Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Joins the Over-40 Club for Paid Sick Leave

On June 12, 2025, Mayor Ed Gainey signed into law an amendment to the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania’s Paid Sick Days Act (PSDA) that changes the accrual requirements and amount of paid sick leave that must be provided under the Act.

Effective January 1, 2026, employers in Pittsburgh, regardless of size, must allow covered employees to accrue one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked in the city instead of 35 hours.  Further, employers with 15 or more employees must allow employees to accumulate (through accrual or frontloading), carry over (if accruing), and have access to up to 72 hours of paid sick leave each year – up from 40 hours – while employers with 14 or fewer employees must allow employees to accumulate (through accrual or frontloading), carry over (if accruing), and have access to up to 48 hours of paid sick leave each year – up from 24 hours.

Before this amendment, the paid sick leave laws in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County used the same accrual rate and permitted employees to accumulate and annually use the same amount of paid sick leave (under Pittsburgh’s “large” employer standard). Unless Allegheny County revises its law to match Pittsburgh’s, starting in 2026, employers in Pennsylvania may need to comply with three laws across the state different with different accrual rates and caps: (1) Pittsburgh; (2) Allegheny County; and (3) Philadelphia:

Given the forthcoming changes to the law, employers with employees who work in Pittsburgh should review their paid sick leave policies to ensure they remain compliant. The city is expected to issue an updated workplace poster about the law by the effective date of the law which employers will need to post.