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In These Times -   A third of American workers now have access to some form of government-issued paid leave — the biggest share ever.  The United States is one of only a handful of countries that doesn’t have a federal paid leave policy offering workers paid time off after the birth of a child or to seek medical care, for example, and access to unpaid leave is only about 30 years old. In that dearth of federal action, states and jurisdictions have moved ahead to pass 14 paid leave laws since 2002, which now cover a third of the population. Ten of those were passed in the past decade, as support for paid leave has risen; three go into effect this year...

This year, Colorado expanded its paid leave program to include an additional 12 weeks for parents of babies in the neonatal intensive care unit. In Oregon, survivors of domestic violence also qualify for paid leave. Connecticut offers paid leave if you’re serving as an organ or bone marrow donor.

According to research from the National Partnership for Women & Families, a nonprofit advocacy group, the 14 laws now cover 32 percent of private-sector workers, an estimated 46 million people. Of those covered, a third are women and a third are men, while overall a third are parents. Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders have especially benefited — 55 percent have paid leave through their state programs, as do 41 percent of Latinx workers due to a concentration of these communities in states that have enacted programs.

Pew Research - The federal workforce had a net loss of nearly 238,000 employees in 2025. The number of people who quit, retired, were laid off or otherwise left federal employment was up 80.8% from 2024. Meanwhile, the number of people who started federal employment was down 55.6%.