S4635-119

What This Bill Does

The SAFE for Survivors Act of 2026 builds a broad workplace and economic-security system for people affected by domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, stalking, trafficking, family violence, and intimate visual depiction abuses including deepfakes. It starts with congressional findings on job loss, lost workdays, economic abuse, health impacts, and employer unreadiness, then defines the covered victims, family and household members, employers, public agencies, insurers, and benefit programs that later titles regulate.

The bill gives employees at least 40 workdays of safe leave in a 12-month period, with at least 10 workdays paid. Employees could use leave for medical care, counseling, victim services, relocation and housing safety, legal proceedings, funeral and grieving needs, child or adult-dependent care, financial services, public assistance, accessibility accommodations, and other steps needed for safety or recovery. Employers would have to allow oral or written requests, accept limited certification for absences longer than three workdays, keep records confidential, restore employees to equivalent jobs, and maintain group health coverage during leave.

The bill separately bars employers from denying jobs, firing, harassing, retaliating against, or refusing reasonable safety accommodations for qualified employees because they are victims or because an abuser causes workplace disruption. Public agencies administering benefits could not deny, reduce, terminate, sanction, or otherwise discriminate against applicants or recipients because of victim status. State unemployment systems would have to treat voluntary separation from work as qualifying when the separation is attributable to a covered act of violence, and State TANF agencies could use TANF funds for expedited short-term emergency benefits during safe leave.

The insurance title prohibits health, life, disability, property, casualty, and ERISA-plan insurers from denying, canceling, limiting, repricing, or refusing claims because an applicant, insured person, or related person is or may be a victim. It also protects continuation of health coverage when an abuser is the named policyholder and imposes privacy limits on survivor status, shelter addresses, contact information, medical conditions, and relationship-status data. The Federal Trade Commission would enforce these insurance rules as unfair or deceptive acts, and applicants or insured victims could also sue for injunctions, compensatory and punitive damages, attorney fees, expert fees, and statutory damages.

Who Benefits and How

Employees affected by qualifying acts of violence benefit most directly because safe leave converts recovery, safety planning, legal participation, relocation, childcare, and financial stabilization from reasons to lose a job into protected leave uses. Family and household members of victims also benefit when an employee needs leave to help them obtain services or safety. Employees who request accommodation benefit from a required interactive process and examples such as schedule changes, transfers, contact-information changes, workstation changes, confidentiality steps, enhanced security, parking changes, locks, documentation assistance, leave, and job restructuring.

Victim services organizations, community-based organizations, Tribal coalitions, State domestic violence coalitions, territorial coalitions, and sexual assault coalitions benefit from expanded Violence Against Women Act grant eligibility to help employers, labor organizations, and workers understand the new protections. A national or state victim-services organization would also be eligible for a Department of Labor grant to develop model training and technical assistance for unemployment claims reviewers and hearing personnel.

Public assistance recipients and unemployment claimants who are victims benefit because agencies could not penalize them based on victim status and would have to provide notice, trained review, confidentiality, and a documentation path that includes sworn statements, police or court records, professional documentation, and other approved evidence. Insured victims benefit from nondiscrimination rules, claim-payment protections, health-coverage continuation when an abuser loses policyholder status, access to their own insurance records, and privacy limits on disclosures that could reveal a shelter address or survivor status.

Who Bears the Burden and How

Employers bear the largest private compliance burden. They would have to provide 40 workdays of safe leave, pay at least 10 of those days, preserve job restoration and health coverage, limit certification requests, separate confidential records, post federal notices, avoid using leave as a negative factor, and defend against private suits, Department of Labor complaints, civil penalties, liquidated damages, and equitable relief if they interfere with leave or retaliate. Employers also must conduct accommodation processes and show undue hardship before refusing certain survivor safety modifications.

Insurers and employer health plans bear new underwriting, claims, continuation-coverage, privacy, and litigation burdens. They could not price, cancel, refuse, or limit coverage because of survivor status or survivor-related claims, and violations could trigger FTC enforcement, private litigation, statutory damages, punitive damages, and fee awards. State TANF and unemployment agencies must adjust eligibility, application, notice, training, confidentiality, reporting, and expedited-payment processes. Federal agencies including the Department of Labor, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Federal Trade Commission, Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women, Office of Personnel Management, Office of Congressional Workplace Rights, and congressional/federal employment bodies receive new rulemaking, enforcement, outreach, and reporting responsibilities.

Key Provisions

• Voids predispute arbitration agreements and joint-action waivers for claims under the safe-leave, survivor discrimination, and insurance titles, with courts deciding enforceability rather than arbitrators.
• Expands Violence Against Women Act workplace-assistance grants to victim services organizations and Tribal, State, and territorial domestic violence and sexual assault coalitions.
• Creates 40 workdays of annual safe leave, including 10 paid days, with intermittent leave, confidentiality, limited certification, job restoration, and group health coverage protections.
• Creates private, Department of Labor, congressional-employee, presidential-employee, federal-employee, Library of Congress, and GAO enforcement paths for safe-leave violations.
• Allows TANF funds to provide expedited nonrecurrent short-term emergency benefits during safe leave.
• Bars employment and public-assistance discrimination tied to survivor status and requires reasonable safety accommodations unless they impose undue hardship.
• Prevents denial of unemployment benefits solely because a worker left employment for reasons attributable to a qualifying act of violence.
• Prohibits survivor-related insurance discrimination and privacy disclosures, with FTC and private enforcement.
• Directs Labor, HHS, CDC, and DOJ's Office on Violence Against Women to run outreach, education, model-policy, training, and workplace-response study activities through fiscal years 2027 through 2031.