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President Obama embarked on an effort Thursday to make paid family leave the new norm in America, using a strategy that garnered him some success last year in increasing the minimum wage for certain workers.

Obama signed an order to give up to six weeks of paid leave to all federal employees when a new child arrives and publicly called on Congress to pass a federal law guaranteeing seven days of paid sick leave for all Americans.

He also announced that Department of Labor money would be made available for states and cities that want to study implementing their own such policies.

Then, after a lunchtime meeting with coffee shop owners and working parents in Baltimore, Obama unveiled a pitch to corporate America: Paid family leave is good for companies' bottom lines.

"When they make that investment in their employees, there's a dividend," Obama told reporters at Charmington's cafe. "They end up being more profitable over the long term."

The president's approach to paid leave draws heavily on his experience over the last year with the minimum wage, a proposal he rolled out in the State of the Union address last January by asking Congress to raise workers' base pay to $10.10 an hour from $7.25. His first steps were to sign an executive order raising the wage for people working on federal contracts and to set off on a speaking tour to plug the idea.

Today, Obama has yet to persuade the Republican-led Congress to hike the wage. But the idea has picked up currency: 17 states and the District of Columbia have raised the requirement to increase the pay of an estimated 7 million workers.

One Obama aide called the momentum "heartening," and the president's team is embracing the strategy as one of the best tools at his disposal as advisors prepare to reuse it for paid leave.

Still, the newest sales pitch faces the same challenges as the one for minimum wage. Republicans scoff at the idea of imposing more costly requirements, especially on small businesses.

Americans already have "great freedom" when it comes to work, said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), noting that workers have latitude to choose a career and negotiate for the benefits that matter most to them. American businesses operate with far fewer restrictions than the rest of the world, he said.

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Obama pushes paid sick/family leave for workers

Washington President Obama is announcing several initiatives Thursday aimed at helping working parents.

One was achieved by executive action: Thursday morning, the president signed a memorandum that grants federal workers six weeks of paid leave after the birth or adoption of a child, plus the right to six additional weeks of unpaid leave. The directive also applies to federal workers caring for ailing family members.

Beyond that, Mr. Obama needs the cooperation of the Republican-controlled House and Senate. He will call on Congress to pass the Healthy Families Act, which would allow American workers to earn up to seven days a year of paid sick time. And in his fiscal 2016 budget proposal, to be released Feb. 2, Obama will include $2.2 billion in mandatory funding to reimburse states that set up family leave programs.

Anyone who has ever faced the challenge of raising or supporting a family, while holding down a job, has faced tough choices along the way, and likely felt stretched between the financial and personal needs of their family, senior Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett wrote Wednesday on the website LinkedIn, previewing the presidents proposals.

In her blog post, Ms. Jarrett argued that paid leave will also benefit the bottom line for employers. These are the policies that will attract the best new talent, she wrote.

Business groups argue that government mandates arent the way to go, and that companies can determine best practices for themselves.

Many companies, and some states and cities, already provide their employees with paid family and sick leave. But some 43 million private sector workers in the United States do not get paid sick leave, Jarrett says. The US is the only developed country in the world whose civil servants do not get paid parental leave after the birth or adoption of a child.

Under the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, eligible employees may take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave a year to care for a new baby or for personal or family health reasons. Paid leave is the next logical step, say worker advocates.

Last November, voters in Massachusetts; Oakland, Calif.; and some cities in New Jersey approved ballot measures requiring paid sick leave for employees. In 2006, San Francisco became the first city to guarantee paid sick days. In 2011, Connecticut became the first state with such a mandate.

Obamas pitch for paid leave comes amid a flurry of policy proposals ahead of the Jan. 20 State of the Union address. In the past, presidents have laid out the years plans in the annual speech before Congress the presidents biggest national audience of the year, aside from inauguration then traveled the country to promote the proposals. Now, the Obama White House is flooding the zone with proposals before the State of the Union to build up anticipation for the speech, and to deflect attention from the newly empowered Republicans on Capitol Hill.

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Obama takes executive action on paid family and medical leave (+video)

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