Lowe’s Joins Other Big Employers in Offering Paid Parental Leave<br />Under the policy, which goes into effect May 1, birth mothers will have 10 weeks of paid leave,<br />and all other parents — including fathers and adoptive, foster and same-sex parents — will have two weeks of paid leave.<br />Hourly employees are generally much less likely than salaried employees to receive paid leave,<br />but they are also less likely to be able to afford unpaid leave or newborn child care.<br />In the absence of a federal paid leave policy — the United States is the only industrialized country not to have one — companies<br />and some states and cities have been starting their own.<br />Lowe’s, which had been the only one that gave no employees paid time off after<br />they had a baby, announced a new leave policy for all new parents on Thursday.<br />By Claire Cain Miller<br />The 20 largest employers in the United States now offer paid parental leave to at least some of their workers.
