Anti-Family Leave

Paid family leave is getting a lot of attention lately. And while there is certainly nothing wrong with paid family leave, and employers can benefit from it just as much as employees, there is everything wrong with it when government—at the federal, state, or local level—provides it or mandates that employers have to provide it.

Since the passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) in 1993—which mandated that eligible workers could take 12 weeks of unpaid leave—Democrats in Congress and liberal and progressive groups have been calling for the unpaid leave in the FMLA to be changed to paid leave. It is continually pointed out that the United States is the only industrialized nation that does not guarantee any type of paid family leave at the national level.

As one would expect, all three Democratic candidates for president announced their support for some kind of mandatory paid family leave program.

6. There is no answer to the question of whether a company should offer paid family leave as a fringe benefit. Just like there is no answer to the question of whether a company should offer any number of other fringe benefits.

7. Offering paid family leave may benefit certain employers. It might help them to acquire and retain quality employees. It might be cheaper to pay a skilled employee to take time off after the birth of a child than to hire and train someone to take his or her place.

8. Once it is accepted that it is okay for the government to mandate that employers provide paid family leave, no reasonable and logical objection can be raised to the government mandating that employers provide any other fringe benefit.

9. Paid family leave, vacation pay, holiday pay, sick leave, jury-duty pay, paid time off, and any other fringe benefit are matters to negotiate between employers and employees. The government shouldn’t even know what fringe benefits companies offer.

10. Market solutions to problems are always to be preferred to government solutions.

These are the things that the economist from the American Enterprise Institute should have said.

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