Steve Hilton proposes paid family leave expansion funded by 10% workforce cut

Ben Paviour, The Sacramento Bee on Sep 4, 2026

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Republican gubernatorial hopeful Steve Hilton announced a plan this week to expand California’s Paid Family Leave program from 8 to 12 weeks. The former Fox News host said he’d pay for the plan by cutting $1 billion a year from state spending as part of a broader plan that calls for eliminating high speed rail funding and cutting the state workforce by 10%.

Trailing Democrat Xavier Becerra by double digits in a UC Berkeley poll last month, Hilton is aiming to broaden his pool of support in blue-tinted California. In an interview, the British-born former tech CEO said the plan was aimed at working families who could otherwise not afford to take the extra time off.

“The aspiration would be that we’re the best place to start and raise a family,” Hilton said in an interview.

California implemented the country’s first Paid Family Leave Program in 2004 with six weeks of leave to take care of an ill family member or a new child. Outgoing Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law in 2019 expanding the program to eight weeks and another in 2022 increasing the benefits to between 70% and 90% of a worker’s salary.

While the plan is funded through an employee payroll tax, Hilton’s plan calls for the final four weeks to be funded by the state’s general fund at an estimated cost of $1 billion a year.

Hilton said the sources of that revenue are broad and come from his overall plan to cut at least $25 billion from a budget that has grown by around $100 billion since the COVID-19 pandemic. The state’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office says growth in schools, community colleges and Medi-Cal has been a major driver of spending. Hilton’s so-called Operation Zero Waste calls for the immediate cancellation of the California high speed rail project, a 10% reduction in state workforce, and 5% cuts to state agency spending. Those savings would largely go toward Hilton’s more expensive plans, including ending taxes on the first $150,000 of income.

Hilton defended the cuts as “relatively mild” against the backdrop of the larger budget.

“We’ve got way too much bureaucracy,” he said. “And so I think the 10% headcount reduction is actually pretty modest.”

If Hilton defies the odds this November, his ideas are all but certain to get a frosty reception in what’s likely to be a Democratic supermajority in the Legislature.

Jonathan Underland, a spokesperson for Becerra, panned the plan.

“Paid family leave is one of California’s proudest achievements, and every worker deserves it, but Steve is making billion-dollar promises with no funding plan,” Underland said. “In government, the math has to work. Perhaps cable news is a better fit for him after all.”

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