A federal mandate requiring employers to offer paid leave would erase 3,356 jobs across Kentucky this year alone and shrink the state’s economic output by about $500,000, according to new research released today by the National Federation of Independent Business.

The report says that by 2025, the total number of jobs lost in the state as a result of the mandate would be 6,312, while the cumulative drop in the state’s economic output will reach $1 billion.

“Requiring employers to offer paid leave sounds good to a lot of people right now, but these numbers reflect the cold, hard truth: it would cost a lot of money and a lot of jobs that we can’t afford to lose,” said Tom Underwood, state director of NFIB/Kentucky, the commonwealth’s leading small-business association. “This kind of one-size-fits-all approach simply doesn’t work. It might not matter much to a multinational conglomerate, but it could help put the flower shop down the street out of business.”

President Obama has made mandatory paid leave a central part of his domestic agenda. Last year during his State of the Union Address and again on Tuesday, he called on Congress to pass the mandate. Organized labor has also made it one of their top political priorities, and it will very likely have a prominent place in this year’s elections.

“It’s easy for politicians to spend other people’s money, but what a lot of people seem to forget is that there are a lot of small businesses out there that don’t make a dime if their employees aren’t there to serve customers,” Underwood said.

NFIB analyzed the Healthy Families Act (HR 932) which would require firms with 15 or more employees to grant 56 hours of paid leave every year. The measure would include part-time as well as full-time time workers. According to the research, mandatory paid leave would impose three major costs on employers: the direct expense of paying wages to absent workers; lost productivity resulting from workers not working; and increased costs for reporting and recordkeeping required by the new mandate.

The combination of all three will raise the cost of labor and reduce productivity. The smallest firms will be hit hardest, accounting for 58 percent of the job losses. Some industries will suffer more than others, with construction and retail shedding the most jobs.

“Anytime there’s a proposal to mandate a new benefit, there has to be a discussion of cost, because in the real world everything has a price tag,” Underwood said. “It’s about whether every business, and especially small businesses, can absorb the cost and whether we’d do more harm than good by treating small businesses the same as big corporations.”

NFIB/Kentucky is the state’s leading small-business association, with 4,000 dues-paying members representing a cross section of the state’s economy. To learn more, visit www.NFIB.com/KY or follow @NFIB_KY on Twitter.