They want to rob Peter to pay for Paul’s parenting. Betsy McCaughey writes:
Every Democrat vying for the White House backs federal legislation that would guarantee workers nearly three months of paid family medical leave every year.
Sounds wonderful. We all favor caring for newborns and sick relatives. And working nine months while getting paid for 12 will appeal to many voters. The issue is who foots the bill for paid leave. These pols want to force you to pay with a hefty federal payroll tax.
That’s bad news for single guys who are unlikely to take leave but will be taxed anyway. Ditto for older people who have already raised their kids and don’t want their paycheck shrunk to fund someone else’s parenting. It’s also a raw deal for employees who already get paid leave on their job. They’ll have their paychecks shaved anyway. [...]
Most Democrats support the Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act, whose backers preposterously claim a minuscule 0.4% payroll tax, divided between employer and worker, will be enough to fund paid leave. Don’t believe this fairytale math. It assumes no more people will take leave once it’s paid for than take it now.
A realistic estimate by labor economist Ben Gitis of the conservative American Action Forum shows the tax would have to be at least 2.9%. Ouch.
Of course, we all know coworkers who will abuse paid leave big time, claiming to have a sick friend to get a three-month paid time off on your dime. The best way to discourage this is to require people taking leave to have skin in the game.
A plan sponsored by Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida does that. Workers who want paid leave can borrow against their own future Social Security benefits. A young mother could take two months of paid leave in exchange for delaying her retirement benefits for a month decades later. The math works, because benefits collected early in her working career are likely to be smaller than retirement benefits collected after her peak earning years.
This sound idea originated with the Independent Women’s Forum, but predictably Democrats are bashing it because instead of raising taxes, it makes workers pay their own freight.
[Betsy McCaughey, “The High Hidden Price of Paid-Family-Leave Laws,” New York Post, July 18]
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