but what we now know is that the majority of Americans can't afford an emergency expense of $400. So as we begin today's conversation, really grounding it in economic security and how important that is when we talk about childcare and we're talking about pay leave. Certainly over the last couple of weeks, there's been some pretty interesting conversations where pay leave has been back in the forefront. Everyone's probably been following the potential for a rail strike and the fact that Senate wouldn't grant seven days of sick leave to rail workers in this country because it's been a foreshadow of what we should expect from Congress. But then here at home, certainly in the last couple of days, Governor Scott announcing a voluntary pay leave program which we will certainly talk about. Again, we all have our own personal stories and just to share my briefly, when pay leave became a really big personal issue for me, my mom has lived with multiple neurosis for the last nearly 20 years that I know. And I remember when I was working in the Attorney General's office, she got quite sick and at the time, I was teaching at night to pay my student loans off, working as an assistant attorney general during the day and she went into the hospital and I used my vacation days and my sick days, showing up and trying to care for her and then got to the point where I thought I was going to have to take unpaid leave and we all have those stories and we've all heard those stories be it parents trying to navigate kids at home without childcare or a personal pay leave story. So I hope today we can also talk about that. These are real stories around real people in our communities. So my goal and I'm going to welcome up Jill in just a moment is to make sure this is a space where we've got some incredible advocates and experts here. You can ask questions, you can hear from them but this is a safe space to really dig into this morning paid family and medical leave was after or later this morning, childcare. So with that, it's my pleasure to introduce someone who doesn't need a long introduction but a long time friend and colleague, someone I deeply admire and respect in a co-conspirator and making this legislative summit happen. Speaker Dope, let's get into it. Thank you. Fascinating, I don't want to have my bag set in one and we have such amazing advocates here so I just want to thank Lieutenant Governor Gray for all of your advocacy and work in pulling this legislative summit together. We do have a great group of panelists here today and this is the continuation of the discussion around two really critical issues and how we can support working families in our state. Ensuring that we're doing everything we can to make sure families have access to high quality affordable childcare and that families and businesses have access to a universal paid family and medical leave program. And so what we're hearing today is really helpful as we start to prepare for the legislative session. We have long been highlighting the need for these two initiatives here in Vermont and other strategies to support working families. I'm incredibly proud of all the steps and successes we had in supporting families. This legislative, this past legislative session with the child tax credit, expanding EITC benefits, big investments in supporting our childcare centers and staff, the creation of the office of the child advocate, the diaper bank, and so much more. This summer and fall I've had the opportunity to travel around the state and have conversations with Vermonters in the most pressing issues in their communities. Employers and businesses alike have been consistent in their support and advocacy for more affordable housing, for more affordable childcare options and policies like paid family and medical leave. Individuals should not have to choose between earning a living and taking care of their family. This coming session we have the opportunity to build on our work to make Vermont a state that can lead the nation in supporting working families and growing a vibrant economy in all 14 counties. It's gonna be a lot of work to accomplish but I believe that all of us working together, collaborating and communicating anything is possible. So I wanna make sure we have plenty of time with our panelists this morning. So with that, I will turn it back over to Lieutenant Governor Mollie Gray to get us started. Thank you. Good morning. We're gonna dive right in. We've got a terrific panel here. I'm going to introduce them and get started in just a second. But I just wanna know for everyone online and also everyone joining us, say there's gonna be a lot of time for Q&A. So as you're listening, take notes, get prepared to jump in. We have, as I said, a lot of time set aside. So this panel is called Back to the Basics, Understanding Universal Paid Family and Medical Leave and Why It Matters for Vermont. We're going to dive into what does universal even mean? What is paid family and medical leave? 11 states right now have paid family and medical leave and looking at some of the programs that currently exist and why paid family and medical leave is important for employers as it relates to economic security, as it relates to our aging community, as it relates to caregiving and certainly parental leave. So to kick things off, I wanna introduce Michelle Fay who, and everyone should have, and if you don't have, there are programs in the back with full bios, so I'm not going to read every bio in full, but I'm going to introduce Michelle Fay who serves as the Executive Director of Voices for Vermont's children. So Michelle, can you kick us off with an overview of what is paid leave, get us started, and what is meant by universal? Yes, great, thanks so much and thank you Lieutenant Governor Gray and Speaker Coise-P for pulling us together on this important issue. So Paid Family and Medical Leave is a social insurance program that covers the time away from work so that people can welcome a new child to the home, whether that's through birth, adoption, or a foster care placement, to care for a seriously ill or injured family member, or to take care of themselves and allow themselves the time to heal from a serious illness or injury without experiencing financial hardship from loss of income to their household. And it also, it can include and frankly should include paid time off for family issues related to military deployment and also what's called safe time for people who've experienced intimate partner violence. I tend to use a shorthand of paid leave, so just know when I say paid leave, I'm talking about all those things. As Lieutenant Governor Gray mentioned, there are currently 11 states in the District of Columbia who have a statewide or district wide Paid Family and Medical Leave program in place. California was the first to implement a comprehensive paid leave program and that was 20 years ago, back in 2002. So their experience has provided us with two decades of data and knowledge about access and what the barriers are for access for families. And from that, we're able to have really good information about what are the essential components of an equitable universal program. So I'm gonna talk about a few. There are a lot of resources out there and we can get those to you, but we have a short period of time right now. I'm gonna highlight a few and other panelists may highlight some of the other ones. I wanna get down to write, what do we mean when we say universal? So for me, universal means those types of leaves that are covered, eligibility, it includes people who are part-time workers, seasonal workers, the working for monitors who are typically excluded from private and voluntary programs. It also means all in, means every eligible worker in the state is included in the benefit and that means we're all getting the same benefit. So the way it stands right now with voluntary opt-in programs, employers decide what your benefit is. And I believe the governor's program will be the same. There's a floor and then individual employers will be offering different things or nothing at all, right? So your access to that benefit is determined by who you work for. Universal programs, your access to the benefit is determined by you having worked at all. So that is critical and you'll have access to the same benefits across the spectrum of your work situation. Let's see, make sure I didn't miss anything there. Oh, we know that voluntary plans wear some disparities. The employers who are gonna offer those programs will and the ones who don't won't and the workers who tend to be working in low-age workplaces who aren't offering any kind of other pay leave opportunities are the ones who aren't gonna have access even under a voluntary program. So we know this, we shouldn't implement it in a statewide policy. The second thing I wanna highlight is wage replacement, super critical. And this actually is a specific lesson from the California program that wage replacement has to be high enough that all workers can afford to take the leave that they need. If your wage replacement is low, if you're already working at or near minimum wage or below lippable wage, which many remodlers are, you can't afford to go any period of time on a 60% wage replacement. So the experience in California is low-age workers just don't take the leave. And let's see, and in fact, California has gone back and corrected that. They started out with a 55% wage replacement. They then went up a little bit higher and just this past year they've increased it up. The top end of the scale is 90% wage replacement. So they've learned and made that change. States that follow should not, should start from the new level set that we've established as an equitable floor for families. And just in terms of the impact on kids and families, I mean, this could be a whole seminar. So I'm just gonna say, I think we all know this. I think we all know that when kids are