Paid family leave is still a privilege, not aright, for most U.S. workers.

While government employees generally enjoy robust family leaveoptions, a study by the nonprofit Paid Leave for the United States(PLUS) reveals private sector workers are lucky if they’ve landed ajob which offers full family leave opportunities.

PLUS sent queries to 60 major U.S. employers, from Albertsonsand Amazon to Wells Fargo and Xerox.

Only 29 agreed to disclose their policies, prompting PLUS toobserve that perhaps corporate America’s transparency problem wasgreater than the inequities of many employers’ paid family leavepolicies.

“Our research makes it clear that corporate America has atransparency problem when it comes to this issue, with more thanhalf of these top employers refusing to disclose information ontheir policies,” the report says.

“The data we were able to collect are startling: Our findingsreveal that half of the companies we could confirm havediscriminatory policies that leave out fathers, adoptive parents,and low-wage employees.”

PLUS’s research thus comes with a significant caveat, since somany major employers wouldn’t even talk about their policies.

In fact, the study says more than half those queried eitherdon’t offer any family leave at all, or wouldn’t disclose theirpolicies. And it wasn’t a simple matter of ignoring the request forinformation; eight companies (Boeing, FedEx, HoneywellInternational, HP, Infosys Limited, Marriott International, TJX,and Walgreens) wrote back informing PLUS that they would not sharetheir policy to further the study.

The companies that did respond have varying policies, somerobust, others minimal, many limited. Among the findings:

• No companies provide six months of maternity leave, the lengthrecommended by the President of the American Academy ofPediatrics.

• 22 of the 29 confirmed company policies were considereddiscriminatory by PLUS, “with fathers receiving significantly less time thanmothers, and/or adoptive parents receiving significantly lesstime than birth parents. In many cases fathers and adoptive parents received no leave at all,which has far-reaching implications for LGBTQ parents as well.”

• AT&T, CVS, General Motors, Ford, Starbucks, Supervalu, andVerizon reported they offer maternity leave, but no paternityleave.

• Low-wage employees generally got little or no paid familyleave.

• Walmart offers paid leave to salaried workers, but not hourlyemployees.

It wasn’t all bad news. Responses from Deloitte, Bank ofAmerica, and Ernst & Young revealed employees at those firmsreceive top-drawer treatment: 16 weeks of fully paid parental leavefor mothers, fathers, and adoptive parents.

Sadly, they were the exceptions, PLUS says, although the trendmay be in the direction of more time off with pay for parents.

“These data are in contrast to the media buzz for paid familyleave, which regularly highlights company announcements aboutstrong new policies,” PLUS says. “A powerful trend is emerging asmore employers create policies that address issues of equity,inclusion, and accessibility, but millions of Americans with urgentcaregiving responsibilities remain left out.”