Because We Haven’t Lost Enough Jobs: Democrats Push For Sick Leave For Low-Income Workers
We’ve already inflated the cost of labor by arbitrary hikes in the minimum wage over the last few years, and the endless expansions of unemployment benefits that have come under Democrats has resulted in new taxes on businesses even as those benefits pay people to be unemployed.
Now the federal government is going to saddle American businesses with a big new burden: Mandatory sick leave.
WASHINGTON — Fresh off passage of a sweeping health care overhaul, the Obama administration is supporting legislation to provide mandatory paid sick leave for more than 30 million additional workers, who are some of nation’s lowest-paid employees.
The Healthy Families Act, sponsored by Sen. Christopher Dodd , and Rep. Rosa DeLauro , both Democrats from Connecticut , would require companies that have 15 or more employees to provide one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked or up to seven sick days a year for a full-time worker.
It sounds all warm and fuzzy to give people sick leave benefits, but what do you think will happen to low-income workers when we yet again inflate the cost of employing them? Thanks in part to minimum wage hikes, we’ve already got record-high levels of unemployment among young, low-income and low-skill workers. Now we’re going to exacerbate that problem by forcing employers to further cut back on overhead to accommodate new federal requirements.
Liberals like to make emotional arguments about paying these workers a “living wage” and giving them sick leave so they can care for their loved ones. But the policies those liberals support to fix those perceived problems result in fewer jobs for the very people they’re trying to help.
What’s better? A low-pay job with no sick leave? Or no job at all? Because whatever the intentions of these feel-good policies, those are the choices for workers and their employers.
Tags: 2010 election, andre carson, joe arpaio, miami, polls, state seal
