A provision buried in the COVID-19 relief bill has been criticized as “a personal bailout for bureaucrats” for carving out enhanced paid time off for federal employees, a boost not offered to non-federal employees.
A provision in the “American Rescue Plan Act of 2021,” which passed the House on Saturday, enables a new Treasury Department fund called the “Emergency Federal Employee Leave Fund” to pay federal employees up to $1,400 a week for 15 weeks as paid time off if they have any kids who are not enrolled in full-time, in-classroom instruction as their school. Forbes reported:
Under the bill as currently drafted, full-time federal employees can take up to 600 hours in paid leave until September 30, up to $35 an hour and $1,400 a week. That’s 15 weeks for a 40-hour employee. Part-time and “seasonal” employees are eligible, too, with equivalent hours established by their agency.
“Critics call it a personal bailout for bureaucrats,” said Adam Andrzejewski, writing at Forbes. “It is funded through a new $570 million family leave account exclusively for federal workers.”
“While millions of parents struggle to work from home with kids who are enrolled in shuttered or partially shuttered schools, and millions more left the workforce or lost jobs to care for their at-home children, evidently parents in the federal bureaucracy need their own, personal Covid-19 bailout,” he blasted. – READ MORE
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