Paid family leave tax plan clears first legislative hurdle

By Christina Lengyel | The Center Square contributor

HARRISBURG, PA – Long a priority for Democratic lawmakers, a plan to create a paid family leave tax cleared its first legislative hurdle this week.

Following an impassioned debate between lawmakers on the House Labor and Industry Committee, a proposal to establish statewide family and medical leave insurance moved to the full chamber for consideration on a party-line vote.

The bill, known as The Family Care Act, would create a graduated payroll tax that could total up to 1% in exchange for providing job protection and paid leave for all workers across the state.

The benefit goes beyond federal FMLA, ensuring even low-wage and small business workers are able to take leave to care for themselves or their family members, supporters say. Similar programs exist in at least 10 other states – including neighboring New Jersey and New York.

According to the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Dan Miller, D-Pittsburgh, the funds “help ensure small businesses can compete with large companies to recruit and retain top-tier talent,” a pressing concern for lawmakers eager to solve the state’s weighty population problems.

The bill demonstrated the strong philosophical divisions among committee members about the role of government, the use of taxpayer dollars, and the responsibilities of business owners.

“Unfortunately, I don’t think the amendment addresses all of the problems and challenges we see with this legislation,” said Rep. Ryan McKenzie, R-Macungie. “In fact, in some respects, it goes the wrong way … that would be a $3.9 billion tax on employees across this commonwealth.”

McKenzie proposed an amendment, which did not pass, that would have replaced the payroll tax with a $100 million expense from the general fund to give tax credits to employers who volunteer to offer their employees paid leave.

While his solution mirrored existing federal tax credits which passed with bipartisan support, Democratic colleagues argued that incentivizing corporations without guaranteeing this security to all Pennsylvanians, regardless of their employers’ choices, falls short of serving the people of the state.

Rep. Mike Jones, R-York, contended that the state’s struggle to attract and retain residents is due to the state’s unfriendly attitude toward businesses, though specific legislation supporting his statements was not cited.

“As we’re talking about businesses failing, we have to first recognize that we’re failing people,” said Rep. Regina Young, D-Philadelphia.

Rep. Jennifer O’Mara, D-Springfield, said that after losing her father to suicide, she found herself caring for young siblings when her mother returned to work as a union bus driver – just two weeks post-partum.

“She had to face the decision of going back to work when she had that baby in order to keep getting paid to provide for that baby and her other children and to keep health benefits or to lose her job because she didn’t have anything like this because the state of Pennsylvania failed us,” O’Mara said.

Rep. Barb Gleim, R-Carlisle, recalled her own similar life experiences as she defended her opposition to the bill.
“When I was young, my father was murdered, and my mom was a single mom, and we all went to work,” she said.

“We never expected the government to come in and pay for our personal situation. We were afforded the opportunity to go to work and to pick ourselves up.”

Both sides insist that they stand with employees and hope to find solutions that will benefit people across the commonwealth.

“The last twelve years, we have not had the conversation about workers, benefits, paid leave, minimum wage, misclass, OSHA, any of these things we’ve passed in the first three months,” said Committee Chair Jason Dawkins, D-Philadelphia, demanding that legislative action be taken to back up the pro-worker sentiments expressed by Republicans in the House.

It’s not clear how quickly the full chamber will vote on the proposal, which was referred to the House Rules Committee – a common step in the process – earlier this week.