Biden is not reducing paternity leave; his administration cut short paternity leave of appointees of Trump as he is under no obligation to grant it
Federal employees belonging to a particular administration usually leave when that administration ends, but these employees claimed that they were told the new administration would honor their paternal leave, which it did not.
While the Biden administration is under no legal obligation to follow through, Insider reported that experts feel if Biden had honored the leave, it would have set a good precedent. The insider further noted that "paid family leave for federal employees went into effect only last October, so there is no precedent for presidents honoring paid family leave for a previous administration's political appointees". Although, when the law was passed in December 2019, Biden tweeted that it was "about time that federal workers get paid parental leave" to "address their own health needs or care for any of their loved ones." Biden's coronavirus relief proposal includes paid leave and childcare subsidies.
The Biden White House has not commented on this yet, but an anonymous official told Politico that there had not been enough time to consider these requests because the Trump administration had put off the transition until the last minute. The official further told them, “Because these requests were received so close to Inauguration Day … there was no way to implement an exception to the rule in a way that is fair to all outgoing appointees, including many who resigned as expected without making requests for extraordinary benefits.”
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