For four months, New Jersey congressman Thomas Kean, Jr. was off the radar, missing 100 congressional votes. Constituents and media outlets did not know his whereabouts or why he had suddenly vanished. Recently, Congressman Kean revealed that he had been seeking treatment for depression, which had required him to take a four-month-long leave of absence. While we must continue to applaud those in the public eye for sharing their mental health struggles and for being transparent about serious issues like depression, we must also pay attention to discrepancies in how these types of accommodations are available to the general public versus to the elite and powerful.
The Excruciating Reality of Getting Leave
In my decade as a clinical social worker, I have helped many clients secure mental health-related benefits, in the form of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) or through their companies’ human resources departments. In each case, the process is convoluted, difficult, frustrating, drawn out, and fraught with anxiety and stress. As an example, for an individual applying for mental health FMLA leave in the state of New Jersey, documentation is typically requested through postal mail, is often delayed in processing, and regularly requires multiple additional submissions or resubmissions. Of course, while this complex process is playing out, the individual’s mental health may continue to deteriorate.
Filing disability claims for mental health issues is by no means a sure thing; it can be difficult if not impossible to pinpoint when a specific mental health issue will subside, and so the types of questions that are often asked on application paperwork, such as “expected to end on…” or “anticipated return to work…,” can be tricky to answer. Receiving benefits for a physical health issue is by far easier than securing one for a mental health issue, despite the fact that both are essential for our survival. The reality for those individuals who are not in positions of power is that stepping away from work due to poor mental health is neither easy nor guaranteed. The story about Congressman Kean simply highlights this reality.
Inequities in Compensation
While Mr. Kean was away from Congress, he continued to receive his full salary and benefits. This is simply not the reality for the layperson; in fact, the process of attempting to receive compensation for a mental health leave is complicated. While FMLA guarantees job protection and unpaid leave, it does not compensate individuals for lost wages while away from work. In the state of New Jersey, a person seeking to be paid during leave must file for Temporary Disability Insurance, which, if approved, will compensate at 85% of the individual’s regular salary. Again, there is no guarantee that an individual will receive approval, and the application process itself is complicated and time-consuming. Mr. Kean was not required to go through any of this in order to secure his leave. This demonstrates a clear inequity between how those in power are treated during mental health crises and how those not in elite positions are treated.
A Nonpartisan Issue
While Mr. Kean happens to be a member of the Republican Party, this is by no means a partisan issue; a Democrat or an Independent would have been afforded the same liberty to simply step away from work in order to seek treatment. In 2023, Democrats John Fetterman and Lina Hidalgo both took leaves to address clinical depression and likely did so while continuing to receive their full salaries. Taking politics out of the equation, the fact that mental health support and accommodations are often a class issue is at odds with the idea that we all deserve support regardless of social position. The recent news about Congressman Kane should remind us that mental health issues do not discriminate, and neither should we when we consider how to support those suffering from severe challenges like depression.