House Bill 18-1001 was introduced during the 2018 Colorado legislative session and the bill attempts to establish a paid family and medical leave program that would cover all employees working in the state. The program’s cornerstone is a state-run family and medical leave insurance fund that would be financed by an employee-side payroll tax designed to dispense family and medical leave benefits to eligible individuals. This report that was conducted by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) quantifies the economic impact that implementation of the proposed paid leave program would have on the Colorado economy over a ten-year study period (2020-2029). Researchers used the REMI PI+ model to identify how an employee-side payroll tax could generate nearly 23,000 lost jobs, a reduction of $3.7 billion in personal income, a cumulative loss of $19.3 billion in real state gross domestic product, and the out-migration of over 20,000 citizens from Colorado.
