Governor Cuomo is pushing for his Paid Family Leave Law here in New York, and all it is is one more entitlement (aka one more tax burden for you).
“Oh no”, he claims, “the money paid out will all be covered by premiums people pay.”
Well, if you can do simple math you know that’s not true.
What’s being proposed is that, starting next year, if you have a baby you’ll be able to take 8 weeks off from work and receive half of your wages.
And over a 4-year phase in period, you would ultimately get paid two thirds of your wages for 12 weeks.
So you pay a paltry premium up front, but you get back all of that and more the first time you actually take the family leave.
There’s no consideration given to the impact this arrangement would have on your employer, given that they would be required to save your job and continue to pay you for work you’re not doing.
And this family leave applies not only to having a child, but also if someone in your family dies or becomes ill.
Now I don’t know if they have goldbricks where you work, but I’ve seen some in my day and I can easily imagine folks coming up with one excuse after another to get 3 months off at a time and get paid over half of their pay while you and I pick up the tab.
That’s why for you and me, as the patsies who will ultimately end up funding it, Family Leave is a bad idea.