Dear President Biden, Senators, and Members of Congress,

Everyone wants workers to be able to take time off from work when they need it. Fortunately, increasingly employers are offering paid leave benefits to employees, including hourly workers. This is great news, and a trend that we want to continue.

However, creating a one-size-fits-all government entitlement program would be the wrong way to expand access to paid leave benefits, because they:

  • Are Unfair to Low-Income Workers: Paid leave entitlement programs tend to benefit those with higher incomes and burden those with lower incomes. Research has found this to be the case with paid leave programs enacted in California, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Canada, Norway, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Iceland, and Belgium. This isn’t fair.
  • Undermine Existing Benefit Programs: A one-size-fits-all federal benefit will discourage companies from offering their own paid leave benefits. Many employees would end up with less flexibility and worse paid leave benefits as a result.
  • Subsidize Big Businesses That Don’t Need Help: The proposed federal program would do more to benefit big companies that already provide paid family leave than it would to help low-income workers who lack paid family leave.
  • Undermine Opportunities for Women: Research also shows that women’s advancement suffers under government paid leave regimes: A National Bureau of Economic Research study of California’s paid leave entitlement found that it decreased women’s employment by 7% and wages by 8%; countries with more generous government paid leave programs have larger wage gaps, and women are less likely to advance into leadership roles.
  • Reduce Workers’ Income: If a new payroll tax or corporate tax hike is used to fund a paid leave entitlement, all workers would have less money in every paycheck. This would be especially hard on low-income workers at a time when inflation is already eating away at people’s income.

There are better ways to support workers when they need time off from work without upending the existing employment arrangement of every single working American.

We the undersigned, representing millions of Americans, oppose a federal paid leave entitlement program because we want to preserve opportunity, flexibility, and fairness.

Sincerely,

Carrie Lukas
President
Independent Women’s Forum

Heather Higgins
CEO
Independent Women’s Voice

Garrett Bess
Vice President
Heritage Action for America

Maureen Blum
President
Strategic Coalitions and Initiatives

Andrew F. Quinlan
President
Center for Freedom and Prosperity

David Williams
President
Taxpayers Protection Alliance

Bob Carlstrom
President
The Carlstrom Group, LLC

Annette Thompson Meeks
CEO
Freedom Foundation of Minnesota

Brandon Dutcher
Senior Vice President
Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs

Ryan Elllis
President
Center for a Free Economy

C. Preston Noell III
President
Tradition, Family, Property, Inc

Ron Pearson
Executive Director
Conservative Victory Fund

Katie McAuliffe
Executive Director
Digital Liberty

Penny Young Nance
CEO and President
Concerned Women for America LAC

Brent Wm. Gardner
Chief Government Affairs Officer
Americans for Prosperity

Brandon Arnold
Executive Vice President
National Taxpayers Union

Grover Norquist
President
Americans for Tax Reform

Rick Manning
President
Americans for Limited Government

Phil Kerpen
President
American Commitment