From the Department of Small Wonders Never Cease:
As the Tribune-Review reports it: “The Allegheny County Board of Health pared its controversial paid parental leave proposal Wednesday, shaving six weeks off the proposed benefit and loosening requirements after weeks of intense public feedback.
“The revised proposal would cut paid leave from 18 weeks to 12 and apply only to Allegheny County businesses with 15 or more employees. Workers would have to be employed for at least six months to qualify, and part-time employees would need to have logged 625 hours.”
But the Allegheny Conference on Community Development – better known for supporting onerous government expansion – continues to see the light on this matter, rejecting even the pared-down version of government sticking its very visible fingers where they clearly do not belong:
“Mandating a 100 percent employer-paid requirement — rather than utilizing a state-level, insurance-based funding model common in other jurisdictions — places an uncompetitive financial and administrative burden directly on local employers,” it said in a written statement.
“As Allegheny County competes regionally and nationally for investment and workforce growth, establishing a localized benefit mandate risks putting our region at a distinct economic disadvantage. We urge county leadership to pursue data-driven, employer-informed policy solutions that foster both family well-being and regional competitiveness.”
It’s about time the Allegheny Conference stopped being the useful idiot of those pushing every regressive public policy speeding down the “Parkway Progressive.”
Small wonder, indeed, that the group has embraced sanity. At least partially.
For it could have, and should have, gone farther: Private business “parental leave” should not be in the purview of government command economists and social overlords. That’s a matter best left solely between employer and employee.
It’s now up to Allegheny County Council to accept or reject the health department’s deleterious proposal. But we are under no illusion that the stripes of such a regressive tiger can change and it will give prospective new and existing businesses a very large incentive to locate and/or move elsewhere.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
