State Rep. Jen O’Mara was 18 when her youngest brother was born.
Her mother had to go back to work after three weeks, leaving the Delaware County Democrat responsible for the baby.
“As an 18 year-old, I had no idea how to care for a newborn,” she said at a March legislative hearing. “I'm lucky that he made it. We all made it, but it was a challenging time for our family.”
O’Mara is now the mother of a daughter and pregnant with her second child.
“To think about the privilege that I will have as a soon-to-be mother again, that I can take maternity leave, that I won't have to worry about whether or not I continue to be paid or receive my paycheck,” she said, “it's just a gift I wish my mom had — not a gift, a benefit.”
O’Mara was one of 14 lawmakers who voted in March to advance a bill out of committee to create universal paid leave in Pennsylvania.
Under the Family Care Act, employers and employees would pay into a fund administered by the Department of Labor and Industry. Employers with 14 or fewer full-time employees would be exempt from this tax.
The legislation, which has received bipartisan support, would provide up to 20 weeks of paid leave for new parents or individuals recovering from an illness, surgery, or injury. It would also give Pennsylvanians up to 12 weeks of paid leave to care for a family member with a serious health condition.
Access to paid leave in Pennsylvania is generally determined by where residents live and work. Philadelphia and Allegheny County mandate that businesses provide it through local ordinances. For the rest of the state, employers decide the conditions under which someone can take off work to care for, say, a sick child.
There’s even variety within the legislature. Staffers’ length of leave depends on the chamber or caucus they work for, according to internal policies. For example, employees working for state House Democrats or Republicans get eight weeks of paid parental leave, but those in the Senate do not.
Lawmakers set their schedules and take time off at their discretion while still receiving their entire paycheck.
State Sen. Amanda Cappelletti (D., Montgomery), a supporter of paid family leave, said she spent three months out of the office after her daughter was born in March 2023.
Over email, she told Spotlight PA that she jokingly refers to her toddler as “the bipartisan baby.” Leadership on both sides of the aisle agreed to allow her to vote by proxy during her parental leave, and Cappelletti said fellow senators were very understanding of how difficult it can be to adjust to life with a newborn.
“I am grateful for the support and relationships I’ve developed, but am always a bit perplexed about why I deserve this support, but our constituents don’t,” she said.
Access to paid family leave at all is rare. According to federal data, just over a quarter of private industry and non-military government workers in the U.S. have it.
High earners are more likely to have this benefit than low-wage workers, meaning people whose only option is to take unpaid time off from work are also less likely to have the financial means to go without a paycheck.
Tim Potts, a good-government advocate and a previous press secretary for former House Speaker H. William DeWeese (D., Allegheny), said elected officials should forgo paid family leave until they make it available for all Pennsylvanians.
"Until they do that, they shouldn't do it for themselves. Especially not when they're not paying for it. It's not leadership that's providing these benefits. It's taxpayers," Potts said.
State Rep. Dan Miller (D., Allegheny), who introduced the Family Care Act, wouldn’t comment on whether it was contradictory or hypocritical that he and his colleagues can take paid leave when many Pennsylvanians can’t. But he told Spotlight PA that he sees access to it as a moral issue.
"Nobody wants to let down the ones they love,” he said.
Under Miller’s bill, people would receive between 50% and 90% of their salary from the paid leave fund; the lower one’s income, the higher their reimbursement.
To be eligible, Pennsylvanians would need to have worked at least 18 weeks in the past 12-month period. People couldn’t claim benefits if their employer had a waiver exempting them from the program. And employers could seek an exception if they already provide paid leave benefits that are at least equal to what the fund delivers.
Miller’s bill was voted out of the state House’s Labor and Industry Committee along party lines and now awaits consideration by the full chamber. In an email, a spokesperson told Spotlight PA that Speaker Joanna McClinton (D., Philadelphia) hopes the legislature can get a bill to the governor's desk this session.
The Family Care Act's chances in the state Senate are cloudier. Last year, the chamber considered a separate version of the Family Care Act, introduced by Devlin Robinson (R., Allegheny).
Unlike the House bill, which would split costs between employers and employees, Robinson’s version would have solely relied on employee payroll deductions. Both bills cap the employee contribution at 1% of someone's income.
Robinson’s legislation passed out of the state Senate Labor and Industry Committee with the support of Robinson and three other Republicans, but it never received a full vote from the GOP-controlled chamber.
Pennsylvania Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward (R., Westmoreland) was one of three Republicans on last year's Labor and Industry Committee who voted against the bill. Spotlight PA reached out to Ward for comment but received no reply.
More employers are providing paid leave. Federal research shows that between 2014 and 2023, the percentage of private sector workers in the U.S. who have the benefit went from 12% to 27%; for state and local government workers, it grew from 16% to 28%.
This is a positive trend, said Elizabeth Stelle, vice president of policy at the Commonwealth Foundation, a Harrisburg-based think tank that researches and promotes free-market policies. Stelle wants the legislature to create policies that support the further expansion of paid leave, but told Spotlight PA that forcing taxpayers to subsidize it for the entire state would be bad for the economy.
Stelle argued it's inappropriate to compare the paid leave policies of the state House and Senate to Pennsylvania’s entire workforce, which comprises many industries and jobs with unique demands.
"It's completely apples and oranges," she said.
Her main issue with the current state House version of the Family Care Act is that it raises taxes on businesses. She warned the legislation could result in layoffs, force companies to sever other types of employee benefits, or raise prices.
New Jersey implemented paid family leave in 2009, and a 2012 survey by the state’s Business and Industry Association found that the effects on its members were mixed.
Many of the 259 businesses that responded said they had yet to have an employee take paid leave. But nearly a third said the law had a negative effect on their profitability or performance. Larger businesses were more likely to have higher costs related to overtime pay, while smaller businesses reported greater administrative burden.
Stelle instead wants more targeted solutions, such as policies that lower health care costs. This would make taking unpaid leave more affordable, as workers would have more money on hand.
Kathryn Anne Edwards, a labor economist and senior fellow at the think tank Capita, said the lack of a universal paid leave policy is more a market failure than a matter of lawmaker hypocrisy.
For some businesses, like those in leisure or hospitality, Edwards explained, providing paid leave will always be too costly because of extremely low profit margins and high employee turnover. For other industries, like health care, employers don't want to provide flexibility to their staff, as that also increases costs and administrative burden.
But addressing the dearth of paid leave is within the ambit of the legislature, she said, arguing the overall economic cost of not having it is also too high.
When people cannot take off without risking their jobs, "You lose workers, you lose earnings, and you lose those dollars in the economy," she said.
As for the cost to taxpayers to provide access to paid leave, Edwards said it should be considered a tradeoff rather than a burden: More Pennsylvanians in the workforce earning money means fewer people relying on publicly funded programs like Medicaid and nutrition assistance.
For Potts, access to leave is ultimately a matter of fairness.
With so many Pennsylvanians struggling, he thinks it's wrong for lawmakers to create fixes for themselves but not for their constituents.
“You got to say it's hypocritical, you just gotta,” he said.
