Senator Paul Utke
Wed, 01/07/2026 - 10:49am
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The biggest new legislation this year is easily Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML). This law has many horrible provisions. Minnesota taxpayers have already invested about $2.5 billion to get the law put in place. This creates a new agency with approximately 430 new employees. That is your money being spent to start up this ill-advised program. I call it ill-advised because it did not need to cost Minnesota taxpayers a single cent. If Minnesotans wanted PFML it could have been approved and sold through the private sector. All the legislature needed to do was pass legislation that would instruct the Department of Commerce to let PFML be sold in Minnesota by our current Life and Health Insurance agents. Yes, the same Insurance Agents that sell you short or long-term disability insurance plans could have sold the PFML coverage. Then businesses that wanted PFML could buy it and design it to fit their needs and desires.
The current government run PFML 12-to-20-week benefit is going to put major burdens on our local small businesses. Small seasonal businesses cannot operate with such a law. This type of employee benefit needed to be fully under the control of the employer.
The current cost of this benefit is paid by a payroll deduction of .88 percent. This amount starts out being paid one half by the employee and one half by the employer. The major problem is that the .88 percent will not come close to covering the cost of this program going forward. In the first few days of January over 12,000 employees applied for PFML benefits. Minnesotans better pay attention because this program is going to cost all taxpayers a lot more before this gets fully implemented. Again, this program will cost all taxpayers billions of dollars when it did not have to cost us a single cent! And you wonder where your $19 billion surplus went?