Federal Employees Get $1,400 Per Week – If Kids Not Full-Time in School

 Call it a personal bailout for bureaucrats.

The “American Rescue Plan Act of 2021” – a $1.9 trillion emergency aid package to help America recover from the coronavirus pandemic has an extra perk for federal workers: Enhanced paid time off if your child is enrolled in a school that isn’t back to full-time, in-classroom instruction.

The new perk is funded through a new $570 million family leave account exclusively for federal workers.

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 is 15 weeks for a 40-hour employee. Part-time and “seasonal” employees are eligible, too, with equivalent hours established by their agency.

In 78 large agencies, the average federal worker already made $100,000+ in cash compensation and received 43 days of paid-time-off (PTO). Our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com estimate that existing PTO perk costs the American taxpayer $20 billion every year.While millions of parents struggle to work from home with kids who are enrolled in shuttered or partially-shuttered schools, and while 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.

Here is how a federal employee “caring for a son or daughter” qualifies for the paid leave, specifically:

“if the school or place of care of the son or daughter has been closed, if the school of such son or daughter requires or makes optional a virtual learning instruction model or requires or makes optional a hybrid of in-person and virtual learning instruction models, or the childcare provider of such son or daughter is unavailable, due to Covid-19 precautions...”

The American Rescue Act provided regular Americans – individuals – a one-time $1,400 payment. Federal workers with kids not in school full-time can now receive $1,400 per week – for 15 weeks – up to $21,000!

How is that fair to the hardworking taxpayer?

https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2021/03/08/federal_employees_get_1400_per_week__if_kids_not_full-time_in_school_766557.html