Trump pushes costly new national paid family and medical leave program

Dear Friend of America's Survival,

Trump's deal with the Dems incudes paid parental leave for 2.1 million federal workers. The cost is estimated to be about $3.3 billion over five to 10 years. It was pushed by Democrats and Ivanka Trump. Now the push is on for a national paid family and medical leave program with a cost that can easily run into hundreds of billions of dollars. President Trump is already backing the proposal.

 ​“I am also proud to be the first president to include in my budget a plan for nationwide paid family leave, so that every new parent has the chance to bond with their newborn child,” Trump said in his State of the Union address in 2019.

A CNBC story notes that research from the Heritage Foundation indicates nationwide paid family leave could cost $231 billion over 10 years.  

The Heritage study adds: "Those estimates understate the true costs of a federal paid leave program because they do not take into account the behavioral responses of workers and employers. Workers would almost certainly take more paid family leave than before, because it would have no direct monetary cost to them, and employers and states that provide paid family leave would likely drop their existing programs and simply let their workers use the federal program instead."

For America's Survival,
Cliff Kincaid