(The Center Square) – The decades-long battle for paid parental leave in the U.S. has moved in fits and starts, with thirteen states and the District of Columbia currently mandating paid leave for working parents.
Democrats from the two poles of the commonwealth have introduced legislation that would see Pennsylvania join them.
Sen. Nick Pisciottano, D-Monroeville, and Sen. Amanda Cappelletti, D-Norristown issued a co-sponsorship memorandum urging other legislators to join them in the effort. Pisciottano is the father of three young children, including twins born in October. Cappelletti is the mother of a toddler and currently pregnant. She made history as the first Pennsylvania legislator to give birth while in office.
“The research and common sense supports that adequate paid leave improves mental and physical health outcomes for parents and children alike,” reads the memo. “Parental leave creates a better foundation for parenthood that ultimately leads to better outcomes for employees and employers including retention, and increased productivity and morale in the workplace.”
The memo didn’t offer specific language for the bill. In most states where leave is mandatory, it comes as a result of payroll contributions from both employers and employees. Another 10 states have voluntary laws which create provisions for paid family leave through the private insurance market.
The senators say the support the bill offers families may encourage more people to have children or existing parents to have more.
“As we confront declining birthrates and a shrinking population, we must acknowledge that the decision to live, work, and raise a family in Pennsylvania doesn’t happen in a vacuum,” reads the memo. “It’s time to take a hard look at our Commonwealth’s policies and recognize that, for too many families, the deck is stacked against them.”
A 2022 article published in Nature found that paid leave may increase fertility rates by up to 24%.
Several bipartisan bills have gone through the legislature that would institute a program called the Family Care Act. The act would create a statewide paid family and medical leave insurance program in order to cover the 66% of the state’s workers who aren’t eligible for the benefits through their employers. The fund would be derived from payroll contributions.
One introduced in the House in February, by Republican Rep. Natalie Mihalek, has stalled in committee. A similar Senate bill has awaited consideration since June.
At the time, Mihalek said more than 4 million workers in Pennsylvania live paycheck-to-paycheck without paid time off for family or medical care, forcing many to sacrifice health to make ends meet.
Others quit working entirely, shrinking the state’s economy and worsening its labor shortage. Mihalek said her mother was one of those who stayed home after her brother was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes as a child in the 1980s.
And decades later when she became a mother herself, Mihalek said she went back to work as an attorney just days after giving birth to each of three children. It’s a reality for most workers, but not all, she said, pointing to the 25% who do have access to paid leave – including every elected official in the General Assembly.
“This is not a luxury, it’s a necessity,” she told the House Labor and Industry Committee in March. “I’ve heard it called ‘Cadillac plan’ or ‘you should have planned ahead’ or ‘you should have had a different job.’ That’s just not the reality of our situation in this country, in Pennsylvania. It’s not the reality of our workforce we talk a lot about in this building.”
Mihalek and others supportive of paid family leave programs, like President Donald Trump, say the policy is humane and common sense. Its critics don’t necessarily disagree, but rather, don’t trust the complexity of the program to a bureaucracy and would rather see private insurance companies fill the gap.
Rep. Scott Barger, R-Hollidaysburg, said the state doesn’t have a good track record of managing large social programs, nor does it have the money to do so.
“Why can’t we do this? My answer would be because we’re broke,” he said. “We’re running out of cash. We are burning through it so fast and at some point, we have to delineate absolutely critical services from ones that maybe aren’t as critical or things that we would like to do maybe more than others – even though we’d like to do all of them.”
It’s not the first time the committee has had this discussion. In 2023, lawmakers critical of the idea said it would amount to a $3.9 billion tax on workers and would crush small businesses.
Christen Smith contribtued to this report.
