San Francisco became the first U.S. city to mandate six weeks of fully paid parental leave. A City supervisor claimed that the new law is requiring employers to shoulder much of the cost and exceeding federal and state benefit rules for private-sector employees.
According to Reuters, the law, which was unanimously approved by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, grants six weeks of fully paid leave for fathers and mothers for companies with 20 or more employees. The law would nearly double the pay they are now eligible to collect under the California law.
"Our country's parental leave policies are woefully behind the rest of the world," Supervisor Scott Wiener mentioned in a statement. He added, "Today San Francisco has taken the lead in pushing for better family leave policies for our workers."
San Francisco already offers 12 weeks of fully paid parental leave. This has taken effect to approximately 30,000 city employees of the city.
But because of the newly approved law, better benefits for parents are being raised. This is a part of a series of campaigns across the U.S. aimed to combat the rising income inequality.
On Monday, California's governor already signed into a law a bill raising the state's minimum wage from $10 to $15 an hour by the year 2023. New York's governor also signed a bill allowing a 12-week paid family leave for private-sector workers that will phase in by 2021, CNBC reported.
Moreover, the National Conference of State Legislatures revealed that California and New Jersey provide up to six weeks of partial pay. Rhode Island also offers up to 4 weeks paid leave.
Yahoo! News noted that under the San Francisco guidelines, which will take effect in 2017, the employers must pay 45 percent of the wages for as long as six weeks. The remaining 55 percent of the weekly salary comes from a worker-funded state disability program.
The payments of the employees are then calculated as a percentage of wages up to an annual ceiling of $106,740. The advocates of the new law expressed that it will allow new parents to spend more time with their babies. But the opponents argued that it would hurt profits and cost jobs.
Meanwhile, some of the city's companies are starting to increase the family leave benefits to help recruit and retain their employees. The Federal law also provides up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for a newborn or adopted child of employees at companies with 50 or more workers.
