In the late 1990s, when the economy was roaring along, there was some talk in Congress about changing the FMLA to allow for workers to take paid medical leave. “Workers who live paycheck-to-paycheck can't afford to take advantage of this law,” some members of Congress argued. But then the tech-bubble bursting in the early years of the twenty-first century and the mortgage meltdown a few years later put any discussion about paid FMLA leave on the backburner.