“Until the mindset of the area’s population and politicians change from their collectivist, Pollyannaish, union-loving, anti-capitalistic mindset, it will get worse until it can’t.”
Those are the words of Jake Haulk, president-emeritus of the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy. They came specifically in reaction to the latest affirmation (by a PNC economist) of the think tank’s long-running statistical studies of Greater Pittsburgh’s critical jobs and population funk.
But those same words are wholly applicable to Monday’s unanimous approval by the Allegheny County Board of Health of its revised (downward) but still horribly onerous parental leave policy.
Allegheny County Council is expected to approve the proposal. Chief Executive Sara Innamorato is expected to sign it into law.
The new leave policy, also applicable to nonprofits, would require businesses with 15 or more eligible employees to provide at least 12 weeks of paid leave to new parents.
Per the Tribune-Review:
To qualify for the benefit, “full or part-time employees would have to work for their employer for at least six months or 625 hours. The revised proposal reduced the amount of leave from the 18 weeks originally proposed and exempts smaller businesses. It also provides special provisions for parents who experience stillbirths.”
The board rationalizes the latest Big Government edict as a matter of “public health.”
Economic health be damned. Look for some businesses to shed jobs to fall to under the 15-employee threshold. Look for others to not expand for the same reason. Look for still others to move out of Allegheny County. Those considering starting a business in the county will look elsewhere.
Dr. Iulia Vann, director of public health for the county Health Department, rationalized how employers can comply with the new parental leave policy:
“An employer can meet their obligations under this regulation through a private plan. That can mean a combination of short-term disability and some type of private insurance or private insurance of some sort.”
Sorry, but that’s still an extra expense – and no insignificant expense at that – for smaller businesses that operate on the thinnest of margins.
But that’s not even the base issue here. This is: Government has no business dictating any private businesses’ benefits policy. That’s a private matter between employers and employees.
“Imposing more costs on Allegheny County employers of all sizes, but disproportionately small businesses, will only further contribute to the pervasive anti-business malaise already afflicting the region – leading to further economic stagnation and a loss of jobs, pushing away the very families and residents this proposal is ostensibly intended to help,” concludes Alex Sodini, an Allegheny Institute research associate (in Policy Brief Vol. 26, No. 32).
All of Allegheny County will rue the day that these Menckenian government “merchants of delusion” yet again denuded the tree of sound public policy and further thwarted any jobs and population recovery.
Let’s call it what it is: Government-directed economic suicide.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
