Sara Innamorato (D), Allegheny County’s county executive, was a proud member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) when she defeated an old-guard Democrat to take her seat in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 2018. This marked her entry into public life.
Apparently, realizing that being seen as an unofficial socialist is more convenient than being an official socialist, she switched over to the Democrat Party in advance of her run for the top political office in her region, a race that she won. The office she now holds entails oversight of a county that encompasses the greater Pittsburgh area.
For reference, Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) calls Braddock, Pa., home, which is well within the confines of Innamorato’s jurisdiction — a county that is now moving rapidly to the far left as it considers implementing such an unprecedented parental leave law that it’s not hyperbole to call it socialist. There is not another policy like it in the country. If enacted, the policy is a business killer, a small business annihilator, an economy buster, and leftist fascism on parade. Also, if enacted, this policy will be a model for socialist politicians across the country.
On May 13, the Allegheny County Health Department proposed an amendment to Article XXIV of its Paid Sick and Parental Leave, “to expand paid sick time and include paid parental leave for employees across Allegheny County,” according to a statement from the county, which not surprisingly buries the real news.
The proposal calls for employers within the county to provide no less than 18 weeks (4.5 months) of paid parental leave for the care of a new child. Compensation must include the same base rate of pay with the same benefits, and the benefit must be provided to both designated parents when a child is born.
Qualifying employees must meet the criteria for in loco parentis, a legal term that means someone who assumes the legal rights, duties, and responsibilities of a parent. This could include the child’s biological mother, father, stepparent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, someone the employee is married to, an unmarried partner, a sibling, or “any individual for whom the employee has received permission from the employer to care for at the time of the employee’s request to make use of paid sick time.”
In other words, if you know someone who’s pregnant, and you want your employer to give you 4.5 months of paid parental leave time, just get the “birthing parent” (also known as the mother) to designate you as someone in this child’s life who has certain parental rights and responsibilities for this child.
This seems pretty airtight to me. I can’t see how anyone would be able to abuse a system like this one.
To repeat, you don’t have to be the biological mother, and whether you are one or not, if you can fill out some paperwork that designates you as having parental responsibility, your employer will be obligated by law to pay you for 4.5 months, with benefits, to not show up for work because you were said to be caring for a child that may or may not be yours.
It seems that no other local government entity in the country has enacted such a punishing mandate on employers.
Imagine you run a small business where you pay 6 people a salary of $50,000 per year. Three of those people file for parental leave in a given year. As their employer, you would not only have to find someone to do their jobs while they’re out for 4.5 months, but you would also have to pay the substitutes their compensation, while forking out another $56,250 to cover the unpaid leave — and that does not even include the benefits costs.
This would force the employer, if it’s a business, to jack up its prices to cover its rising costs. It could force the employer to conduct layoffs because it couldn’t afford this workforce. And if the employer is not a business, it would have to find a way to get the money for the added cost burden from somewhere. Otherwise, it would be forced to shut down and lay people off.
Unofficially, it would then make women of childbearing years, and their partners, unattractive job candidates. I saw one comment on social media that said sarcastically, “Well, that solves the age discrimination problem in Allegheny County.”
Concerns raised over proposed Allegheny County-wide parental leave policy | Click on the image to read the full story https://t.co/HuQpSBepTa
— WTAE-TV Pittsburgh (@WTAE) May 16, 2026
In the news release put out by Allegheny County, it pretends as though this is simply an issue of allowing a parent to bond with and care for a child, and a way to compensate for the lack of certain social services for parents of new children. It presumes that it’s the employer’s job to handle all of this without once mentioning the serious impact this can and will have on the survival rate of county employers, the local employment rates, the local economy, and the massive potential for abuse, waste, and fraud.
The county wants you to read the good parts and ignore the serious flaws and consequences associated with such a policy.
“Health officials also emphasized that the proposal advances health equity by expanding access to paid leave for workers who are least likely to currently receive it, including many low-wage workers and workers of color,” the county’s statement said, making sure you know not to forget equity.
How they came up with 4.5 months is not sufficiently clear, and when you apply that to the “non-birthing parent” (also known as the father), why does he need 4.5 months to recover from childbirth? Seriously, why?
The whole proposal, which was passed unanimously by the county’s Board of Health now moves into a 30-day public comment period, which, given the way this county operates, is pro forma. The socialist power play is a done deal unless something serious happens to blow the left’s cover on this one.
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports that the region’s major employers don’t offer anything close to what the county wants to mandate. The UPMC health system “provides up to two weeks of leave for eligible employees. At Carnegie Mellon University, new parents can get up to six weeks off, while the University of Pittsburgh offers four weeks. At the higher end, BNY and Duolingo give 16 weeks. Many small and midsize businesses provide no parental leave at all.”
Business resistance forming to Allegheny County’s paid parental leave proposal
Via @jacktroywrites https://t.co/rWOQ0mKA4C
— Rob Amen (@RobAmenTrib) May 15, 2026
While it is a fact that many small and midsize businesses don’t provide parental leave, it must be stated again that it’s because they can’t. They can’t afford to provide such an obscenely lavish benefit and still remain in business.
The Democrats don’t care how employers, especially small businesses, are affected by this latest experiment in socialism where the government takes greater control over the means of production. Like all such experiments, it will fail, but the people who will pay the price will not be Innamorato and her comrades in the health department and other parts of the government. It will be both employers and employees. It will be the neighborhoods that will see more boarded-up and vacant storefronts and buildings. It will be local municipalities that will lose related tax revenue. There will be an exodus of businesses that are able to move out of the county.
If this new policy becomes law, it’s not a matter of “if” or even “when.” The worst consequences of such a socialist power grab will reveal themselves sooner rather than later.
I mentioned Fetterman up front, but it’s not to mislead you into thinking he had anything to do with this. Rather, it’s a reminder that as one of two senators from Pennsylvania, he has a local constituency. His backyard is ground zero for this latest socialist power play. If ever he had a reason to weigh in on an issue of local, and likely national, importance, this is that.
Where do you stand on this, John? You’ve been the voice of reason on certain matters of national and international affairs lately. Will you be the voice of reason on this, or will you parrot the DSA narrative that’s taken hold in the county you call home?
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