“Tim Walz” by Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0

In a move that’s sure to infuriate hardworking American taxpayers, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s radical socialist agenda has kicked into high gear today with the rollout of his so-called “Paid Family and Medical Leave” program.

Under the new law signed by Walz, employees in Minnesota will be eligible for up to 12 weeks of medical leave and 12 weeks of family leave — up to 20 weeks total per year — with partial wage replacement paid out of a state-mandated payroll tax on employers and employees.

But the detail sparking the most outrage isn’t just the length of the leave—it’s who is eligible to collect the check.

If a worker meets the minimum earning threshold of approximately $3,900 in the past year and has paid into the system through payroll taxes, they are eligible to apply for state-funded wage replacement.

No Social Security number? No problem! No proof of citizenship? Who cares!  Walz and his leftist cronies have made sure that anyone, including those who snuck across our southern border, can now access taxpayer-backed paid leave benefits to bond with a new child or recover from an illness for nearly five months of the year.

How It Works

The Tax: The program is funded by a new 0.88% payroll tax, split between employers and employees.

The Benefit: Workers can take up to 12 weeks for serious medical conditions and 12 weeks for family leave (bonding, caring for a sick relative, etc.), capped at a combined 20 weeks per year.

The Payout: Benefits function on a progressive scale, with lower-income workers receiving up to 90% of their weekly wages.

Walz’s rollout comes amid severe criticism of his administration’s oversight of public benefits.

Minnesota was recently thrust into the national spotlight after federal prosecutors exposed over $8 billion in welfare and aid fraud tied to multiple schemes — including cases involving Somali-linked entities — under Walz’s watch.

The fraud centered on a non-profit called Feeding Our Future, which sponsored hundreds of meal sites that claimed to be feeding thousands of children a day during the COVID-19 pandemic. In reality, most of these meals were never served.

Federal authorities have recently surged resources into Minnesota to investigate allegations of similar fraud schemes involving Medicaid, autism services, and daycare centers, again involving networks within the Somali community.

Minnesota’s paid leave scam is just the latest in a long line of Democrat disasters.

Jim Hᴏft Jim Hᴏft is the founder and editor of The Gateway Pundit, one of the top conservative news outlets in America. Jim was awarded the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award in 2013 and is the proud recipient of the Breitbart Award for Excellence in Online Journalism from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation in May 2016.

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