Under the guise of helping women, Republican Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) recently released the proposed framework for his “Provision for Life Act”, and among the major provisions is paid parental leave.

According to a June press release , the law project Rubio’s New Parents Act, a bill that would allow new and newly-adoptive parents to pull forward up to three months of their Social Security benefits to finance paid parental leave. Stay-at-home parents with a sufficient earnings history would also be able to take the funding option and receive resources.

According to the American Progress publication, “Sen. Rubio’s bill offers a false choice between paid leave and a secure retirement, instead of a real investment in the supports women need over their lifetime. In practice, however, this proposal’s insidious design would undermine women’s economic security in the long term by compromising the Social Security benefits women disproportionately rely upon to pay their bills in retirement”.

Sen. Rubio’s bill is not a real paid leave solution. “If enacted, it would force workers who opt to replace a portion of their wages for up to three months of leave to bond with and care for a newborn or adopted child, to take a cut to their future Social Security retirement benefits. Any worker who uses the proposed parental leave program would see their Social Security benefits reduced when they retire, either through forcing a delay in retirement age or by lowering the amount they receive each month. And despite Sen. Rubio’s rhetoric, the bill would not offer a fair trade: Instead, every $1 a worker receives under the proposed parental leave benefit could cost that worker nearly $3 in Social Security benefits at retirement. In other words, workers using Sen. Rubio’s so-called benefit would take money out of their own pockets in the future—and at an exorbitant markup”.

Asking workers to choose between the funds they need to buy diapers and baby formula for six children and live in dignity in retirement is inconceivable. On the other hand, the least likely to obtain paid maternity leave are women who need it most, especially low-income and non-white women.

“This proposal is particularly harmful given the hurdles women already face in paying their bills and ensuring a secure retirement. While they are working, women typically earn 73 cents for each dollar men earn. For women of color, this gap is even greater: For each dollar a white, non-Hispanic man makes, Black women earn 58 cents, and Latinas earn just 49 cents”.

It is important to note that women still carry a disproportionate share of the household care burden, so they are more likely than men to request time off from work. As a result of the gender pay gap, among other persistent economic disparities, women save less than men for retirement. According to CAP calculations of the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances “the median man has more than $50,000 more in private retirement savings than the median woman—around $125,000 for men versus $75,000 for women”.

By the time workers reach retirement, this gap widens, with the average man having more than twice the private retirement savings of the average woman. And millions of Americans – including half of all women – have no private retirement savings, the same publication points out.

The paper published by American Progress notes that “Women deserve better. Policymakers can and must guarantee women—and people of all genders—the paid leave they need to care for themselves and their families and provide for a secure retirement for all. Especially now, as the country continues its economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, Americans must fight for the proven policies that will ensure real economic security for women throughout their lives and reject harmful proposals such as Sen. Rubio’s”.