Celebrating Paid Family and Medical Leave in Minnesota

July 20, 2023

Did you hear Two Bettys Green Cleaning holler up and down Lake Street and Minnehaha when Minnesota passed the Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML) bill this legislative session? We’re proud to be a locally owned and operated green cleaning company and are REALLY proud to call Minnesota home. Minnesota now joins 11 other states and more than 120 countries (that is a lot!) to provide paid leave to care for maternity, family, and health-related leave. 

A HUGE thank you to the Minnesota Senators and Representatives who supported this bill and the many organizations that worked towards this. And just like we always do, we hope to model policies that center equity and make everyone’s lives better. We know this is a huge win for domestic workers and janitors across the state.

At Two Bettys, we have been hoping and working toward PFML for a long time – check out these photos of us testifying at the State Capitol! We get a lot of questions and hear concerns sometimes, so we’re here to provide the facts and figures as people learn more. Many claimed this bill would be “bad for business,” and it’s our responsibility as a small business to fight that narrative.

This is good for business.

It allows small businesses like us, and nonprofits doing essential work, to compete with large businesses. Paid leave improves employee retention, morale, and productivity, reducing turnover for employers of all sizes and boosting the economy. Paid leave means no one has to choose between work and family. Paid leave means people — especially women — will not be subjected to leave the labor force to care for their families or health. 

Minnesota has an eight percentage-point gap in labor force participation between women and men. Nationally, if women participated in the U.S. labor force at that rate, our economy would benefit from more than $650 billion in additional economic activity each year.

But more importantly, Two Bettys cares more about people than profit. 

We won’t claim to be perfect; we, too, are working to change Two Bettys from systems, structure, and processes to an uplevel in our culture to become more equitable and inclusive.  We currently offer PTO, healthcare, paid leave, and a 401k – but not to the level we wish we could because of how expensive they are for smaller companies to purchase, design, implement and manage. Bills like this improve everyone’s standard of living and level the playing field for smaller companies, now we can offer this big benefit too! Wahoo! 

We are beyond thrilled at this bill passing in Minnesota – and we eagerly await the day when this becomes national law. We still have work to do. Let’s Clean House.