Two Washington research organizations that often lean inopposing political directions are teaming up to advocate for moregenerous paid parental leave in the U.S., drafting abipartisan template for making the policy into law.

Related: Parental leave benefits are hardlyimproving

Both mothers and fathers after the birth or adoption of a childshould be entitled to a 70 percent wage-replacement rate up to acap of $600 per week for eight weeks, and guaranteed job protectionduring the leave, according to a joint report released Tuesday bythe American Enterprise Institute and Brookings Institution. Whilecalling for an independent study to explore the effects of such apolicy move, the group proposes a payroll tax on employees andsavings in other parts of the U.S. budget could finance thebenefits.

The report wasn’t without its partisan fissures, however. Theauthors noted that “none of us found this compromise entirely toour liking,” but that the group felt obligated, ina particularly charged U.S. political environment, to offersome concrete policy solutions as the U.S. remains the onlyadvanced economy without a federal paid-leave statute.

“In the end, we did not agree on such questions as thegenerosity of the benefits, how to pay for them, whether theyshould be focused on low-income families or made available to themiddle class, how strict the eligibility rules should be, and howmuch job protection should be provided,” the authors wrote. “But itis worth noting that we all agreed a paid family leave policy isneeded in the U.S.”

The research organizations convened a working group over thepast year that aimed to incorporate a range of views andbackgrounds, led by AEI’s Aparna Mathur and Isabel V. Sawhill ofBrookings. The group also included Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a formerRepublican-appointed Congressional Budget Office director, andformer Obama administration Council of Economic Advisers memberBetsey Stevenson.

Related: Despite the buzz, report finds paid family leaveunavailable to many

President Donald Trump’s fiscal 2018 budget proposal included acall for $25 billion over 10 years to implement nationwide paidparental leave, echoing daughter Ivanka Trump’s calls to supportwomen in the workplace. Trump’s pitches on paid leave and childcarehave kept alive advocates’ pleas for more discussion afterpresidential candidates including Republican Senator Marco Rubioand Democratic contenders Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders alsogave the issue greater exposure during the 2016 election campaign.

The authors acknowledge that while employers usually accommodateworkers who must take time off for the birth of a child or theirown or a family member’s illness, a federal mandate could helpameliorate the weakness in U.S. women’s labor-force participation.Almost a third of the gap between that rate and that of othercountries is due to a lack of family-friendly employment policiesincluding paid leave, the authors suggest.

Related: 10 countries with the most parentalleave

Labor-force participation has long been the economist’s primarytarget in encouraging more generous paid-leave policy. Workforceparticipation among all Americans declined in May to 62.7 percent,close to the lowest since the 1970s. While part of the decline inrecent years is attributable to retiring baby boomers, it stillreflects a decades-long slump among men and a stalling in womenentering the workforce since the late 1990s.

The AEI-Brookings report cites Labor Department figures showingthat last year, 65 percent of mothers with children under the ageof 5, and 58 percent of mothers with children under one year oldwere in the labor force. A boom in women, including mothers,entering the workforce between 1970 and the early 1990s benefitedeconomic growth, standards of living and gender equity, the authorsconclude. Since 1965, fathers have taken on a much greater share ofchildcare and housework responsibilities as more women took on paidwork, other Labor Department data show.

The AEI-Brookings report focused on parental leave whilerecognizing the need for a paid-leave policy that could be expandedto Americans without children who need emergency time off.

Existing law allows U.S. workers 12 weeks of unpaid leave forcertain purposes and with some limitations, under the Family andMedical Leave Act of 1993. Disability benefits also might overlapwith some workers’ needs for emergency time off, so those benefitsshould be considered in conjunction with changes to paid leave, theauthors argued. California, Rhode Island and New Jersey each havestarted implementation of paid family and medical leavelegislation, while other states have approved similar bills thathaven’t yet taken effect.

The report’s analysts noted that relatively low take-up ratesamong these local policies might in large part be alleviated by afederal statute that makes workers more aware and more comfortabletaking advantage of such benefits.

The group outlined eight goals for paid-leave policy-making:

"Avoid family hardship amid birth or adoption maintain long-termlabor-force attachment support child development encourage genderequity minimize employer costs ensure access for less advantagedinclude a shared contribution from the workers fully fund newbenefits."

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