SENATE BILL: Parental Leave Act of 2019 (Passed)

[Lumine]

Parental Leave Act of 2019

An Act

To provide paternity leave for new mothers and fathers.

SECTION 1.

1. This Act may be cited as the “Parental Leave Act of 2019”.

SECTION 2.

1. A qualifying worker shall be defined as-
a. Anyone who has earned income from employment in the past 12 months; and
b. Anyone who has filed a request for paid medical or parental leave.

2. Workers who qualify for parental leave shall be defined as-
a. Any worker who anticipates engaging in the care of a newborn infant within 30 days;
b. Any worker who is engaging in the care of a newborn infant within 90 days; or
c. Any worker who is engaging in the care of a person suffering from life threatening or terminal illness.

3. Any qualifying worker is entitled to-
a. 16 weeks of paid paternity or maternity leave; and
b. 4 weeks of paid medical leave annually.

4. Both qualifying fathers and mothers are entitled to 16 weeks of individual paid leave.

5. Employers shall pay employees on leave the same rate as a rolling 13-week average.

6. Employers with less than 50 total employees may claim a tax credit of no more than 75% of the value of the wages paid to workers taking paid maternity or paternity leave.

SECTION 3.

1. This law shall go into effect on October 1st, 2019.

Passed in the House of Representatives 6-0-2-1

Sponsor: Vacant
Designation: SB 9017

No idea why, but this never got to the Senate back in February. It needs a sponsor.

[Vern]

I would like to Sponsor this once I get in the Senate!

[Devout Centrist]

I'll sponsor

[Vern]

I'll sponsor

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I'll sponsor

Senators have 24 hours to object.

[Vern]

Can I Co-sponsor?

[Devout Centrist]

Can I Co-sponsor?

I would greatly appreciate your co-sponsorship!

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Seeing no objection, Devout Centrist is now sponsor and Vern is a co-sponsor. Please post your advocacy in the next 24 hours!

[Vern]

This bill is way over due. It is so important for parents to be able to have time with their newborns without having to worry about working and not having money to pay the bills. This is a very pro-family bill and needs to be passed ASAP!

[Devout Centrist]

Thank you, Senator Vern! This bill will extend paternal and maternal leave. Under the original law passed back in 2017, fathers are only entitled to two weeks of paternal leave. In addition, small businesses received less reimbursement for time spent on paternal and maternal leave.

This law gives fathers and mothers more time with their newborn child and extends medical leave for millions of Atlasians.

I sincerely hope my colleagues will approve this measure and send it to the desk of President Tmth.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

While I am not against this, I would like to now the impact and cost of this on business and affects on the economy as well as small business?

[Devout Centrist]

While I am not against this, I would like to now the impact and cost of this on business and affects on the economy as well as small business?

So, this bill expands on the Family and Education Support Act passed back in 2017. The added expenses to the Federal Government would likely be the larger tax credit provided to businesses under this bill. However, I haven't seen any numbers to suggest how much that might be.

I'll go ahead and try to calculate how this bill changes the cost of family and medical leave compared to this law.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

While I am not against this, I would like to now the impact and cost of this on business and affects on the economy as well as small business?

So, this bill expands on the Family and Education Support Act passed back in 2017. The added expenses to the Federal Government would likely be the larger tax credit provided to businesses under this bill. However, I haven't seen any numbers to suggest how much that might be.

I'll go ahead and try to calculate how this bill changes the cost of family and medical leave compared to this law.

I think that such a calculation would be helpful indeed.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Calculation?

[Devout Centrist]

I'm sorry that this bill sorta fell on the backburner. Sources that I've seen for paid family leave indicate that it could cost $75 billion per year for 16 weeks, however we're already at 12 weeks and I'm uncertain how to factor in the tax credit. If anyone has data for small business nationally, I'd greatly appreciate it.

[tmthforu94]

Legislation expanding parental leave has my full support.

[Lumine]

I'm sorry that this bill sorta fell on the backburner. Sources that I've seen for paid family leave indicate that it could cost $75 billion per year for 16 weeks, however we're already at 12 weeks and I'm uncertain how to factor in the tax credit. If anyone has data for small business nationally, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Senator, have you had any luck finding some assistance for this? Perhaps from the GM Team?

[Devout Centrist]

I'm sorry that this bill sorta fell on the backburner. Sources that I've seen for paid family leave indicate that it could cost $75 billion per year for 16 weeks, however we're already at 12 weeks and I'm uncertain how to factor in the tax credit. If anyone has data for small business nationally, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Senator, have you had any luck finding some assistance for this? Perhaps from the GM Team?

As of yet, I haven't found much in the way of useful data. I'll drop a line to the GM team and see if I can get some numbers from them.

