Pennsylvania bill shields workers who care for sick family members

The bill defines “family caregiver status” as a person who provides medical or supervisory care to someone related by blood, legal custody, or marriage. That is deliberately broad. It would cover an employee looking after an aging mother, a worker managing a child’s medical appointments, or someone caring for a spouse after surgery. Any employment decision made on those grounds – from termination to a passed-over promotion – would be a violation. 

Marital status gets the same treatment. Whether someone is single, married, divorced, separated, or widowed could no longer factor into hiring, pay, job conditions, or dismissal. 

The bill also reaches into how employers recruit and screen candidates. Before making a job offer, employers would be barred from asking about an applicant’s marital or caregiver status. Job ads that express a preference or limitation on either ground would be unlawful. And employers could not steer their recruitment through referral sources that predominantly serve people of the same marital or caregiver status, if the purpose is to get around the law. 

Those are practical changes that would hit application forms, interview scripts, and job postings directly. 

The Pennsylvania Human Relations Act, originally enacted in 1955, already prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religious creed, ancestry, age, sex, national origin, familial status, handicap, and disability. House Bill 2871 would add marital status and family caregiver status alongside those existing classes in every relevant section of the Act – employment, housing, public accommodation, and real estate.