The City of Pittsburgh and the county in which it is located are fast becoming a major hub for the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). On October 20, Allegheny County became the first county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to adopt paid parental leave for employees.
The controversial policy forces employers to foot the bill for both parents of newborn babies to receive three months of paid time off. In Allegheny County, not only must employers pay the wages of non-working personnel for up to 12 weeks, but they must also pay for temporary, part-time, or full-time personnel to cover for employees on leave.
In other states that have such policies, they did not place the entire burden on the employer. In California, employees fund the policy 100% through employee payroll tax contributions, managed through the State Disability Insurance program. In Colorado, employers and employees split the funding 50/50. Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Minnesota have similar arrangements. In New Jersey, employees cover 100% of the funding through Family Leave Insurance. And in New York, the policy is 100% employee-funded through payroll deduction, along with insurance coverage that employers buy.
But in Pittsburgh, county leaders joyfully defied public outcry over the proposed totally employer-funded program, as they stuck it to large and small organizations, not just private industry.
Card-carrying members of the DSA infest county government, starting at the top with County Executive Sara Innamorato, who has an ally in Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.), a junior varsity member of “The Squad” in Congress.
Allegheny County set the standard and made history with the first county-level paid parental leave policy in the country. This victory reflects the power of organizing and advocacy. No parent should have to choose between a paycheck and caring for their newborn. Now it’s time to guarantee paid family and medical leave for every worker, in every county, in every state.
— Rep. Summer Lee (@RepSummerLee) October 21, 2026
While private industry tried to warn the extreme leftist politicians what they are about to do to the county, their concerns fell on deaf ears. What happens next is what happens in blue cities in counties across the country. Companies leave or close for business. They either find a more business-friendly county – and there are a few outside of Allegheny County – or they just shut down, putting people out of work completely.
That’s how the cycle starts. The downward spiral accelerates when the county has less and less tax revenue to cover operating expenses. This is a county that already has a $1.5 billion pension fund crisis under Team DSA’s watch. In spite of all that, the parental leave policy that gouges employers is only the beginning. DSA leaders in the county and city have a lot of other plans to more firmly put regional government under socialist control.
If you are a resident of Western Pennsylvania, a former resident, or just someone who follows the damage the DSA is doing to the country, mark this date down. This is the high-water mark on a chart some county leaders will use a year or two from now when they try to explain how local government found its way to the brink of bankruptcy. The one thing they will not do is take responsibility for spending money they don’t have, driving businesses out of the county, killing those businesses that remain, and killing thousands and thousands of tax-paying jobs. Instead, they will victim-blame the employers and find some way to blame it all on Republican policies at the federal level.
Against this backdrop, another commie on Pittsburgh City Council has introduced a new “Fair Share Tax,” which would impose a 2% tax on unearned income. In other words, council member Barb Warwick wants to tax capital gains, rent income, royalties, patents, trusts, and other sources, which are taxed by the state and the federal government but not the City of Pittsburgh.
According to WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh, the new tax “could generate $51 million annually by imposing a 2% tax on unearned income, according to a report from the Keystone Research Center, a nonpartisan economic policy think tank.”
Here’s the problem with those kinds of estimates. Keystone Research Center assumes that the tax base has no mobility and will not leave; instead, rich people will just buck up and pay the tax. That’s not human nature. That’s not how it works.
Pittsburgh is not a known haven for the ultra-wealthy, but it has its enclaves. Thanks to this tax, even the most liberal millionaires who live in the shadows of Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh, and who always vote blue, will bolt town. They’ll take what they can get for their houses, but the net result will be reduced tax revenue for the city, not increased tax revenue. Not to mention the beginning of a steady decline in property values in the portions of the city that government leaders count on as cash cows. When property values decline, that only exacerbates the tax revenue crisis the city will create for itself.
BREAKING: Democrat Pittsburgh City Council member Barb Warwick pushes new wealth tax on “high-income residents.” Socialist wealth redistribution policies have NO place in America https://t.co/wFNWR3c4Ew
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) October 27, 2026
One more wrinkle to this story involves Warwick’s past as a California transplant to Pittsburgh. Her bio touts her community activism in Pittsburgh since arriving to the city in 2014, which in Pittsburgh years is a minute ago. She’d have to live in this city for 30 years before a real Pittsburgher would consider her one of them.
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But that’s not the trend. Carpetbagger libs have been descending on this city from other blue cities that are more crime-ridden and less affordable. So they come to Pittsburgh and immediately set out to enact the same policies that contribute to higher crime, higher homelessness, deteriorating schools, and a higher cost of living, in the places they came from. Other than mentioning the fact that she was an “educator” in her past life, she’s not really talked much about her life before coming to Pittsburgh.
Keep this in mind as lefties evacuate blue states for red states and neighborhoods near you. They don’t change their stripes. They just bring the misery they created in their former states to their new homes.
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