Allegheny Institute - Lincoln Radio Journal
Sep 3, 2026 · 8 min · 5 segments
A discussion of a proposed parental leave policy in Allegheny County.
The focus has largely been on the potential health benefits and then other benefits to businesses in the form of better retention or reduced turnover.
But there are a lot of unintended consequences and costs such a policy would produce that really haven't been given as much attention.
For example, assuming that the costs would be borne by all of the businesses, there's the fact that larger firms, which already offer increased benefits for parental leave, are going to benefit at the expense of competitors, particularly smaller businesses, who would then see their costs rise.
There will obviously be the direct cost of having to pay the full salary of an employee for up to the 18 weeks of leave, and the employer may then have to hire additional staff to compensate for this.
In addition to that, finding a temporary or adequate program replacement for the duration of leave would be difficult for any firm, but again, especially for smaller and more specialized businesses, which also may not be able to effectively reassign workers.
So businesses may just end up having to forego the productivity and income that the employee on leave provided altogether.
Furthermore, given the policy's generous job protection, what happens if a business realizes it can continue without the employee that's on leave or would like to retain the replacement instead? Given that some businesses may face difficulty reassigning workers, even for those that can, what about potential overtime costs if you have senior employees that have to fill that gap? And this is particularly pertinent when considering public sector employees.
government employees already tend to enjoy more generous sick leave and parental leave policies as taxpayers often have to underrate the bill.
For reference, Allegheny County already offers up to 12 weeks of paid parental leave for many of its employees.
A representative for the Shaler EMS Department and the Allegheny Intermediate Unit, which represents 42 public and private schools in Allegheny County, both detailed the difficult burden the paid parental leave proposal would impose.
But again, all local public sector employees would be eligible, and this would likely then raise the benefits floor for any existing and future collective bargaining agreements, which could place further strain on the taxpayers and the budgets for Allegheny County and not
Pittsburgh Public Schools, Pittsburgh Regional Transit, all of whom are already facing financial difficulties in part due to significant personnel expenses.
questions over how significant any of the benefits that this proposal would supposedly bring for businesses, such as that reduced turnover, or the idea that if new parents have more money in their pockets, they're going to be able to spend more, which is going to help the economy.
But There's a number of issues with these, obviously the first being that wouldn't businesses already be factoring in turnover expense when they're offering their existing benefits? Why would a firm purposefully undersell them that they have to continuously turnover employees? Firms must by law provide paid sick and parental leave.
What happens to other benefits and other forms of leave? This could ultimately then affect the mix of pay and benefits where some employees may benefit from that and others may be harmed by that.
So you could end up in a situation where some workers subsidize specific benefits for others.
There's also the fact that some businesses, as a result of this, may look to relocate out of the county.
The focus has largely been on the potential health benefits and then other benefits to businesses in the form of better retention or reduced turnover.
But there are a lot of unintended consequences and costs such a policy would produce that really haven't been given as much attention.
For example, assuming that the costs would be borne by all of the businesses, there's the fact that larger firms, which already offer increased benefits for parental leave, are going to benefit at the expense of competitors, particularly smaller businesses, who would then see their costs rise.
There will obviously be the direct cost of having to pay the full salary of an employee for up to the 18 weeks of leave, and the employer may then have to hire additional staff to compensate for this.
In addition to that, finding a temporary or adequate program replacement for the duration of leave would be difficult for any firm, but again, especially for smaller and more specialized businesses, which also may not be able to effectively reassign workers.
So businesses may just end up having to forego the productivity and income that the employee on leave provided altogether.
Furthermore, given the policy's generous job protection, what happens if a business realizes it can continue without the employee that's on leave or would like to retain the replacement instead? Given that some businesses may face difficulty reassigning workers, even for those that can, what about potential overtime costs if you have senior employees that have to fill that gap? And this is particularly pertinent when considering public sector employees.
government employees already tend to enjoy more generous sick leave and parental leave policies as taxpayers often have to underrate the bill.
For reference, Allegheny County already offers up to 12 weeks of paid parental leave for many of its employees.
A representative for the Shaler EMS Department and the Allegheny Intermediate Unit, which represents 42 public and private schools in Allegheny County, both detailed the difficult burden the paid parental leave proposal would impose.
But again, all local public sector employees would be eligible, and this would likely then raise the benefits floor for any existing and future collective bargaining agreements, which could place further strain on the taxpayers and the budgets for Allegheny County and not
Pittsburgh Public Schools, Pittsburgh Regional Transit, all of whom are already facing financial difficulties in part due to significant personnel expenses.
questions over how significant any of the benefits that this proposal would supposedly bring for businesses, such as that reduced turnover, or the idea that if new parents have more money in their pockets, they're going to be able to spend more, which is going to help the economy.
But There's a number of issues with these, obviously the first being that wouldn't businesses already be factoring in turnover expense when they're offering their existing benefits? Why would a firm purposefully undersell them that they have to continuously turnover employees? Firms must by law provide paid sick and parental leave.
What happens to other benefits and other forms of leave? This could ultimately then affect the mix of pay and benefits where some employees may benefit from that and others may be harmed by that.
So you could end up in a situation where some workers subsidize specific benefits for others.
There's also the fact that some businesses, as a result of this, may look to relocate out of the county.
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