In Minnesota, more than 500,000 small businesses operate and hire nearly half of the state’s total workforce. As employers, we want to offer robust benefits like paid and family leave because it helps us compete with larger businesses for talent. But this benefit carries a high cost that we simply can’t afford on our own.
Workforce shortages are preventing many of us from operating at full capacity, which is why we need support from state legislators like you to help level the playing field. One way to boost the Minnesota small business community is by creating a state-administered paid family and medical leave program. HF2, if enacted, would provide up to 12 weeks of medical leave and 12 weeks of family leave with partial wage replacement. Through a grant program, this bill will help offset the costs of hiring replacement workers or paying overtime when a worker goes on leave. What’s more, HF2 sets a fair and sensible initial premium rate of 0.7% of wages, and these premiums can be split between the employer and employees, using the current budget surplus to prefund the program. It would, in turn, level the playing field for small businesses like mine by enabling us to compete on more equal footing with larger businesses that typically have the resources to offer robust benefits like paid family and medical leave.
What’s more, the small business community strongly supports these types of programs. A Small Business Majority survey found a vast 73% of small business owners support key investments in paid family and medical leave, which will help them in retaining and supporting their workforce.
We encourage Minnesota legislators to consider the benefits of establishing a state paid family and medical leave program. Doing so will help small business owners like me to compete fairly in this changing marketplace.
Sign our letter to state legislators to urge them to pass this proposal.
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