Pete Buttigieg Says Paid Family Leave Isn't Just Time Off: 'It's Time to Do Important Work'

Speaking at the White House on Monday, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg pushed back on paid family leave being considered just "time off" from employment.

A new parent himself, Buttigieg was asked about the policy as lawmakers continued negotiations on whether to include it in President Joe Biden's Build Back Better social spending bill.

Biden's latest framework excluded paid family leave from the plan, after he originally proposed as much as 12 weeks off for parents.

"The president put forward a framework that he's confident can pass the House in the Senate," Buttigieg said. "I think it's also no secret how I feel about family leave and how the president does, which is why he proposed it, campaigned on it and will continue to fight for it."

Buttigieg recently took some time away from the administration after adopting twins Joseph "Gus" August and Penelope Rose in August. Gus was in and out of the hospital for three weeks but is now back home and doing well, Buttigieg's husband Chasten tweeted last Friday.

"It's talked about as time off. It's time to do work — good work, joyful work, meaningful work — but it's time to do important work," Buttigeg said Monday about paid family leave.

After being gutted completely from Biden's framework, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said last week that paid family and medical leave was making its way back into the package.

But its fate remains uncertain in the Senate, where Democrats can't afford to lose a single vote in order to pass the bill via reconciliation. Last week, Senator Joe Manchin said he doesn't think paid family leave belongs in the bill.

"That's a piece of legislation that really is needed from the standpoint of if we do it and do it right," the West Virginia Democrat told CNN.

Buttigieg said the president's Build Back Better plan will be beneficial for families, even if it doesn't include paid family leave.

"The universal access to 3- and 4-year-old preschool, making childcare affordable for families across the spectrum, the child tax credit—that's gonna be huge and it's gonna make such a big difference for new parents," Buttigieg told reporters.

The Build Back Better proposal includes limiting child care costs for families to no more than 7 percent of income for families earning up to 250 percent of state median income, extending the expanded Child Tax Credit for one year and free preschool for six years.

Biden's $1.75 trillion Build Back Better plan passed a key procedural hurdle over the weekend when House Democrats voted to move forward and consider the sprawling social bill.

A date for the final vote on the bill hasn't been set yet, but Biden said he's confident it will pass during the week of November 15.