living in a state of economic deprivation, it's bad for them. And so any kind of gap in employment in the family puts them at risk. And the data play this out that throughout life, kids who experienced hardship in their younger years are much more likely to experience poor outcomes in education and mental and physical health and in their earnings as adults. So it's an important investment that we can make right from the start. The last thing, and this is very quick because I suspect I'm probably up against my time, is the number, the duration of leave. So when it comes to parental bonding time, 12 weeks is really considered a minimum. That's the minimum amount of time that infants and their caregivers need to form a secure bond and to have a consistent caregiver in their life every day for those initial weeks. Again, sets the foundation for a healthy and joyful and, I don't want to say productive, but it just sets the future, it sets the tone for their entire life. Also, having that time to bond really helps with, and you'll probably talk about this, but maternal mental health. Like there's a ton of, it's good for women, it's good for babies, it's good for partnerships like co-parenting. So in a very technical way, that time allows parents to get their babies to the well-baby visits, to get their vaccinations, to access home visiting programs and other supports that are available. So it is the underlying support for all the other supports that we as a state offer families, and it's critical. So I'm gonna leave off there. I think other folks may talk about inclusive family definitions and job protections, but there's a lot more I could say. Thank you, Michelle. I do want to, I will do a follow-up question, but I want to check just to make sure everyone online can hear us. Are we getting any feedback from anyone? Good, and everyone can hear us here, we're good? Okay, good. Michelle, do you want to talk just briefly about the program that was proposed earlier this week, just so we have a sense of what voluntary means? And if anyone else wants to chip in. Yeah. Yes, please do if I get anything wrong, because I definitely listened to the stream and read the highlights, but so it is, I think what the governor is proposing is six weeks, 60% wage replacement in three phases, right? And the first phase is for state employees, the second phase is for larger, and again, larger employers that might choose to opt in, and then the third phase would be small businesses and self-employed folks, I believe, but it basically is left to the employer. So an employer who wants to offer that benefit, and it was really framed, I was, I just say this, I was really troubled by the framing of creating this benefit focused on the needs, not exclusively, but primarily of businesses, creating a benefit that they can use to leverage in negotiations to attract different employees, as opposed to saying we as a state want every family and everyone working in the state to have access to this critical support. And then, yeah, I get that individual employers are going to want to compete for a staff, but anyway, I think the challenge there is that it creates a competitive environment, a competitive feature of something that ought to be a basic human right. I don't know if that's what you're getting at, but yeah. I just wanted to make sure as we continue our discussion, folks know what the current proposal is and what voluntary means versus universal. I think you've explained that really well, but we can certainly answer more questions during the Q and A. And now I want to move to Carrie Brown, who's the executive director of the Vermont Commission on Women. We know that there's sort of the before pandemic, and now we're not even an after pandemic, but we have an incredible amount of data. We know how the pandemic has impacted women in particular. I know that some data was refuted as to the number of a percentage of women that left the workforce in Vermont, but we know it was a high percentage. So I wanted to turn it over to you to kind of set the stage in terms of how women have been impacted and are impacted and why P. Leib is so important for Vermonters. Yeah. All right, thank you so much. So thanks to all of you for being here. Thank you, Lieutenant Governor Gray and Speaker Kowinsky, and thank you to Michelle for laying out so clearly some of the key elements that we have to consider. So coming from the Vermont Commission on Women, I am really concerned with the impact that any policies that we're talking about have on women and affect women and their families and their communities. You probably will get tired of hearing the word equity over and over again, but it's absolutely key and every consideration that we make, we have to be thinking about equity. And so gender equity is a huge part of that. So you probably all know that there is a gap between the amount of money that men make and that women make, and it has been closing slowly over time, it really stalled during the pandemic, not surprisingly, but a huge part of why that happens is because women are spending a disproportionate amount of time in unpaid labor, taking care of family members and the home. And so this is something that has always been true. Our entire economy, our entire society rests on unpaid and underpaid labor being done by women, by people of color. We built a country through the labor of enslaved people. We have always expected women to stay home and take care of everything at home for no money, and that continues. So we still have this expectation. Women are still spending a lot more time on the unpaid labor of the home than men are. I mean, it probably doesn't surprise anybody to hear, but women spend more time on household tasks, food preparation and cleanup, grocery shopping, all of that, spend a lot more time on caring for children and other family members. Men spend more time on lawn and garden care still. They spend a lot more time working. They spend a lot more time playing sports and watching television. And these are things that we don't pay other people to do for us at really low wages, but that's kind of getting into the childcare discussion. I was gonna say that for later. At any rate, some of the effects that we see in Vermont about this are that women are much more likely to work part-time. So about 79% of men are working part-time, excuse me. Yeah, 79% of men get compared to 91% of the part-time workers. And women are much more likely to live in poverty, and especially if they have children. So some of you may have heard this before, but the poverty rate for women with children, single women with children under five, 47% in Vermont. So it's almost half of the single moms with little kids are living in poverty. And you all probably know what poverty means. That's so far below a livable wage that it's absolutely shameful. And then if we kind of raise our standard a little bit and think about, well, okay, not poverty, but what do you actually need to cover your costs, to cover your basic needs budget in Vermont? Almost 40% of women who are working full-time in Vermont are not making enough to cover their basic needs. And so there are a lot of reasons for that, but which we can have to get into another time. But the COVID pandemic made this all much worse. In general, when schools and childcare were closed, women reduced their work hours by four to five times as much as men did. So parents were affected by their kids not having some place to go, but it was women who were the ones who took time off of work. Women were the ones who left their jobs. And that ended up almost doubling the gap between the number of hours worked by women and men. So disparity was made even worse. Back, you may have heard, remember hearing this number in September of 2020, more than four times as many women as men left the workforce completely and they weren't filing for an employment, they weren't looking for jobs, they were just like, forget it, I can't do it. And in Vermont, the share of women on unemployment compared to men was a lot higher than it was nationally. Sort of throughout the pandemic remains true. If you look kind of historically, we did tend to kind of mirror what was going on nationally. It's really, it really flipped during the pandemic, hasn't really gotten back to normal. Although I'm not really sure what normal is anymore, but we'll have to figure that out. And then as we've kind of been coming out of the pandemic and there's been some economic recovery, there has been a lot of people going back to work, a lot of jobs being gone back to, but not nearly as much for women as for men. And so basically, most of the gains that were made in women's workforce participation over, since my mom was hosting the women's living meetings in our living room, were erased kind of practically overnight. And so we're still kind of coming back from that. So Paid Family and Medical Leave is one of the many tools that can kind of help with this because it gets to that issue of, who is taking care of the children and are we paying people to do that? And are we recognizing that as something that is worth the financial value? Because the reality is that women who are choosing between taking care of their kids and staying at work, they, it is a financial decision for them in many cases. And so as Michelle had mentioned, if you have Paid Family Leave available to you but the wage replacement is only 60%, then, and you're probably not gonna feel like you can afford to take it if you're at the lower end of the income scale. Similarly, men who are making more money than that are less likely to take the Paid Family Leave when the wage replacement is low because they do that same financial calculation and say, oh, well, you know, I'm gonna make more money if I go to work rather than take time off to be with my baby. And that just feeds into this whole idea that men are supposed to go out and work and make money and