San Francisco’s decade-old family leave law is about to graduate from Huggies to pull-ups.

Under a proposal from Supervisor Danny Sauter, the eligibility requirement for the city’s first-in-the-nation fully paid parental leave (opens in new tab) ordinance may soon be halved, with workers having to work 90 days in a new job, instead of 180, to qualify.

Sauter said the birth of his first child in March 2025 put the late nights and financial burdens of San Francisco parents top of mind.

“That certainly was a life-changing moment,” Sauter said. There are “things we can work on to make it more welcoming to raise a young family in San Francisco.”

Sauter plans to introduce the legislation at Tuesday’s regular meeting of the Board of Supervisors. Though the business community likely won’t be happy with another requirement chipping away at the bottom line, the measure has board support, with Supervisors Shamann Walton, Bilal Mahmood, Myrna Melgar, Chyanne Chen, and Stephen Sherrill signed on as co-sponsors.

The rule is part of a suite of family-friendly efforts Sauter has dubbed “The STROLLER Act” — Supporting Tomorrow’s Resident with Opportunity, Livability, Learning, Education & Resources. The act aims to expand access to diaper-changing tables in buildings, better support nursing parents in the workplace, and make transit easier to ride with a stroller, among other efforts.

California pays roughly half a worker’s salary during state-mandated leave, but San Francisco’s parental leave expansion, authored in 2016 by then-supervisor Scott Wiener, required employers to foot the bill for the other half. 

It was hailed (opens in new tab) for setting a benchmark supporting parents in U.S. cities, but it came with a major compromise — requiring workers to wait half a year to qualify for the leave, a concession that forced them to make hard choices between seeking a new job and planning a family.

“It was a huge, huge fight with the business community,” Wiener recalled, saying it was unclear whether the legislation would pass. 

Wiener called Sauter’s effort to expand access to more workers “exciting. When we talk about the cost-of-living crisis and the extreme financial pressure on working families, lack of paid family leave is one of the core problems.”

David Harrison, director of public policy with the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, said the group did not have an official position on Sauter’s proposed expansion. In general, he said, it’s a sensitive time for businesses as the city’s economy recovers.

“It’s not fair to say this alone, or any one policy alone, drives business out or hurts San Francisco’s reputation,” Harrison said. “It’s a collective understanding of all of our policies and costs.”

A 2020 study (opens in new tab) authored by a Portland State University public health professor found an uptick in fathers taking parental leave after the San Francisco program’s expansion and found that low-income workers were the least likely to do so. Sauter believes his proposal makes it easier for low-wage workers in high-turnover industries to benefit from the paid leave ordinance.

“A decade later, I feel like we can go a bit further,” he said.