Paid leave makes Kansas businesses competitive
As more and more states adopt their own paid leave laws, including some of Kansas’ neighbors, Kansas must step up to keep our businesses from being left behind. Paid leave is a policy that will make Kansas’ economy more competitive, its companies more profitable, and its employees more productive.
Paid leave is pro-business
Increases productivity, leading to an average increase of 6.8% in profits while reducing cost of recruitment and retention.
Paid leave could save employers money
Offers the familiar advantages of short-term disability policies–at no or limited cost to employers.
Paid leave gives employers new resources to keep their business flourishing during employee leaves.
Because the paid leave program—rather than the employer entirely out of pocket—pays employee benefits during leaves, employers save that money they otherwise would have used to pay the leave-taking employee’s wages. Thus, employers can offset the impact of an employee’s leave by paying overtime, adding extra hours for existing employees, or hiring temporary help.
Paid leave increases labor participation
Access to paid leave would drastically increase the labor participation rate of women in Kansas, resulting in an estimated 18,000 additional workers in the state and $582 million more wages.1
Paid leave is easy for businesses to implement
Employers report adapting easily to new state paid leave laws while enjoying the advantages detailed above. The New Jersey Business and Industry Association found that “[r]egardless of business size, based on survey results, New Jersey businesses have had little trouble adjusting to requirements of the Paid Family Leave law.”2 In California, the vast majority of employers reported no negative effects from the state’s paid family leave law; small businesses were even less likely to report negative effects.3
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2022). Local Area Unemployment Statistics, Expanded State Employment Status Demographic Data (2021 Annual Averages). Retrieved 13 December 2022, from bls.gov/lau/ex14tables.htm; U.S. Census Bureau. (2022). American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates, 2021 (Table B20017). Retrieved 6 December 2022, from data.census.gov. For methodology, see Novello, A. (2021, July). The Cost of Inaction: How a Lack of Family Care ↩︎
- Miriam Ramirez, New Jersey Business and Industry Associaton, The Impact of Paid Family Leave On New Jersey Businesses(2012), bloustein.rutgers.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Ramirez.pdf. ↩︎
- Appelbaum and Milkman, supra note xxiixxii, p. 7-9 ↩︎