Unlike any other industrialized nation, the United States lacks a legal guarantee of paid family leave, the absence of which places strains on many working- and middle-class families. It has long been a subject near and dear to the priorities of his daughter Ivanka but has been kept at arm’s length by congressional Republicans who loathe the idea of creating a new mandate on employers or a new taxpayer-funded entitlement, and who do not like the idea of raising taxes or cutting spending to pay for it.

Yet there is a possibility this tension is breaking. In recent weeks, an idea that was the brainchild of the Washington lawyer Kristin Shapiro has received increasing attention on Capitol Hill. As outlined by Mrs. Shapiro and the former principal deputy commissioner of Social Security, Andrew Biggs, this approach would address the main reason paid family leave has been a non-starter among Republicans in Congress. As they describe it in a recent Wall Street Journal essay, they would offer new parents the opportunity to collect early Social Security benefits for a specified period after the arrival of a child. To pay for the cost, parents would agree to delay collecting Social Security retirement benefits for another specified period shorter than the actual leave.

This idea offers an elegant solution to a difficult political problem and, according to Mr. Biggs’s calculations, could result in paid leaves equivalent in length to those offered by other industrialized nations.