Last November, Colorado voters made history when we overwhelmingly approved Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML) at the ballot. As a life-long fiscal conservative and small-business owner, I was concerned about the potential impact on my business and my employees. However, through my participation as a member of the 2019-2020 Colorado Family and Medical Insurance Task Force, I have learned what is real about PFML, and I support it.

First, let me say that as I’ve grown older, I am less interested in the eternal debate between liberals and conservatives about big government vs small government; what I’m interested is smart government. That means a government that knows to step back when the free market is working and knows to step forward when free market fails to do public good. In this sense, providing a safety net from homelessness and financial ruin for low-wage workers to care for themselves or their loved ones during family or medical leave is a public good that the free market has failed to provide. Fact is over 80% of Colorado workers do not have PFML; that number is certainly even higher amongst low-wage workers who need it the most. This means many low-wage workers are faced with the very real and difficult decision between going to work to pay rent or staying home to care for their loved ones.

During my time on the task force that was represented by labor, small business, big business, liberals, conservatives, and economists, we commissioned several non-partisan studies and an actuarial study. In addition, we had vigorous debates about practically every aspect of PFML. In the end, the task force made recommendations that formed the basis for Prop 118. In fact, the 12-week maximum benefit is the middle of the range between eight weeks that businesses supported to 16 weeks that labor wanted. For opponents to suggest PFML is the work of liberals is simply not true. We were all at the table and voters have spoken that Colorado will join the eight other states (Interestingly, five of those states have the highest GDPs per capita in the U.S.) as well as nearly all countries with advanced economies to provide PFML.

As I read continuing criticisms of PFML, I am reminded of funny sayings like this train has left the station, the bus has left the terminal, the horse has left the barn, the moose is loose, and so on. Further, I am disturbed by the perverse logic of concerns by the opposition. To me, many of these concerns are disingenuous at best. One such concern is the negative impact on small businesses. In the decades that I have been a small-business owner, opponents have never offered any reasonable solution to help me provide affordable PFML for my employees. Now that PFML is real, I will be able to provide this benefit to my employees at a very reasonable cost. How reasonable, one might ask? For my business, it will cost less than 15 cents per $100 of revenue; we spend that much on paper. With it, I will have a more level playing field to recruit and retain quality workers against large corporations that provides this benefit at scale. For small businesses with less than 10 employees, it will cost nothing.

Another disingenuous concern by the opposition is for the low-wage workers. What is real for low-wage workers is it will cost 45 cents per $100 of income. For putting less than 2 quarters into the parking meters for a day’s works, PFML will protect low-wage workers from financial devastation. This was a cost that labor groups themselves said they support.

Since the pandemic crisis, the opposition has used “not the right time” as another reason to against PFML. Fact is PFML will not be implemented until 2024. Fact is, if PFML were in place during this crisis, it would have helped many workers and their loved ones impacted by COVID-19. I don’t believe there was ever going be a right time for the opposition to support PFML. If there were, the opposition would have done so back in 2018-2019 when Colorado’s economy was thriving and ranked as one of the best in the nation.

Instead of the tired Chicken Little, sky-is-falling rhetoric, I urge my fellow conservatives to step forward and work toward real improvement to PFML such as reasonable key-employee exemption so it’s a win-win for low-wage workers and small businesses. Let’s keep it real.

Edwin Zoe is the owner of Zoe Ma Ma and Chimera Ramen restaurants in Boulder and Denver. He is a founding board member of Good Business Colorado and a member of the Colorado Paid Family and Medical Leave task force in 2019-2020.