Connecticut recently passed a law guaranteeing paid family and medical leave for up to 12 weeks at full pay. Someone needs to explain why every employee who gets a paycheck will pay an additional tax for this benefit whether they use it or not, except for government or municipal employees who are exempt from the tax but will still receive the financial benefits of this law.

Someone should explain how a small business can survive when their employees could get up to 12 weeks leave, an average of two weeks paid vacation, 13 paid holidays and an average of two weeks sick time a year. In effect the employer is paying full wages for 52 weeks while an employee could be eligible to be paid almost 20 of those weeks for not working.

It places employers in a survival mode that prompts the inevitable decision to hire more part-time people who get fewer benefits and/or lay off as many full-time employees as their business can tolerate.

There should be federal common sense options available to accommodate people who fall on bad times without still another tax on the hard-working men and women of Connecticut.

Marshall Chiaraluce

Mystic