(The Center Square) — Fifty years ago, a woman left a baby behind a shopping mall in Braddock, Pa., after concealing the pregnancy for nine months and giving birth alone in her home.
Why? Her daughter, Sarah Murphy, gave the Allegheny County Board of Health a simple explanation.
“When I ask her why she made the decision she made that day, she basically told me she didn’t have any time off work,” she said.
A single parent, Murphy’s mother, Evelyn, worked as a nurse at UPMC Mercy Hospital. It was too early in her role, and taking time off to recover would cost too much money, she said.
Four decades would pass before Murphy was reunited with her sibling on a TLC show called “Long Lost Family.” Widespread access to paid family leave is still a work in progress.
“I feel like if my mother had the support that she needed, if she had paid parental leave, she might not have made that decision that day,” Murphy said.
For now, most employers in Allegheny County and across Pennsylvania don’t offer the benefit, but it’s not for a lack of support. Many simply can’t afford it. They say the board’s proposal to mandate 18 weeks of paid leave county-wide, while well-intentioned, is poorly thought out.
“It’s a tax but it feels scared to call itself a tax,” said Armin Samii, a business owner in the Friendship neighborhood of Pittsburgh. “It’s a tax on small business without a lot of the public benefits that we expect from a tax.”
Samii clarified that he supports the concept and even researched paid leave insurance plans for his business, but all require a minimum of five employees and cap benefits at 12 weeks.
He added that he would “begrudgingly” back the board’s plan, though he wished it mirrored a proposal pending in the state legislature, House Bill 906, that he said is “well thought out” for including a payroll tax, creating a new department to manage the program and giving small businesses an opt-out option.
“This bill feels like a first draft,” Samii said. “I hope that a second draft incorporates a lot of the great ideas in HB 906.”
For others, forcing businesses to cover the entire cost of the policy, which would be available after 30 days of employment and usable for up to one year after the birth or adoption of a child, is untenable.
“Unlike many large corporations, EMS cannot simply absorb these costs or leave positions vacant,” said Eric Schmidt, board chair of the Allegheny County EMS Chiefs Association. “If an ambulance is not staffed, it means we wait longer for emergency care.”
Schmidt said 32 ambulance services serve 130 communities in the county, and nearly all survive on a combination of insurance reimbursements, donations and fundraisers.
Decades of financial strain have led to roughly 100 EMS agencies shuttering. Schmidt says emergency workers acknowledge the importance of paid family leave but can’t offer it without compromising services.
“Our communities deserve both,” he said.
Healthcare is indeed big business in the region. The state’s largest health care network, UPMC, is based in Allegheny County. Last year, the system generated $643 million in excess revenue, benefited from property tax exemptions as a nonprofit, and collected millions in federal research grants.
But it’s also where pre-term births and low birth weights outpace the state average. Severe complications rose 55% between 2016 and 2022, most often for women using Medicaid or forgoing health insurance entirely.
It’s complicated by 20,000 unfilled nursing positions statewide, the highest rate in the country. Nationwide, healthcare providers are short by roughly 264,000.
Nurses with SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania believe paid family leave policies would ease the crisis. UPMC currently offers a two-week benefit, though the union says its not enough.
“I’ve been in the healthcare field for over two decades and am also a mother of three children, so I know firsthand how essential parental leave is for the health of parents and babies,” said Marchel Robinson, a nurse at Magee-Womens Hospital and SEIU member, in a statement released just before the board’s meeting on Tuesday.
“I’ve also witnessed how inadequate leave at Magee hurts the well-being and retention of my coworkers,” she said. “No mother should have to choose between her recovery and her livelihood, and no baby should suffer because of it.”
It’s unclear how the board will edit its proposal as it accepts public comments through June 16. Voting could come as soon as July.
