Economics
California Shows How Paid-Leave Law Affects Businesses: Not Much
- Payroll tax means employers don't bear cost of family time
- Issue pits Clinton and Sanders against Fiorina and Rubio
Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina addresses the Quad Cities New Ideas Forum at St. Ambrose University on Sept. 25, 2015, in Davenport, Iowa.
Photographer: Scott Olson/Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
As presidential candidates debate government-mandated paid family leave, the U.S. has a 39 million-person test lab.
California in 2004 enacted the nation’s first such program, ensuring workers are paid for as long as six weeks when caring for a newborn or ailing loved one. The law is financed through an employee payroll tax, meaning companies in the world’s eighth-largest economy bear no direct costs.