Governor Whitmer Wants To Give 12 Weeks Paid Parental Leave To State Workers; What About Us?

If Governor Whitmer gets her budget wish we taxpayers of Michigan will be paying for state workers to receive up to 12 weeks of paid parental leave.  Governor Whitmer’s budget would give this paid time off after the birth or adoption of a child.

Currently Michigan has about 47,000 state workers and they give birth to approximately 1,300 newborns a year and adopt approximately another 20 children. According to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy:

The average annual cost to taxpayers for each State of Michigan employee rose from $122,157 in 2018 to $122,959 in 2019, or 0.6%.

Under today’s state law state workers must use their vacation and/or sick time to take time after giving birth to a baby or adopting a child. These state workers are eligible for up to 6 months of unpaid leave without losing their job.  The federal Family Medical Leave Act guarantees 12 weeks of that time.

My question to all of you is simple and has nothing to do whether parents should be given that time or not, I am a parent.  My question is simply this; we pay for the state workers thus would pay for their time off.  Should we in the private industry be afforded the same paid time off and of course that time off would be paid by the taxpayer?