Breaking down Hillary Clinton's perfect debate answer on paid leave

Sometimes the best answers are also the simplest ones.

When CNN’s Dana Bash asked Hillary Clinton about the feasibility of paid family leave in the United States, the Democratic frontrunner didn’t flinch before answering: It would work.

Because, in fact, it’s already working.

If critics of paid leave wanted data on how the policy actually works, Clinton said, they could look to California, one of the states where it’s already in place.

“California has had a paid leave program for a number of years… and it has not had the ill effects that the Republicans are always saying it will have,” Clinton explained. “We can design a system and pay for it that does not put the burden on small business.”

According to a study from the Center for Economic Policy Research, 86.9% of employers in California said paid leave had not caused “any cost increases” whatsoever. In fact, about 9% of employers said that the policy had helped them save money “by reducing employee turnover and/or by reducing their own benefit costs when employees used the program instead of (or in combination with) employer-provided paid vacation, sick leave, or disability benefits.”

With the premise of the question thoroughly debunked, Clinton closed with an equally simple idea: “We need to join the rest of the advanced world.”