women are supposed to stay home and take care of their children for no money. And so around the world, this is a problem that countries have struggled with is how to get more men to take this Paid Family Leave. And different countries have come up with different kinds of solutions. It's a challenging, it's a tough nut to crack. But one of the things that we know can help is a high enough level of wage replacement so that it is financially worthwhile. And then, you know, my dream is we're, and I think I see this happening is that we're moving towards a day when men don't feel like they have to do their fair share of taking care of their family, but that they get to and that they're supported in doing that and that we have programs and policies that recognize that dads are just as important to kids as moms. And in fact, you know, there is evidence bearing this out, that men who are taking time off to early on to be with their children have much better relationships, much higher level participation with them as they get older. So that's good for everybody. Okay, so I think those are the key points that I wanted to make. And I'll stop there, because I'm pretty sure I've talked for too long. No, we're actually a little ahead, so. Okay. You feel great. Well, I'll stop. Thank you for that. And for adding us a lot of good data. I do wanna sort of move to the other end of caregiving. We talked a lot about maternity leave and paternity leave. I'm so glad you highlighted that. I think oftentimes we can get focused on one and not the bigger picture of dads also being involved in getting to take paid leave. But when we look to Vermont's demographics, the conversation we've been having for years, that we are an aging state. I think there are 136,000 AARP members in Vermont and caregiving happens also on the other end. We have the sandwich generation, right? That's also trying to care for aging parents or family. So I wanna introduce Kelly Stoddard-Pore, who serves as the Associate Director of Advocacy and Outreach, am I correct? For AARP Vermont to talk about caregiving in Vermont and why that's also important as we talk about paid leave. Well, thank you so much, Lieutenant Governor Gray and Steve Berkulinski and to my fellow panelists for continuing to advocate for family caregivers. Caregiving does affect all of us across the age spectrum and whether it is for childcare or family caregiving for older adults. It's estimated that there are 74,000 family caregivers in Vermont who are caring for older adults, spouses, other loved ones in order for them to live independently. And most of them are doing that while they're also juggling a part-time or a full-time job. Caregiving takes both the physical and emotional toll of stress, often it's isolating, but there's a significant financial impact as well on family caregivers. A recent study conducted by AARP back in 2021 found that there were significant housing and medical expenses that were adding up for many caregivers. And this disproportionately impacts those who are least able to pay it. So I'm gonna talk a little bit about the economic hardships of family caregivers. In our study, we found that more than three and four family caregivers report having routine out-of-pocket expenses related to looking after their loved ones. The typical annual out-of-pocket expenses for our family caregiver is $7,242 a year. On average, family caregivers are spending about 26% of their income on caregiving activities. What do those caregiving activities look like? So we found that they are covering rent and mortgage payments. About 30% of them are covering those expenses for their loved one. Another 21% reported they're covering home modifications so that is including making sure the home is accessible so that individuals can stay mobile and active. And then 17% reported covering medical costs that includes healthcare, therapists, in-home healthcare, and medical equipment. Out of those in our study, we found only 5% of caregivers reported having no expenses in the past year for their loved one. About half of caregivers say that they have experienced financial setbacks given to their caregiving duties. So this means that they have to curtail their own expenses so they are maybe perhaps not putting more money into personal savings. They're cutting back on their retirement savings. And as Kerry shared, the impacts of COVID have exasperated this. We're reporting about 42% of our respondents spending more time on money in caregiving of their loved ones. The AARP study highlights the need of effective public policy to provide financial support for families. When family caregivers who work have access to paid family fees, they're better off to take care of their loved ones. Family caregivers help keep their parents, their spouses, and other loved ones out of costly taxpayer-funded nursing homes, allowing them to stay in their community and saving the state money. So AARP will continue to support Vermont's family caregivers who help make it possible for older adults to be able to live independently in their home, in their community, whereas where they want to be. This includes one, making and providing care easier for family caregivers through better access of resources, training, education, inclusion of care, and more support at home services. Secondly, we will fight to alleviate the economic and financial hardships and challenges directed at family caregiving. This means financial relief, workplace flexibility and protections and access to respite care. Thank you. I do have a quick follow-up question. Are there any lessons learned from the pandemic that AARP can share just about parents, family members, AARP members, older Vermonters at home? And then, too, I just want to make sure, you said is it 74,000? I want to confirm that it's 74,000. Caregivers in Vermont, are those paid? Family caregivers. Family caregivers, okay. Could you talk a little bit about any lessons learned from the pandemic? I mean, has the situation changed? I'm asking a question. I have some feelings about it. And I'm certainly the folks in the room that on Zoom do as well. But we've been caring for- I would say social isolation is probably the greatest impact that COVID has had, particularly for caregivers. It's already a very isolating job to have as a family caregiver. And there's a tremendous amount of stress and with the impacts of COVID, making that even more so. And for many loved ones, they weren't able to see them for many months if they were in a nursing home already or assisted living. So I think that has really impacted what people decide to do also as well for the last quarter of their life, where they're going to get their care. And when we talk about paid leave, Michelle, and also Carrie, we're talking about, maybe it's just Michelle talking about 12 weeks being the floor, right? The minimum, when we're talking about maternity leave, potentially, or parental leave and engaging with a new child. But is there a floor for caregiving leave? Which, I mean, we don't know what we'll need, right? No one knows when an emergency will strike, but I don't know if you have any thoughts or reflections on that. Like, what is the best practice when we talk about caregiving leave, which is often the family leave and the paid family and medical leave? How many hours per week are you asking? Or, yeah, hours per week or just what would be the best advice or best practice around caregiving leave being part of paid family medical leave? I think it's the flexibility, right? So making sure that the employer is offering that flexibility for doctor's appointments for being able to be able to care for their loved one, their spouse, or older, or a parent. There are employers who have fantastic flexibility, but I think really offering that up because I don't think anybody should be able to have to choose between going unpaid and giving a loved one to a medical appointment or taking care of them. Can I add one thing to that? I think this is also an area where the family definition can really come into play. Like, people might have an aunt or an uncle who is a mother or father figure to them. And so being able to decide as a family, right? Who your sort of primary relationships are. Absolutely. And having that broader definition of family is really important. Absolutely. Thank you. You're welcome. I now wanna move to Kaia Morris who serves as the executive director of Rights and Democracy, Vermont. No stranger to the building as well. And to really talk about the disparate impact of paid leave on marginalized groups. Be it when we think about maternal mortality and we know the rates are higher for BIPOC women. Or as it relates to individuals who are often stepping up and providing caregiving. And that this is a justice issue, right? At the end of the day or the start of the day. So welcome. Thank you for joining us and the floor is yours. Thank you so much, Lieutenant Gray and Speaker Kroinske and everyone here today. I wanna begin by, I think, what's an important piece that I feel we're missing here. We're talking about this as an economic issue. It is absolutely an economic issue. It is a social justice issue and it is a healthcare issue. And I'll take you on a little bit of a journey to explain why that's so, okay? So some of you may be aware or may not be aware that folks have to step in and out of caregiving roles within their families. And within my marriage, my husband has had a litany of healthcare issues that go back for years. We're talking about five heart attacks, four strokes, open heart surgery with triple bypass, hip surgery and the list goes on and on. I have worked with my laptop, taken calls from the ER in order to try to make it through the obligations that I have within my own workplace. I have had to miss out on opportunities to be with my child and support him through all of these really challenging things that are happening within the family