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Council committee hears sustained defense of D.C. paid family leave as mayor proposes cuts
Summary
Public witnesses and health and labor groups urged the Council to restore paid family leave benefits the mayor proposed shrinking for FY27, saying cuts would harm low‑income and Black residents; the Department of Employment Services said the FY27 proposal reflected last‑minute budget authority changes and agreed to provide additional analyses.
Public witnesses, labor groups and health advocates pressed the Committee on Executive Administration and Labor on April 22 to reject parts of Mayor Bowser’s FY27 proposal that would pause medical and family paid‑leave claims and cap weekly benefits at $1,000. Multiple speakers described personal experiences and clinical recommendations for extended recovery or caregiving time and said the proposed reductions would force people back to work too early.
"An attack on paid family leave is an attack on Black women and their families," Sequinley Gray of DC Jobs for Justice said, recounting her 2024 experience caring simultaneously for an injured son and her father and arguing that the fund is solvent and should not be raided for general revenue. Other witnesses, including Laura Brown of 1st Shift Justice Project and Veronica Mosqueda, gave detailed examples of how 12 weeks of paid leave preserved housing and allowed medical recovery.
Dr. Unique Morris Hughes, director of the Department of Employment Services, told the Committee the mayor's proposed FY27 budget was not initially designed to cut paid family leave and that the decisions shown in the submission reflected late changes required during certification. Hughes said DOES will administer any budget changes effectively and pledged to produce additional, staff‑level analyses requested by Council members, including modeling of targeted or income‑tiered benefit approaches.
Advocates and analysts warned of disparate effects: the department’s data showed a majority of family and medical claimants identify as Black or African American (53.4%), and roughly 39% of claimants live in D.C., with substantial shares earning under $100,000 per year — groups that witnesses said are most vulnerable to benefit reductions. Shira Markoff of the DC Fiscal Policy Institute cautioned that sweeping benefits to the general fund while maintaining the payroll tax would amount to asking employers to pay unchanged taxes for smaller benefits.
The Committee asked DOES to provide quick follow‑up data on the share of claimants who would be affected by a $1,000 weekly cap, the distribution of claimants by income band, and a scenario analysis of income‑targeted caps or other designs the Council could consider before the FY27 deliberation deadline. No formal vote or change was made at the hearing; members signaled they will weigh the new information as they prepare budget recommendations.
