(The Center Square) – Legislation to require private employers to offer paid sick leave insurance and to raise the minimum wage were each endorsed by a group of Democrats on Tuesday at the North Carolina General Assembly.
Sen. Sydney Batch, the minority party leader who succeeded longtime leader and fellow Wake County Democratic Sen. Dan Blue, introduced the North Carolina Paid Family Leave Insurance Act, also known as Senate Bill 480. It would require employers to offer insurance for paid sick leave, which would be financed through contributions from both the employer and the employee, similar to the federal Social Security program.
“There are so many families that are struggling just to make ends meet,” Batch said at a news conference in the Legislative Building on Jones Street in Raleigh. “They are living paycheck to paycheck, and they don’t have the ability to go ahead and take any leave”
She cited a woman who had a baby at 26 weeks and the baby was in the hospital for more than three months. The mother did not have paid leave.
“Every single day, she had to leave her child and then come back after hours,” Batch said. “In a society that is so well resources, it is outrageous that we do not provide paid leave for individuals.”
The legislation has a companion bill in the House of Representatives.
Thirteen other states offer similar insurance, according to the bill’s sponsors.
Another group of Democratic legislators held a separate news conference calling for an increase in the state’s minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, the same as the federal minimum wage. The state’s minimum wage has not been increased in 16 years, according to bill sponsors.
Several bills have been filed to raise North Carolina minimum wage to at least $15 an hour.
Thirty states currently have higher minimum wages than North Carolina, supporters of the bills said.
Under the Fair Minimum Wage Act – also known as House Bill 353 – sponsored by Rep. Marcia Morey, D-Durham, the state minimum wage would go up to $18 an hour by 2030. The average minimum wage worker would have to work 16 hours a day, seven days a week to make ends meet, she said.
“The average North Carolinian can’t survive off the minimum wage,” she said. “We have to protect our workers.”
However, critics of a higher minimum wage, such as the National Federation of Independent Businesses, say it is a job killer and particularly hurts small businesses.
“The NFIB Research Center estimates that raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour would result in more than 1.3 million jobs lost, 900,000 of the job losses (55%) would come from small businesses,” the organization said of nationwide jobs in January.
Mandatory paid family leave is also very unpopular with small business owners, according NFIB, with 94% of members saying in a recent poll that they opposed requiring 12 weeks a year in paid leave.
Both bills, while likely to be supported by Democratic Gov. Josh Stein, face an uphill climb. Republicans have majorities of 30-20 in the Senate and 71-49 in the House of Representatives.