structure and his fears that are going on as well as my own needs as the caregiving person. This is not an unusual story. I was just speaking with a friend last night who was going through the exact same scenario. And so what happens when we're thinking about this is I had to ask this question that came up really heavily during the pandemic. What are we doing as an organization? We're a nonprofit. We're not a major corporation, but we're a nonprofit. And as we were seeing that we had to step in and out of these caregiving roles because people would get sick with COVID. Someone in your family would get sick with COVID. You would get sick with COVID. You suddenly had to take over childcare because everybody got sick with COVID. So many things had to be adjusted on a continual basis. We saw lost so many of our elders during that time. We had bereavement happening right and left. Loved ones, family, friends, neighbors that we had to come together and be there to support each other. And so as an organization, we said, we need to have a phone call. Let's start figuring out a strategy. And do you know that phone call took place during school pickups? So I had to call this very call talking about how we need to be able to support folks within these caregiving roles as I am trying to also do this mom thing, right? This is the discordance that we had. And so as an organization, we made a commitment to recognizing that our workers are so important and the humanity is so key and that we are in not only unprecedented times but ones that aren't going to suddenly change with the year's time of passing, but it's a new reality. And so as an organization, we looked at what that meant for paid leave. We looked at the stress that having employees that have chronic illnesses that can flare up at any moment. The stress they have of saying, I love this job. I want to do this job. I don't want to lose this job. I do not have the finances to take the hit when this happens to me or my family. And so we made a choice to provide unlimited paid leave for our staff. As a small non-profit, we made a distinct and important crucial decision in recognizing that our budgeting was always expecting a full year's worth of work. So it was not going to have a financial impact on us if you're doing your budgeting right. But it would give dignity and humanity to the people that we need the most to be able to make this work happen. And so within my staff, we have folks that are raging in the spectrum of folks who are most impacted by these overlapping crises. We have individuals with disabilities. We have folks that have had refugee status. We have folks that are single parents that are in recovery. We have folks that are BIPOC. We have folks who are LGBTQIA because we also need to recognize that not all families have a binary between a male and a female distinction as to who's doing caregiving and what that caregiving looks like and that everyone deserves access to these very things. And so when I'm thinking about what happened even in this moment, as the governor is finally recognizing that there is going to be a necessity to make a change, it is wholly insufficient and actually kind of insulting. We have not seen large businesses do what they need to do to care for their workers and make sure that they have the dignity that they deserve within that workplace. We've already seen that that's not going to happen. And things must sometimes be codified in order to secure them as human rights. And I do and I firmly believe and rights and democracy is going to continue to fight and beat that drum that we cannot give half measures. Voluntary also requires that the employee must then say, okay, this is what I will lose to do what I need to do to come back into this workplace and to continue to care for all of the things that I'm holding. We also aren't recognizing that coming out of the end of a caregiving cycle, that caregiver gets no respite. So even in the security, the small bits of security we can provide with that financial grace, that person still is not a whole person yet because they have to get back into the mechanizations of our workforce and of our capitalist system. So when I'm thinking about this, 60% is just, it's ridiculous. It's just it's not, it is not anywhere. And as I appreciate Michelle raising that we're seeing far better examples, lots of places in this country, external to this country, on an individual business by business basis. We can and we should and we must do better for Vermonters. So how do we think about the fact that this also ties into childcare? Right? Because childcare is not a guarantee right now for folks. And illness and needing to take leave have an impact on their ability to step in and out of the workforce. There are folks that are not even getting into the workforce because of a lack of childcare right now. So if all we're thinking about are the dollars that Vermonters can bring in, if we're just gonna go ahead and commodify individuals and say that your whole purpose in our state is to raise revenue rather than to live and thrive, if that's the best we can do, we're not even doing that right. But I hope that we will do better and we'll continue to demand that we do better. So this definitely impacts different groups differently. And I can come to you with lots of stats, but those stats aren't always what strikes. What strikes are the stories. What strikes are the very real fears that individuals who are barely making enough to live may be needing to use systems like Social Security to help support the little part-time work that they're able to do. Having those things be threatened, this is a complex system, but we gotta do complex things. We created a complex system that is wholly inequitable and so we must be willing to do the complex work to get it right. And we can't settle for less in this moment because it's not going to shift without a radical transformation. So when I think about this, when I think about as Lieutenant Gray was talking about these mortality rates, that is an amalgamation of all of those factors coming in and creating an unhealthy environment for someone who is carrying a child regardless of their gender identity, carrying force a child and having multiple layers of stress and oppression that are weighing down on them that may create and has created a higher disparity of those carrying children that have racial identities fearing their own death or the death of their child. We know this to be true. I barely survived my own childbirth as well as my child. And much of it had to do with the stress in the workplace and trying to get those things done before that final due date came instead of having the space and the grace and the finances to take the time that I needed to prepare for this important step in my life's journey. So there's a lot that we can share. And I feel always important to lift up stories and so I'm happy to share more insights and I'm really excited to be a part of this conversation. And it's time, it's time for Vermont to put its money where its mouth is if that's our end of the day. And to recognize that everyone who lives, works and plays in Vermont deserves the best that we have to offer so we can continue to be leaders in this nation. Thank you, Kaya. Yes. I'm fired up. I'm fired up. Let's go. I did want to thank you for recognizing something that I think I failed to recognize in opening thoughts and remarks that one of the big challenges is that we don't actually have policies that recognize either businesses who are offering paid leave and I heard a story recently about a same-sex couple two moms who went to apply for paid leave for the company and the company's like, we don't even have this accounted for as a possibility in our workplace policy. And I don't even know how the voluntary plan that has been put forward accounts for that but a universal, equitable, truly accessible plan has to account for whatever a family means, right? And leaving maximum flexibility for that. But I did want to turn to Jordan from VBSR and actually segue from what Kaya said around Vermont putting its money where its mouth is. Is that what you said? Yes. And I think it's a good segue to the economic question because the question always is how do we pay for it, right? And how is it that we can afford to have individuals leave the workforce? And one question that often comes up is we constantly discuss our tax base shrinking and shrinking, but I'm like, yeah, how can we afford to have people leave the workforce because of a lack of paid leave? So I'd ask you to touch upon that but most importantly, you're here because VBSR does incredible work with socially responsible businesses who have actually been the biggest champions for a universal paid family and medical leave program. So thank you for coming, the floor is yours and take it where you wish to take it. Well, that they have. So I much appreciated Lieutenant Governor Gray as well as Speaker Coenstein everyone for showing up today and for your interest in the role that investments in our broader care economy can have in terms of benefiting or rather creating a more just, equitable and resilient economy. And of course, a big thank you to my fellow panelists. Y'all give me a tough act to follow with your knowledge, your enthusiasm and your prolificness overall. So I guess a little bit more of background and so I'm gonna take this sort of from the macro level down to the micro level put it that way. So as folks may know, VBSR's core mission is to leverage the power of businesses for positive social and environmental change. And we do that our diverse membership of about 650 employers across the state most of whom are small employers but they range anywhere from small startups to our state's most iconic brands. They do this in a variety of ways from progressive workplace practices and livable jobs to taking action in the advocacy space. And they do that because