Last month, Michelle Feit and Jesse Matton from the National Partnership for Women & Families sat down with host Josh Seidman on Take It or Leave It Episode 35 to discuss, among other topics, paid leave benchmarking initiatives and the latest involving Paid Leave at the federal level. But as anyone who tracks paid leave developments as closely as Olympic medal counts knows, much of the change in this area comes at the state and local level.

For Part 2 of their discussion, Michelle, Jesse, and Josh explore recent state paid leave trends from the last 12 months, and how National Partnership tracks and analyzes statistics in its Leave Means a Stronger Nation report released earlier this year. They compare new and pending legislation, as well as challenges across states, and take a look at how the United States compares to the rest of the world when it comes to caregiving and leave. In an insightful second episode, Michelle and Jesse offer some regional highlights, explain barriers to paid leave and support, and share the steps they think employers should be taking to improve caregiver access to leave.