[Fmr. Representative Encke]

Parental Leave Act of 2019: Cost Analysis

From NAICS data, there are 11432180 businesses with between 1 and 4 employees, 1698743 businesses with between 5 and 9 employees, 741725 businesses with between 10 and 19 employees, and 445906 businesses with between 20 and 49 employees. Fitting a curve to the data and integrating yields 67 million employees working for businesses with fewer than 50 employees, 46% of the total of 145 million. (as an useful quality check, the total integration yields nearly the same number of income tax returns listed in separate IRS data).

The average wage per employee for 'very small' and 'small' businesses (those with 1-20 and 20-99 employees, respectively) works out to around $40,000; 16 weeks of paid leave works out to around $12,500 per employee.

3.8 million babies were born in the US last year. 96.9 percent of families have at least one employed parent and 61.9 percent have both parents employed, so roughly 6,030,000 individuals would be eligible for maternity or paternity pay. (aside: if we take 6,030,000*12,500, we get 75.375 billion dollars, corroborating Devout Centrist's sources )

If we assume these births are distributed evenly across employees of all businesses, we have 6,030,000*0.46=2,773,800 employees of small businesses eligible for leave. 2,773,800*12,500*0.75 =  a total cost of 26.00 billion dollars.

[Fmr. Representative Encke]

Crap, forgot to add the terminal illness part. Will be doing that shortly.

[Former President tack50]

I would like to add that, while the cost analysis is really good an appreciated, since the parental leave will be paid by businesses and not the state, it isn't mandatory as per paygo (but very helpful anyways)

Either way, this is a really good bill which I fully support. It's about time parents start getting parental leave.

[Fmr. Representative Encke]

I would like to add that, while the cost analysis is really good an appreciated, since the parental leave will be paid by businesses and not the state, it isn't mandatory as per paygo (but very helpful anyways)

Either way, this is a really good bill which I fully support. It's about time parents start getting parental leave.

No, this cost analysis is for the tax credit:

6. Employers with less than 50 total employees may claim a tax credit of no more than 75% of the value of the wages paid to workers taking paid maternity or paternity leave.

Note the multiplication by 0.75 at the very end of the cost analysis.

[Former President tack50]

I would like to add that, while the cost analysis is really good an appreciated, since the parental leave will be paid by businesses and not the state, it isn't mandatory as per paygo (but very helpful anyways)

Either way, this is a really good bill which I fully support. It's about time parents start getting parental leave.

No, this cost analysis is for the tax credit:

6. Employers with less than 50 total employees may claim a tax credit of no more than 75% of the value of the wages paid to workers taking paid maternity or paternity leave.

Note the multiplication by 0.75 at the very end of the cost analysis.

Whoops! Forget about the first part then. Second part still applies though we still need to pay for this somehow I guess (or make businesses pay the entire cost, which wouldn't be good, but still).

[Fmr. Representative Encke]

Alright, I've been reading through this bill a bit more and I think some areas need some clarification.

1. A qualifying worker shall be defined as-
a. Anyone who has earned income from employment in the past 12 months; and
b. Anyone who has filed a request for paid medical or parental leave.

2. Workers who qualify for parental leave shall be defined as-
a. Any worker who anticipates engaging in the care of a newborn infant within 30 days;
b. Any worker who is engaging in the care of a newborn infant within 90 days; or
c. Any worker who is engaging in the care of a person suffering from life threatening or terminal illness.

3. Any qualifying worker is entitled to-
a. 16 weeks of paid paternity or maternity leave; and
b. 4 weeks of paid medical leave annually.

4. Both qualifying fathers and mothers are entitled to 16 weeks of individual paid leave.

5. Employers shall pay employees on leave the same rate as a rolling 13-week average.

6. Employers with less than 50 total employees may claim a tax credit of no more than 75% of the value of the wages paid to workers taking paid maternity or paternity leave.

To be a 'qualifying worker', one must file a request for medical or parental leave per Section 1. Then, in Section 3, it says that 'qualifying workers' are entitled to 16 weeks of paid paternity/maternity leave AND 4 weeks of medical leave annually. Doesn't this imply that people who apply for general medical leave would be entitled to the benefits of paternity/maternity leave?

Also, this either needs a definition for paternity/maternity leave (should apply only to people who have or are expecting a new baby) or needs to remove those terms and replace them with 'parental leave'. The bill seems to be using the terms maternity/paternity leave and parental leave interchangeably (even though parental leave is usually applied to a much broader range of circumstances) so I'm a bit confused about whether I'm even supposed to factor the terminally ill component in to the cost analysis, since section 6 specifically says 'maternity and paternity leave.'

[Devout Centrist]

Alright, thanks for the data, Encke! I'll draft an amendment covering your concerns.