they recognize that people who come to work knowing that their children are cared for, that they're able to pay their bills and were respected and valued by their employers are those who are gonna strengthen and grow our economy for the long term. So actually we each year we typically poll our membership to get a sense of what type of benefits they're offering their employees. So I wanted to give you all just sort of a brief snapshot. So in total, for example, roughly 90% of our members offer flexible work schedules, 83% offered paid sick leave, 80% offer health insurance coverage, 50% offered paid family leave, 28% offer employee stock ownership and 20% offer child and dependent care subsidies. So I wanna revisit though one of those specific stats and that's that just 50% of our members offer paid family and medical leave. And again, like Michelle, I'll typically refer to it as paid leave but it is meant to be all encompassing. And I think that it's safe to say as an organization and as a collection of businesses that are really committed to people first workplaces that second half doesn't do it because they're opposed to the notion. I think everyone recognizes the tremendous economic and workforce benefits of providing paid family and medical leave but they simply cannot afford to offer this benefit. So let's get into sort of post COVID and pre COVID. I have sort of a mixture of data from both states that have implemented paid family and medical leave programs pre COVID and I have some insights from Vermont as it relates to post COVID data. So as others have mentioned, I think COVID has made it abundantly clear as if it wasn't already that paid family and medical leave is an essential benefit. So to give you a sense of how badly this state needs it as of August, 2021, the data indicated that Vermont employers received about $45 million in FFCRA payroll tax credits as you were payroll tax credits meant to supplement paid family and medical leave programs as it relates to COVID. So even with these resources, many of our members were still pushed their limits. So in talking to our diverse membership about some of their, of a very industries of locales about some of their challenges in terms of attracting and retaining their workforce, what we heard is this and I think we're seeing a lot of this near nationally. These are sort of the top three contributors when it came to their difficulties of attracting and retaining talent. First and foremost is inadequate social infrastructure. So that's housing, that's paid family leave, that's childcare, that's healthcare, that's transportation. How can Vermonters meet their basic needs and maintain that economic dignity? The next one was wages and compensation being too low given the cost of social infrastructure and the benefits cliffs as well. So we've discussed a little bit already about Vermont's growing affordability crisis and businesses are already struggling to keep up with the pace of the cost of living in Vermont. And then lastly it was and the third was barriers to employment and there were sort of a number of instances named so care taking responsibilities and lived experience. Those who are in recovery from substance abuse, transitioning from military to civilian life, those who have physical or intellectual disabilities and mental and physical health challenges as well. So these are what's standing between many Vermonters when it comes to entering and staying in the workforce. So let's talk a little bit more about some of the sort of those business specific benefits. I'm gonna build off of some of the really great points that have already been made here. So we've already mentioned that paid leave helps to tackle growing gender inequities and by bringing more women into the workforce. So in Vermont alone there's a six percentage point gap between in terms of labor force participation between men and women. And in the national discussions when we were really pushing for build back better some really incredible statistics came for it. I don't have Vermont specific but on a national level folks have determined that if women participate in the US labor force at a more commensurate rate their economy would benefit from more than $650 billion in additional economic activity each year. So that's bull strength, household buying power. It's allowing first folks to participate in our economy in a real and palpable way. And then also as others had mentioned Vermont has an aging population and workers need resources to be able to care for themselves as well as other aging Vermonters. So more than four, one in four workers in Vermont are 55 years or older. And then the next 20 years to share the populations aged 65 and older will grow by more than a quarter. So older workers are more likely to experience a serious medical conditions that require care. And ultimately if we were to look at now this is again taken during sort of more of the national paid leave discussions but the establishment of a universal paid leave program would add about 13,000 family caregivers to Vermont's workforce by 2030. And that is a critical piece of social infrastructure that we're gonna need going forward. Additionally so as I mentioned paid family bolsters household buying power allows more Vermonters across the spectrum to participate in the workforce. So in Vermont a typical worker who works four weeks of unpaid leave or who takes four weeks of unpaid leave rather it loses more than $3,300 in income. Since 2020 workers sick with COVID-19 had lost an estimated $35.2 million in wages due to a lack of or inadequate paid leave. And then in January of 2022 nearly 4,500 Vermonters were not working because they were sick or caring with someone with COVID-19. And more than 10,500 were due to another illness or disability. And I know as I drove here this morning was hearing about sort of these converging illnesses on our state right now between the flu, RSV, COVID-19. These impact workers on an individual level. It impacts their children. It impacts their elders as well. And then also more in sort of the micro level in the workplace itself. Paid leave improves worker retention. That saves employers money through reduced turnover costs. I mean the fact is replacing workers is expensive. Typical estimates usually say that it's about an average of one-fifth of an employer's annual salary to replace them. So when workers don't have access to paid leave they're more likely to need to leave their jobs potentially on a permanent basis. And paid leave reduces these turnover costs. It encourages more value for their workers and kits them to stay in the labor first and very often with the same employer. So we had mentioned a little bit about again to go back to the gender disparities and new mothers who take paid leave are more likely than mothers who did not take any leave to be working again nine to 12 months after childbirth. And first time mothers who take paid leave are more likely than those who take unpaid leave or no leave to return to the same employer. So again the retention numbers are there. And I'd go back to this as again sort of pre-COVID data. I imagine that this would probably hold up to the test of time just given sort of post-COVID realities. But in VBSR's own 2018 membership survey at the time as I'd mentioned the offering of these benefits has grown significantly over time. Back in 2018 only 36.59% of members reported that they offered paid family leave. And of those employers only 13% reported challenges with employee retention. So we can look to other states as well to look at some of these benefits. We've mentioned California's program Rhode Island's program and others. So in California which has had a state lead program that's well over a decade, 83% of workers in lower quality jobs who use the program returned to their previous employer. And that's a 10 point improvement compared to workers who did not use that program. Also a majority of businesses in California had no increased costs as a result of the program and 9% indicated that the program had generated cost savings for the businesses by reducing employee turnover and reducing their own benefits costs as well. So when we pool these resources we create a more level economic playing field. Paid leave also increases worker productivity. So we know that supportive programs and paid leave promotes retention. 90% of businesses surveyed about the effects of the California paid leave program and indicated that the program had either a positive effect on productivity or no noticeable effect. So these factors really correlate with clearly a better bottom line for Vermont businesses across the state. And then of course improves employee loyalty and morale. As I mentioned, employees who feel valued and feel supported by their employers are likely to stay for the long term. They put in the hours and they feel a strong return on their investments. I mentioned people first workplaces, livable jobs. It's because VVSR members recognize that when you invest in your employees they invest in you and the circle goes on and on and on. And then lastly, I did wanna address one piece especially and I think this is especially relevant as it relates to paid versus voluntary programs. And Michelle, you did a great job of sort of encapsulating this is universal paid leave allows smaller businesses to compete with larger businesses. So smaller businesses who make up the majority of Vermont's business population often have trouble matching the more robust benefits that larger businesses provide. And that can lead to hiring disadvantages. So when all employees, when all employers rather have to abide by the same rules via mandatory program, the playing field on an economic level, on a business level becomes vastly more even. So again, workers across every industry with every earning area benefit from paid family and medical leave programs. It creates more predictability, it creates