Paid family and medical leave policies are proven to strengthen families’ economic security, support the health and wellbeing of children and parents, and improve mothers’ labor force participation, among other benefits.
In partnership with the Vermont Paid Leave Coalition, we evaluated a proposed paid family and medical leave program for Vermont to assess the potential impact on families, employers, and the state. The benefit-cost analysis specifically focused on paid bonding (parental) leave as it’s the leave type that has the largest and most rigorous body of causal evidence on child, parental, and family outcomes.
Our estimates indicate that paid bonding leave would generate $11 million in annual net benefits to families, businesses, and the state. Working families with infants would benefit from lower health care and child care costs, increased employment and household income, and direct benefit payments from the bonding leave program. The state of Vermont would benefit from increased sales and income tax revenue, decreased spending on state-sponsored health care and non-parental infant care, and other benefits. The annual societal benefits of bonding leave would outweigh its costs, with an estimated ratio of 6.8 to 1.
Explore the full benefit-cost analysis for Vermont
Recommended Citation
Osborne, C., Nair, V., Craig, S., Ellis, H. & Diaz Caserta, V. (2025). Benefit-Cost Analysis of a Paid Family and Medical Leave Program in Vermont. Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center, Vanderbilt University Peabody College of Education and Human Development.
Acknowledgement
The authors also thank current and past colleagues for their contributions to the original methodology.
