Pittsburgh Extends Mandatory COVID-19 Paid Sick Leave

On July 29, 2021, Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto signed a COVID-19 paid sick leave ordinance granting emergency paid sick leave for certain employees for COVID-19–related reasons. The ordinance will remain in effect for one year and will expire on July 29, 2022.

The new ordinance closely resembles the city's December 8, 2020, temporary emergency paid leave ordinance, which expired on June 17, 2021, and supplements Pittsburgh's Paid Sick Days Act. Its preamble calls attention to an increase in Delta variant cases in Allegheny County, the resumption of physical attendance at Pittsburgh public schools, and the risk to vulnerable groups, such as the elderly and terminally ill, of contracting the Delta variant or other potential variants of COVID-19. The new ordinance primarily acts as a temporal extension of the December 2020 ordinance, and it does not impose additional sick time requirements beyond the formula set forth in that ordinance.