Minnesota Politics
Back 12 years ago, when Heidi and I were trying to get our new small business off the ground, we also had a new baby girl. Although we were struggling financially we both recognized the benefit we had in being able to spend time with our new baby. I could be there to help when Heidi had to learn the many aspects of being a new mother, and at least one of us could be there to be our little girl’s parent at all times – a luxury many working families do not have – a luxury we never took for granted.
Keeping that in mind, the daunting prospect of running a new small business and being able to offer that type of thing to an employee, or a number of employees…well you begin to realize that you may not be able to afford to treat your employees they way you feel they should be treated.
Small businesses have a daunting prospect when it comes to employing people. When we find an employee, we can’t afford to lose that employee. Therefore we can’t afford to not treat our employees well. We can’t afford to not pay our employees well.
I own a very small business built around an invention of mine. My wife and I run our business and we have one employee. That one employee is essential to our operations. If he needed a few weeks off for a family or medical reason we could not afford to lose him. But we also could not afford to pay him for his time off. We would try and make it work, but it would be extremely difficult. This is the plight of many sincerely small businesses.
That’s why I support the 2016 Paid Family Leave bill because it includes funding that will allow businesses like mine to be able to offer paid time off. With the affordable payroll insurance pool to help us afford to pay for family leave we would be able to offer paid family leave and it would make us able to compete for the best employees for our small business.
the details of the payroll insurance pool:
The employee would pay .27% of each paycheck into the pool. The employer would match this payment. It’s similar to a payroll tax or the social security deduction. This amounts to around $89.00 per year or $1.70 per week for the employee and employer. By 2020 the benefits would kick in after the pool has been filled.
After the relatively modest initial costs of getting the program up and running, it would almost entirely fund itself through this payroll insurance pool. There would be no Minnesota taxpayer burden.
