LISTEN: Minnesota Senator Rob Kupec joins KDLM Hodge Podge to discuss Paid Medical Leave Insurance bill

Detroit Lakes, MN (KDLM) – It will be a big week for the Minnesota legislature with a number of new law being signed this week. One of the big bills being discussed on the floor right now is the Paid Medical Leave act.

DFL Senator Rob Kupec (District 4B) was on KDLM Hodge Podge on Monday morning to talk about the bill.

“In case you’re not familiar with what Paid Family Medical Leave is, it’s basically like an insurance policy,” Kupec told KDLM listeners. “What would happen is that if somebody has to miss work due to a medical emergency, or the birth of a child, or they have to take care of an elderly family member they will pay in with a payroll deduction and do a 50/50 split with the employee and the employer. That will then go into a fund. If the employee needs to take time off for one of those reasons, they will get their wages out of this insurance fund.”

Kupec adds that the United States is one of only a handful of countries in the world that does not have any kind of paid medical leave. Only 12 other states in the US have adopted policies concerning paid medical leave.

“It’s something works have been looking for. And we believe it’s a way to pull some of those workers back into the workforce. We’ve seen a lot of people who have been reluctant to come back after realizing that they would like to have some of the securities offered here. What if something happens? What if I have a child?”

Kupec adds that paid family and medical leave laws help level the playing field between small
businesses and large corporations, allowing small businesses to compete on more
equal footing.

“This is a very affordable way for small businesses to offer a benefit that a lot of larger companies have the luxury of offering,” adds Kupec. “So it enables smaller businesses to compete with the bigger businesses to compete for workers at a time when things are pretty tight.”

More than 1.2 million people – 47.8% of Minnesota’s workforce – work in small businesses. But many small businesses generally lack the capital and the scale to provide earned benefits like paid family and medical leave, even when business owners want to provide those benefits.
Only 17 percent of the U.S. workforce have access to paid family leave through an employer, and less than 40 percent have access to personal medical leave. Among working mothers, only about half are able to take any kind of paid leave – including sick or vacation time – when their children are born. And, most strikingly, more than 40 percent of bankruptcies in the U.S. are a result of lost income when the employee or a family member falls ill.