“I have not personally been impacted by lack of family or medical leave – yet. You see, as a single mom, I have not had a medical checkup in nearly 20 years. I can’t afford to know. I have a job. I have health insurance that is decent enough that IF I had paid leave should I have a serious illness, we could make it work. The problem is that if I ever need leave of any more than a total of 3 weeks in any given year, my salary would be reduced to 50% during that leave period. That would translate to over $1000/month less than we need for our basic necessities to say nothing of unusual medical copays and deductibles. I have two choices – get up in the morning and keep plugging away, or keel over dead. Serious illness is simply not an option so I have to keep my head in the sand.”
Susan, Monroe, CT
