Virginia Democrats and pro-worker advocates hope 2026 is the year more Virginia workers get access to paid leave.
To that end, they are once again advancing a bill that would let workers earn up to 40 hours a year of paid sick leave.
And they are again backing another bill to create a state program for people to be able to take up to 12 weeks of paid leave in the event of major life events. These events could be the birth of a child or the need to care for a loved one who’s seriously ill.
The people I spoke with for my story told me how Virginians have fought for these policies for years, and now the stars seem aligned to make them a reality.
There are, of course, good economic reasons for allowing workers paid sick leave and taking longer paid leave in times of major life events.
For businesses, it keeps their workers happy and more likely to stay at their job. For the larger economy, making sure workers can pay their bills and shop for groceries means less strain on social services and more revenue for other businesses.
Economics aside, the strongest case for these policies is simply that they are the right thing to do. Many businesses already agree and so do over a dozen other states that already have paid sick leave and paid family and medical leave laws on the books.
No compassionate and just society allows companies to force workers to choose between their health and their wages; caring for a dying parent or their job; getting treatment for domestic abuse or keeping a roof over their heads.
While these two bills address different needs, they are, as Ramón Zepeda Ramos of the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy told me, “two sides of the same coin.”
“When workers get sick, whether it’s a few hours or days or whether it’s weeks or months, we believe that we can all do better when everybody has the tools they need to be economically secure and have their hard work respected,” Zepeda Ramos said.