better staff retention and overall just creates a more just and equitable economy. So I'd say that we're really tremendously excited that this has really reemerged heading into, had it post, I would say post COVID but we're sort of mid COVID, I suppose. And I think just on a personal level I can, I really appreciate your stories. I would say, even on a personal level I have sort of two fold growing up as a small child. My mother was a waitress. My dad is a landscaper neither of whom had any form of paid family medical leave. So growing up between anywhere from the ages of zero to four. My family couldn't afford childcare. We had no paid family medical leave. So if I was sick or couldn't go to childcare my mom would have to skip a shift during the day or just skip the daytime shift. And my dad would come home later take care of us at night. So I was fortunate I got to hang out a restaurant with some great kitchen staff and be around a lot of cool people but at the same time in hindsight I think the tremendous stressor that must have placed not only on my mom, my dad but also on their employers as well must have been really intense. And then on a personal level at 24 years old I was working for a small nonprofit. I had a kidney stone. It was one of the most painful experiences in my life. I was hospitalized for a long period of time. I think I was discharged late at night and I went home and I had to show up to work the next day. And it was a less than pleasant experience. And I think every worker sort of deserves that dignity to be able to take the time that they need to care for themselves to care for others and to care for their children. So with that again, thank you all and happy to field questions. Thank you, Jordan. That was terrific. We've got about a half an hour and I promise that we would bring in all of our participants here. So I really want to open the floor to folks who are on Zoom joining us or anyone's here. State questions from you or to share comments, reflections. So maybe we'll start with anyone here in the room and then move to Zoom and trust that Connor will give me the cue on any of our Zoom participants. Yes. Thank you, Lieutenant Governor Gray. I wanted to point out that it's not a novelty in New England even for there to be faith and leave. That's why a colleague from Shelburne pointed out the other day, Rhode Island has had that plan since after World War II. It's not new. I'm going to kindly ask that you introduce yourself just so folks online also know who you are and any new members. Hi, sir. I am a representative from Bepper City, Peter Anthony, my name. I wanted to focus our way around the childcare side for a moment and to remind folks, many of whom do not know, that the BSEA and the prior administration had partnered to create onsite childcare in state facilities. And so one of the challenges I think for the folks you have put together today, Lieutenant Governor Gray, is to ask the administration to do an inventory from buildings and general services and say, where's the space that we could recreate that partnership? And additionally, of course, most of the space in the state is privately built. So as a member, proud member of VBSR, who of course is preaching to the choir, but the wider business community has an historic opportunity now on the heels of massive federal assistance to the business community to say, okay, we've got space, why don't we create a financial nudge to the private sector to convert commercial office space into long-term lease-based or onsite childcare? I don't think we're gonna be able to see another real estate market like this where that conversion is practicable. And so the administration challenges what are you gonna put on the table to do some conversion and create space that's right hand into a workplace where most of the Vermonters work now in the private sector? Thanks. Thank you, Representative. And the next panel will be on childcare, I think that will certainly be addressed then, but I can certainly say there were times when I thought, can we bring toys and all sorts of things into the office just to make a space in the state house that is slightly more accessible to families? Why not be able to bring children to work if that's a requirement or necessary for legislators to be able to do their work? But yes, I certainly agree with an inventory, but maybe I'll let the panelists, if you wanna jump in at all, if not we'll maybe move to the next question. Yeah, I think just really quickly and appreciate the mention of sort of the critical role employers can play in childcare accessibility. In certain cases, when employers have the means by which to convert it on their own, which is I think a real privilege, many have sort of established on-site childcare services, but recognize that it's tremendously expensive. In addition to that, we've also seen other sort of conversion incentives being offered up, this didn't end up being codified and didn't end up in the final housing bill earlier this year, but we also offered up commercial conversion incentives. So how do we convert unused commercial spaces into affordable housing for Vermonters as well? So the precedent is certainly there. I think it's a matter, as you've mentioned, of sort of channeling resources to be better used. Let's take a question from Zoom. Alex has a question for Kerry. Could you clarify those statistics regarding part-time workers' stats were something like 53% and 82%? Oh, sure, the stats on the part-time workers on the percentage of women who work part-time compared to the percentage of men who work part-time. And I don't have the very, very latest numbers, unfortunately, our data is a little bit old, but we see that women are much, much more likely to work part-time, and the share of women working part-time is much higher than it is for men. And unfortunately, I don't have the exact latest data, but if that person wants to get in touch with me, I could dig that out for them. We'd be happy to do that. We'll take another question from the room. Yes, please. I'm Elizabeth Burrows, I'm a representative of Windsor One, and I just have a question about ABSR, just to clarify, what is your membership, what number? It usually fluctuates between about 650 and 675 member businesses. Okay, and you said that 306.59 of your membership offered paid leave to pre-COVID. That was in 2018, yeah. And then it increased to, I think, 42% in 2019, and then it has ballooned to 50% as sort of held there over the last few years. Right, right. But of the 36.59%, just to clarify, you said 13% of those had challenges with retention. Correct. Was that 13% of the 36.59%? Yeah, so of the folks who offer it, that's their 13%, no worries. If I may, I think it's important to place some context on that as well. It would make sense that if the leave is not sufficient, that that might cause the exit of those employees. If it is not enough or if it's exhausted, that would cause that employee retention issue. So it was not giving the leave that created the retention issue, it was probably the sufficiency of the leave itself. Thank you for that. We'll take another question from Zoom. I'm getting clarification, but we'll start. We have a question, does this program cover sole proprietors as well as owners that are on payroll? Okay, here we go. And those sole proprietors that have elected for S-Corp status, I asked if this was related to the governor's proposal or other legislation. And they said, both actually. So I'll leave that to the group to go through. Maybe I'll speak briefly to the proposal that came out earlier this week. My understanding is that the third phase is that it's self-employed, smaller businesses, maybe like your small LLC sole proprietors that it would eventually apply to in terms of being able to access the Hartford and the insurance program. But as to hypothetical legislation, maybe it's best to talk about best practice and I don't know, Jordan, if you want to weigh in. Yeah, I mean, as we mentioned, as Michelle had mentioned really, the idea is that we have this available to workers across the spectrum, whether they're sole proprietors or maybe they maintain one employee, the more inclusive of a program we can create, the more level of the economic playing field we can have. So really looking forward to kind of diving into that as we head into the session. Yes. Hi, Jonathan Williams, recollects Faraday City outside of here. I'm wondering if the panel can speak to the benefits culturally of implementing universal paid leave. I work in the food security sector where we do have, my employer does offer paid leave, but many people are simply unwilling to take it due to feelings of inadequacy or stigma, food security and I think paid leave are in the same, share the same theory of change in that providing services to people that safety net allows them to have a healthier work like them. So I'm curious if there's any quantitative or qualitative evidence of sort of normalizing paid leave as part of a broader effort to care for the model of supply commission. Yeah, I can address a little bit about that. So I was speaking before about the disparities between men taking leave and women taking leave. And so Sweden is one of the countries that has really struggled with this and they have come up with a program where the amount of leave that is available kind of depends on who takes it and their leads together. And so there is more leave available if fathers are taking the leave that is offered to them. If they don't take it, then it kind of goes away. And so we'll see what the results of this are. It's been kind of an ongoing experiment but things like that can possibly contribute to it. Again, offering the 100% wage replacement or 90% wage replacement or something that makes it possible for people to actually take it can go a long way towards having it actually be taken advantage of, which will then in turn kind of help change that