Democrat Gubernatorial Candidate Molly Kelly and her fellow Democrats running for office are touting Family Medical Leave as one of the most important issues in the upcoming election. What they don’t tell Granite Staters is that the legislation already exists and it is a TAX on income for employees and employers.
Democrats won’t tell the truth about their Family Medical Leave plans because they know most people don’t want more taxes shoved down their throats.
What is the Family Medical Leave Legislation?
It already exists as House Bill 628 (HB 628), AN ACT relative to a family and medical leave insurance program. This legislation establishes a state fun Family Medical Leave Insurance (FMLI) program.
The FMLI will add a tax at rate of .5% of an employee’s total wages per week. An amendment in the legislation changed the tax to .67%. Employers are mandated to be in the program unless they can prove they have acceptable FMLI that they are already providing as a benefit. Employers can also take that .67% out of employee pay checks every week to cover the costs. In other words, this is another new tax on Granite Staters.
Employees can opt out of the program, although not very easily; however, even if an employee opts out, their employer still has to pay this new tax on every single employee and their wages. Even if all employees in a private company decide to opt out because they don’t want to pay this extra tax, employers are still mandated to pay into a program their employees want no part of.
Only Applies to Private Business
This program does not apply to government employees, only to private businesses:
This chapter applies to all nongovernmental employers, provided that any employer participating in a self-insured plan or who is self-insured may opt out of this chapter upon certification by the commissioner or authorized representative that the employer provides an equivalent benefit for its employees.
Granite State businesses who have to pay this tax will be now paying the salaries of government employees whose employer (the state) is not mandated to pay it. The irony.
Even if an employer already has FMLI they provide to their employees as a benefit, they will be able to drop it and now have their employees pay for this mandated benefit from the government. Of course, most employees will never use the program so all the money they pay into it just goes to pay administrative fees and pay for others who end up using the program.
Government Mandating Benefits
The entire country is already experiencing the disaster known as Obamacare. Part of that law was to mandate employers with a certain number of employees provide health insurance. As a result, health insurance costs sky rocketed for both employers and employees.
The FMLI legislation in New Hampshire doesn’t have a limit on number of employees. If a business has only one employee, they are mandated to pay this tax, whether the employee wants it or not.
Employers offer benefits in order to be competitive in their employee search. Many employers already offer FMLI to employees. If this is a benefit a potential employee decides they need, they will seek out an employer who provides it.
The government shouldn’t be mandating what benefits an employer provides, especially when they aren’t even mandating it for their own selves!
This legislation is a tax on employees and employers. The legislators pushing Family Medical Leave Insurance didn’t call it that because they know people don’t like taxes but that’s exactly what Granite Staters will get if they elect Democrats.