Did your state make the grade? Or did you win the “boss lottery”?

This past week the National Partnership for Women and Families released its fourth edition of Expecting Better, a report card for all 50 states on how they stack up in supporting working families. The report is a comprehensive guide to all state laws and regulations governing paid leave, paid sick days, protections for pregnant workers and other workplace rights for expecting and new parents. As you can imagine, not many states received an A this year.

Only California earned an A, with the District of Columbia and New York earning A minuses. This means for those of us living in the other 47 states, the success of balancing work and family in a supported environment depends on winning “the boss lottery”. And, as this article notes, losing that lottery can leave families in financial distress for years due to lack of access to any paid leave, sick or family leave.

What List Your Leave and reports like Expecting Better are trying to do is spread the word about those states, those legislators and yes, those bosses, who are doing the right thing when it comes to making families in America a priority. Whatever your family may look like, you will need most likely need wages to support the members of it, as well as occasional time off to care for them. Most workers in America are forced to choose between the two.

The National Partnership’s report is helping to create awareness of the everyday struggle for workers in America. Everyday someone gets sick, or someone’s kid gets sick, or someone has a baby – and their employer will not give them paid time off for any of those events. While you may not be able to move to California, hopefully you can use tools like List Your Leave to make winning the “boss lottery” less about luck.

Use List Your Leave and reports like Expecting Better to get smarter about leave. So no one has to get lucky and win the boss lottery in order to successfully balance work and family. But if you are one of the lucky ones – add a review and let us know!