culture. We do definitely see gender disparities culturally as well that it's oftentimes harder for men at work to take leave because there's kind of this expectation that they're not going to and they can be seen as not taking their job seriously or not being serious about their career. Same thing can kind of apply to women as well, which really impacts them. You're not seen as serious enough about your career or maybe you're going to have a baby or I've heard stories about women being asked in job interviews about their plans for having children in the future. And so it kind of goes both ways but then women are still taking that time off because somebody has to take care of the children. There's just no getting around that and the next panel will get into that as well. I'm sure that nothing works if somebody isn't taking care of the children. So that was a, it's a slow boat but policies can have an impact. Also individual employers can have an impact. So an individual employer saying you need to take this or you're having, well, anyway, I'll leave it at that. Can I speak to that? Yeah, can I speak to that? So this is how it's worked out for us. So I appreciate what you're saying and what's important is the stigma around the way that we're still working on this bootstraps conversation that really dehumanizes individuals that are within the workplace. We have convinced ourselves that we're not deserving of rest. We're convinced ourselves that we are somehow lazy or not contributing to the wellness of the organization or the business or our communities if we are not in a constant state of work. It's drilled into our, like it is in the fabric of our society. So that makes it a really difficult stigma to move past. I have had to say to staff that are in crisis, I want you to take two weeks off. I'd like you to take three, you're gonna fight me on it but at least take two. And what they'll often say is, oh that's not really gonna make a difference. Like I still have a million other things and I'm like well you know what? I can take responsibility for what I have and I can take my work off of your plate so that you can have the spaciousness to deal with all the other things you're holding in this moment. And it is still a challenge. It is still a challenge. It is not something that people see themselves as having a right to access to and so I have to continually reinforce that for them. Because who do I get back when they've had an opportunity to rest? How much more are they passionate about their work as well as how much more do they feel as a whole person because they took that rest? And so especially in the food industry I can see that being you know, if we miss down that one server we're not gonna be able to function well. Well but if that server is taken out because they had a stroke, which is happening with a lot of young males right now by the way, talking about caregiving roles right now. This, that person's out anyway. Versus if we're able to care for them as a preventative measure as well. So I think, there is that tension there and it's up to the employers and our community and our society to say it's really okay for you to rest. Michelle, do you have anything to add or anything else? I have a lot to say. I said it, you did it like this. But I'm trying to figure out what's the most important. I mean, so I just realized that we haven't talked about the public versus private administration question at all yet. And I feel like that plays into that last question somewhat. And in general, just the potential for an inherent conflict of interest between a for private entity administering something that the state has decided is a public good. I think that's very concerning. So I just, I'll just leave that there. And the other thing I wanted to talk about was we talk a lot about the cost. And we've touched, I think everyone has touched on a little bit the cost of not doing it. But that needs to be elevated a lot more in this conversation because someone is paying these costs today, someone is paying the cost of this care. And it's likely women, it's likely women of color, people of color, low income folks are actually subsidizing our economy right now. And we get to define what our economy is. It's not this like thing that lives, that has a life of its own, we get to decide. And so everyone should go back, play back Kaia's statement because it was so brilliant about if we are saying that the way people earn value in this state is to work and earn money, we have to have systems in place that allow them to do that with dignity. And I don't know if you all noticed, but the kids are not all right. Kids are not all right right now. And we have got to do better at supporting them and giving families what they need to make sure their kids have the love, support, food, shelter, everything that they need to just thrive, not just thrive, to thrive. That should be our goal. And I, maybe as, I don't know how close are we, but okay, I mean, we talked a little bit about, I think you talked a bit about kind of the, the sort of the continuum of caregiving, you know, and that I know we have another whole panel talking about childcare, but I was really struck by, but I think it's important that we think about this as a lifespan issue, right? And Kelly and I talked about this a little bit. And yesterday, Center for American Progress, I don't know if it came out yesterday, I noticed it yesterday, put out a report and there's just this excerpt I'd love to read if I could. It says, public policy choices often neglect to recognize that human development is a continuous and cascading process during which the cognitive, social, behavioral and physical changes in each developmental period lay the foundation for success and well-being in the next. An interconnected and cascading set of policy solutions that likewise treats the lifespan as continuous is necessary for supporting strong outcomes. And then it goes on to talk about social determinants of health and stuff. But I think that is critical. And as someone who's been a legislator, a noun advocate for seven or more years on how long, it's, it can be very frustrating. And I understand the constraints on the legislature to only do so much in a term or in a session, but as Kaya, Vary and everyone has really clearly pointed out, now is the time to center the needs of families and kids. And so dig deep and figure out how to do this. That is my call to you. Yes, Scott. Representative, I'm sorry. I'm Scott Campbell, Representative St. John's very, and I'm wondering to mention, somebody's mentioned that a lot of the states offer some sort of, some sort of pay-tree. Can anybody talk about some of the options for the mechanics of doing this? So, some cases I think probably have both employees and players getting into it. And I don't know, is there anybody that's, there's something about all that? I'll give you the link to this document. Which is very well-tested. I mean, it's a, I'll just say what I know about it and Cary, you can jump into. There's variations. I think, I would say it's fair to say at this point that most states split the, it's typically, I think universally done through a payroll tax, and it's typically split between employers and employees. I think the previous bills that we were excited about, I mean, we'd be most excited for, I would, I'll speak for myself, by a full employer-funded program. But I think the, what has tended to pass the finish line before as a shared contribution, and with the ability for individual employers to decide we're gonna cover our employees' share. So that's a place within everybody getting a universal benefit for employers to potentially, you know, sweep the pot, right? But there's a ton of this, abetterbalance.org has done a comprehensive assessment that's been updated as of October that can show you all of the details. And we'd be happy to circulate to registrants a lot of the background on different policies, ones that have worked well and sort of how they're set up in the 11 states in the last country. And Ledge Council has done a lot of good research on this as well, and a lot of that is online on the legislative website. One other thing I'll say is maybe we should consider an insurance program. It is. Well, that's what it is. Yes, right. It is. And we should pitch it to the family. That kind of quite an insurance business. Exactly. Life insurance. Social insurance, yeah. I want to give a chance if there's anyone else on Zoom who may have a question. Just pause for a minute. Anyone else here? Representative Durfee. Thank you. David Durfee, Representative from Shaftesbury. Yeah, and I think this conversation is made more interesting than I have the fact to be heard, the governor's proposal. Do you know whether that's a coincidence or whether you two got together in advance? We did not. I can't. If you saw my statement, perhaps that was suggested that we did not. But I really appreciate Jordan's point about the advantages that larger businesses that can afford to be able to volunteer in some categories, smaller businesses, and that the inequity that that creates. But I'm also thinking of the health insurance system that we have that I think fairly broadly acknowledged to be bad from the start, meaning when we created the system back after the war, the general war, and had employers funding it. That's where it got on the wrong foot. And why we would want to develop a program like this using, again, employers to pay for the voluntary system, keeping those employers that can afford to do it an advantage, a competitive advantage by offering that benefit. That just seems like, let's just stop right there and acknowledge that that's what we're doing and why would we want to do that? Just the other point I'll make is there's, those employers who do offer, whether it's health insurance, or can afford to offer their agent a leave, that's a burden on them as well. We're going to