Do you really have too much say over your own money?
The skinny, as reported by the Boston Globe:
Senate leaders this week will propose legislation to offer all workers in Massachusetts up to 12 weeks’ paid time off to care for newborn and adopted children or sick family members, financed by an employee payroll premium of at least $1.50 a week.
The bill, which would pay employees their full salary, up to $750 a week, would create the most generous paid leave policy in the nation.
So while our state reps can’t bring themselves to rolling back the state income tax to 5.0% - as the people has demanded in a referendum that passed with overwhelming majority - supposedly because they need the money to prevent the state from collapsing into barbary, they manage to propose another expenditure financed by a new payroll tax. Thanks, guys, for reminding us how dumb and erroneous our position is compared to the brilliance of yours. Keeping more of our earned income vs. giving up more of our earned income so you can determine how it’s allocated? Obviously the money should pass through the hands of you state reps! And, please, while you’re at it, make sure to set up an agency that can not only administer the new payroll tax, but also harangue companies about their obligation to pay it, and to inform workers about their right to paid family leave. I don’t think a costly print, radio, and TV ad campaigns would be out of place. Also, don’t fortget to add the paid family leave to those colorful sheets employers have put on their workplace walls.
What a glorious opportunity for you guys to give cushy jobs to friends and family! While this may not reduce migration out of state (and did I mention that Massachusetts is the only state whose net migration fell over the past five years compared to the 1990’s? Well, yes I did) but it sure should make it easier for your buddies to make a good living here.
And for them to be able to make a good living, you sure as heck can roll back the state income tax, can you?
Business and labor are pondering what positions they should take on this issue, but the brainiacs in American Academia have made up their minds:
”People are already paying a high cost to take leaves,” said Randy Albelda, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. ”Individuals are paying a particularly high cost over a short period of time. What this does is spread the cost over everyone, now and over time.”
Ah, yes, what would parents do about the “particularly high cost over a short period of time” that child birth brings with it? Besides plan for it, I mean? And what’s up with this credit card mentality? Get it now, pay for it for the rest of your working life! Perhaps Mr. Albelda personally endorses those credit card solicitations that freshmen students are innundated with? “Get your iPod and other cool shit now, pay for it in 144 easy payments! It’s all about Net Present Value, yo, and what you presently value is tunes on the ‘Net, ‘aight! -Cool Cat Albelda.”
Ann Bookman, executive director of the MIT Workplace Center, predicted the plan could help stem the exodus of workers out of state. ”People see this as something for working families,” she said. ”But it will help employers. It will create a more stable and more engaged workforce. Workers won’t have to worry they’ll lose their jobs if they exercise their right to leave. This will send a message — we want Massachusetts to be a model for workers at different income levels.
”Families are in a lot of difficulty right now. A lot of workplaces aren’t set up to accommodate the dual pressures people are feeling: They have to hang on to their jobs but have to care for their families. This new initiative will resolve that,” she said.
I’m going to stick my neck out here and suggest that what would do more, way more, to stem the exodus of workers would be to roll back the state income tax to 5%, as voters demanded in a referendum a few years ago. While generous and clever compensation indeed can create a more stable and engaged workforce, there are a couple of caveats here.
Remember DEC? Did you ever hear anybody who ever worked there complain about instability or lack of compensation?
The other problem is that a perk that is available to everyone everywhere isn’t really a perk but an entitlement. An entitlement creates engagement for nothing more than the entitlement itself.
Like Governor Mitt Romney and the Democrat legislators did with their health care plan, the senate big-wigs are setting up a vote-buying scheme. It should be rejected, at least until the state income tax has been rolled back to 5%.
