What To Do Before It’s Your Company
Back in April, Deloitte cut paid parental leave for some of its workers in half — from 16 weeks down to 8. It also eliminated up to $50,000 in IVF, adoption, and surrogacy funding for a segment of its workforce. Around the same time, Zoom reduced birthing parent leave from up to 24 weeks to 18, and slashed non-birthing parent leave from 16 weeks to 10.
The backlash was immediate. The press coverage was brutal. Employees were furious. Both companies took real reputational hits — the kind that end up in Glassdoor reviews and recruiting conversations for years. Now other companies are watching. Taking notes. Quietly deciding whether they can weather the same storm.
That’s the story I want to tell you today. Not that this happened, but that it happened loudly, with consequences, and the rest of corporate America is watching.
Which means we need the consequences of cutting back on structural support for moms to be crystal clear: cutting paid family leave is bad for business and workers are watching.
This Is a Pattern, Not a Plot Twist
Let me be clear about what’s actually happening here, because it is not new and it is not random.
Every time the balance of power tips toward employers — a soft job market, economic uncertainty, a moment when workers can’t afford to walk — family benefits are among the first to go. They’re disproportionately used by women, and in a country where just 14 states and DC have mandatory leave policies but no federal floor exists, employers know exactly how little they’re required to offer. And they act accordingly.
The tell in how Deloitte structured its cuts says everything. The reductions didn’t hit the client-facing consultants and partners. They hit support staff — administrative services, IT, finance. The people with the least leverage lost the most. That’s not a coincidence. That’s a strategy.
And here is the part that should keep every working mom up at night: when a major employer makes a move like this and the outrage fades, it gives every other company cover to follow. That’s how rollbacks become industry norms. Not with a declaration. With a quiet internal memo and a January 1 effective date.
The Math They Don’t Want You to See
Here’s the question nobody is asking loudly enough: if paid leave is such a smart business investment, why are profitable companies cutting it?
It’s a fair question. And the answer is more infuriating than the cuts themselves.
The benefits of paid leave are long-term. They accrue slowly — through retention, loyalty, productivity, and institutional knowledge that stays in the building instead of walking out the door. The savings from cutting it are immediate. You can show a cost reduction on a spreadsheet today. You can impress the market with a leaner benefits line this quarter.
What you can’t show on that same spreadsheet is the senior employee who quietly updates her resume six months from now. Or the candidate who chose your competitor because they still offer 16 weeks. Or the institutional knowledge that walked out the door with the colleague who didn’t come back from leave.
The data is unambiguous:
- Paid leave has been shown to increase revenue by nearly 5% and profit by nearly 7% per full-time equivalent employee
- Workplaces with parental leave policies are 60% more likely to report above-average financial performance than those without
- A positive leave experience makes over half of employees more loyal — a negative one sends 40% straight to job boards
- In states with paid leave laws, employers saw a 5% productivity increase compared to peers in states without them
These companies aren’t making a sound financial decision. They’re making a short-term financial decision and trading their long-term sustainability for a good quarter.
Working moms will pay for it first. But eventually, so will they.
Who Actually Absorbs the Cost
Cutting parental leave benefits is never gender-neutral
When parental leave shrinks, mothers absorb the blow — in forced early returns to work, in lost wages, in career derailment, in the impossible childcare math that doesn’t pause for a corporate budget cycle. The professional cost is real. So is the physical one. We are talking about cutting the time a human being has to recover from childbirth. Let that land for a second.
And here is the structural reality underneath all of it: the U.S. remains one of the only wealthy nations on earth without a federal paid leave policy. Only one-third of private-sector workers have access to paid family and medical leave through state-level programs. With no federal mandate, the remaining two-thirds rely entirely on employer-provided benefits. And employer willingness, as this moment makes painfully clear, evaporates the second the leverage shifts.
This is not a new betrayal. It is the same one, on a new timeline. We were never supposed to be one soft job market away from losing the right to recover from having a baby. That has always been the design flaw. And it is exactly why a federal solution isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s the only way to guarantee paid family leave for every worker.
What To Do Before It’s Your Company
I’m not going to leave you with just the problem. Here’s where to put your energy:
- Know what you have, right now: Pull up your company’s parental leave policy today and write it down. Benefits change with a memo and an effective date. You deserve to know exactly where you stand before you need it. If you want to know what you’re entitled to under your state’s laws, PaidLeave.AI is a helpful place to start.
- Build the business case internally: Organized internal advocacy works, especially when it comes armed with data. Use your ERG. Fill out that HR survey. Have a direct conversation with your manager. The numbers in this newsletter are yours to use. Moms First provides research and resources to help you make this case at your own company — use them.
- Demand a floor, not a favor: Support both state and federal paid leave legislation. Make it a voting issue. Tell your elected officials this is something you’re watching (Moms First has quick form to email your state representatives). And tell your story publicly. The reason companies think they can weather the backlash is because not enough of us are making sustained, organized noise. That ends now.
Five Hosts. One Living Room. July 9.
Gloria Steinem’s Upper East Side apartment in New York City has always been more than a home — it’s where movements have taken shape and women have come together to imagine what’s possible. This summer, we’re bringing No Country for Mothers into that space.
On July 9, Gloria will host an intimate Talking Circle around the theme of America at 250: Reimagining Motherhood in the U.S. and we’re selecting five screening hosts from across the country to join her.
If you’re hosting a screening with at least 10 RSVPs registered by June 11, you’re eligible to submit this short interest form and get the chance to be selected to attend the event at Gloria’s.
Made for This Moment
Limited-edition merch just dropped. Sweatshirts, bucket hats, blankets, baby onesies, and more. Check out our official American Motherhood Tour Merch Store.
We’re Asking the Wrong Question
Last week, I joined Open to Debate alongside host Nick Gillespie, Lenore Skenazy of the Free-Range Kids movement, and Kristin Gallant of Big Little Feelings to debate modern parenting. And we got into everything.
Here’s where I landed: the real question isn’t which parenting style is best. It’s why we’ve built a society that makes it nearly impossible to show up for your kids at all. Childcare that costs more than the mortgage. School schedules that end hours before the workday does. American motherhood isn’t broken by accident; it’s broken by design. And until we fix the structure, we’re just arguing about the wrong things.
We have always known that the fight for paid leave was never really about generosity. It was about power — who has it, and what they do with it when no one is forcing their hand. Deloitte and Zoom showed us exactly who they are when the pressure lifted. Now it’s our job to make sure the pressure never lifts again.
Keep applying the pressure,