an administrative burden. We don't want them to recognize that it's something else to take into account. It's not a question, sorry, we should have said it on our questions. We welcome comments. So. Well, I guess just to build off of that, points are well taken and certainly aligned with BBSR's core values. I think that there's the folly of employer-funded healthcare has really become abundantly clear throughout COVID. We saw tremendous drops in benefits as the economic fallout of COVID-19 started to impact employers. And yes, we made some changes to our Medicare Medicaid programs to accommodate some of those needs, but ultimately we clearly saw that the financial resilience of a business negatively impacted the help, the resilience of our public health overall. So we're still very strong proponents of the universal healthcare system as well. And then relating to sort of the competitive nature across businesses in terms of the administrative burden, I think that that also became really clear during COVID as well. So myself and my colleague Morgan Nichols over at Main Street Alliance of Vermont and many others in this room strongly advocated for a COVID-19 paid leave grant program. So these are grants specifically to be administered in businesses to help cover this burden. And ultimately what we ended up hearing from employers is either they couldn't afford the programs to begin with or as Kaya had mentioned as well, the programs were exhausted. The sheer number of paid family medical leave days that were offered to their employers were exhausted in no time at all. If you have more than one kid, one kid might get COVID on one week. You're out there for 10 days as they're isolating and isolating with them. And then you have another one. That's another 10 days. So yes, the burden on employer's shoulders is really tremendous in that space. So the more we can do to lift that and lift up our employees, the better. Yes, Representative Bromstead. I just wanted to mention that we all buy fire insurance and car insurance. We have choice to do that because we know our house may burn down or we may get in a car accident. But we don't have a choice right now to buy paid and family leave insurance. And I think that that's incredibly important, something very basic that we can't take care of our family in that way right now and you belong. And I bring that up as Representative Anthony said that when I was a little girl that was five years old and my brother was four, my dad died and my mother had had the, we had short-term disability and what happened. So that's how she saved the house. The house had a huge mortgage. But she didn't have, it was called short-term disability, but what she didn't have was any sort of insurance to take care of us. Literally, she was in the center. She had a nurse breakdown taken to the hospital. And so my grandparents took time off, unpaid to take care of us. And we didn't get to go to our chapter center. We didn't get to go to school. I was, you know, kindergarten. There was enough change in our life. And it's just seems incredibly important that that was in 1970. We are never in what, 2020, in its time right now. We almost did. And so hopefully we can move forward. So thank you. It's worth noting too, we don't have post-pandemic polling data, but there was a poll. I think it was from a public, and somebody did one a while ago, that the majority of Vermonters indicated they would be willing, that they want this program and they'd be willing to pay increased taxes or insurance premiums, let's call them, in order to have them. So it is a popular benefit that Vermonters are asking for, and willing to pay for. I think we have time for one more question. And then I wanna give our panelists an opportunity to give some closing thoughts. We have a Zoom question. Sure. This is from Jim for Kelly. Kelly, you mentioned a number earlier on how many persons are caring for others in Vermont. I think I caught the approximate number, but could you repeat that career statistic? 74,000. Any further questions for our fans? We will have time, we'll have a break. So there's plenty of opportunity to engage. But I guess I wanted to close with a question. I'll also give you all a chance to share any reflections in your closing remarks. But I think that the toughest battle and the toughest question is, how on earth can the state afford to do this, right? How it's going to, it's just not possible. It'll be too expensive. The businesses can't handle it. But we know the reality. You all know the reality. And I guess in sharing any closing reflections, if you want to arm the legislators here with some data points or key arguments on the economic question, I think that would be welcome. So I don't know where we wanna start. Maybe we'll do it in reverse order. So Jordan, can we put you on the spot? Yeah, absolutely. So I guess one piece, you know, I know that we talk about sort of this trip, these big price tags on a lot of these programs. And I think what has become abundantly clear throughout this conversation is that Vermonters need care at every phase of their lives. Whether you are infant care, early childhood education, if you need medical care, if you're a mid-career professional or elder care later on in life. And all of these investments yield positive economic returns. I've mentioned sort of the millions of dollars in lost wages. How can we recuperate those and know that those dollars go directly back into the Vermont economy, especially when we make a point to buy local, I'll do my plug there. You know, and then I think, lastly, I think just on a personal level, as a young Vermonter hoping to build a family here, you know, these types of supports, if I think about affordability in Vermont, I think about universal childcare, I think about universal paid family and medical leave. These are the social supports that I need to be able to stay in this state and build a family. And I look forward to being able to do that. You know, and as we discussed on the cultural level as well, you know, offering up these supports helps to challenge really, frankly, toxic inequities within our economy. I want to stay home to be with my kids when they need me. And I look forward to being able to do that and I'll do it at any cost, frankly. And I think there's many Vermonters who feel much of the same. So we talk a lot about the costs. We don't hear quite as much about that strong return on investment as we've seen in other states. The data is there. Thanks all. Thanks Jordan. Kaya. Thank you. So it's time for Vermont to put people over profits, period. It is time. I'll say that again. It's time for Vermont to put people over profits. There is no cost. There is no benefit. There is no revenue without the literal human beings that are a part of this economy and that are a part of this state. It is to base to say that we are not worth it. That is not the message you want to go forward. That we are not worth it. Because every single one of us is. Period. Thank you. Thanks, Kaya. Kelly. Thank you. Well, I just want to emphasize the fact that we are an aging state. Second oldest state in the country and we're inadequately prepared to meet the needs of our aging population. Our long-term care system is frankly broken. And I would ask many of you what your long-term care plans are. And most likely to not include going into a nursing home. And so that reliance on caregiving places in undue economic burden on many of the monitors and providing paid family medical leave is the direction in which we need to go to be able to support any caregiving or a simple bond. Thank you. Gary. Thanks, yeah. I'm going to echo what some points that other folks have made, which is if our question is how can we pay for this? The answer is we're already paying for it. But who is paying for it? It's people who are staying home from work, people who are working part-time, people who are taking, opting to take lower paid jobs because they think they'll have more flexibility so that they can take care of themselves and their family members. So the costs are already being borne by the people, in most cases, who are at least able to afford it. And so the question is not how do we pay for it? It's how do we pay for it equitably? How do we make sure that this is a benefit that is available to everybody and that the cost is shared equitably by everybody? Michelle, take it away. I get the last word. It's my dream. Yeah, I mean, I think I've already said pretty much everything that needs to be said on this. I would love to close, actually. Sarah, Kenny and I were at a conference a couple weeks ago in Chicago for early childhood advocates and there was a, one of the keynotes was a pediatrician slash public health warrior woman. Some of us, ah, I may not have her name right. I apologize, but, and she talked to us about abundance and I think what we've talked about when we see a lot in legislative action in the state and with people who are barely getting by is a scarcity mindset that limits our view and has us focused on what's in front of us and that kind of policymaking just keeps us in a constant spiral of dealing with the downstream effects of failing to prevent societal collapse, basically. And so this is the moment, if the pandemic has taught us nothing, this is the moment to recognize that care is essential through the lifespan and that abundance, as Dr. Sahas said, abundance is a choice that we make about how we wanna be with one another and so this is a time that we should embrace abundance over scarcity. I did kindly ask everyone to join me in giving a very heartfelt, excited, grateful round of applause to our panelists. This does conclude panel discussion one. We will take a 15 minute break. We'll come back at 10.45. Feel free to continue the conversation, grab some coffee, grab some water, grab some pastries and then we'll come back to talk about childcare in about 15 minutes. Thank you.