03/29/2024

A California Dream for Paid Leave Has an Old Problem: How to Pay for It

The United States has long been the only industrialized country not to offer paid leave to new parents. Instead of waiting for the federal government, the incoming governor of California intends to change that in a significant way for families in his state.

He is expected to introduce a proposal to give families six months of paid leave after the birth of a child.

What’s unclear is how California would pay for it.

The proposal, which the governor-elect, Gavin Newsom, is expected to include with his budget after he is sworn in on Monday, would be the most generous state policy in the nation, at a time when federal paid leave proposals have stalled. Yet it does not include a plan to finance it, and there is no guarantee that the Legislature would approve raising the money.

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