Why Paid Family Leave Is A HUGE Problem For America
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Date: 2019-11-01
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Comments and reviews: 9
Alison Rivera-Santiago
Now, Im only 19 years of age so I do not plan on having a child any time soon. I will say what I think. Paid family leave should be in place, all over the country. I know when I have kids, I will want to be at home, even if its for just a couple months, to be able to take care for my child. Theyre a small child who was just born, theyre going to need a lot of attention, especially from the parents. Also, kids are really expensive. In a perfect world, Id be able to stay home with the kids and my husband/father would be able to support all of us. But we cannot just rely on that, we can work towards always but life can take you in many directions. You never know whats going to happen. I may have to work and if Im spending time with the kids and not getting paid, idk how wed be able to live and pay for bills, baby items, food, supplies, anything without a pay, especially if it goes for months. I work for a theme park and Ive seen several women pregnant and working plus taking leave. Im not sure how the policy is, I may have to ask them. But I do not see any people returning quickly or leaving the company so Id have to assume its good. But like I said, I havent experienced it. Idk how it would happen but I hope that we can find a way to have paid family leave without any complications or at least complication that can be easily fixed and not screw over anyone. Moms and dads needs to be able to be with their kids. The only way to have paid family leave not happen is if we stop producing kids. Thatll cut off the needs of paid family all together. Unpaid family leave is ridiculous and having to return to your job after two weeks of giving birth is ridiculous.
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Now, Im only 19 years of age so I do not plan on having a child any time soon. I will say what I think. Paid family leave should be in place, all over the country. I know when I have kids, I will want to be at home, even if its for just a couple months, to be able to take care for my child. Theyre a small child who was just born, theyre going to need a lot of attention, especially from the parents. Also, kids are really expensive. In a perfect world, Id be able to stay home with the kids and my husband/father would be able to support all of us. But we cannot just rely on that, we can work towards always but life can take you in many directions. You never know whats going to happen. I may have to work and if Im spending time with the kids and not getting paid, idk how wed be able to live and pay for bills, baby items, food, supplies, anything without a pay, especially if it goes for months. I work for a theme park and Ive seen several women pregnant and working plus taking leave. Im not sure how the policy is, I may have to ask them. But I do not see any people returning quickly or leaving the company so Id have to assume its good. But like I said, I havent experienced it. Idk how it would happen but I hope that we can find a way to have paid family leave without any complications or at least complication that can be easily fixed and not screw over anyone. Moms and dads needs to be able to be with their kids. The only way to have paid family leave not happen is if we stop producing kids. Thatll cut off the needs of paid family all together. Unpaid family leave is ridiculous and having to return to your job after two weeks of giving birth is ridiculous.
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Designs by Alexandra Geanina
OMG I can believe this By brain just had a major error Here, in Romania, are two different types of family leave: 1. is called medical leave, which is a paid (and not taxed) leave regarding medical problems, even if they may be for your children and you have to take care of them - here can be said that there is a fully paid family leave between 2 days and a week if someone from your family died (the amount of day given are according to how close the member of the family is to you) 2. is called maternal/paternal leave, which is given to one of the new parent. It is a paid leave for 2 years, and the amount of money given is directly proportionate with the amount of money you have earned while working - and it is for each child: it is a recent law that guarantees it, in cases of twins or triplets or more. This is why in the recent years was a high increase in fathers taking this kind of leave - they earn more then their wives so the amount of money received would be higher. To clear things out The money received are not a lot, in fact a lot of people still struggle with money here considering that they have three or more mouths to feed, but they dont lose their jobs because of having a baby or having medical problems, they are paid for staying at home, even if it is maybe less then what they could have earned of they would have been working, and mothers can even take this leave during pregnancy (but if they have more than 4 or 5 months) It may not be much, but from what ive heard, is better then in America, which Ive never thought I will say
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OMG I can believe this By brain just had a major error Here, in Romania, are two different types of family leave: 1. is called medical leave, which is a paid (and not taxed) leave regarding medical problems, even if they may be for your children and you have to take care of them - here can be said that there is a fully paid family leave between 2 days and a week if someone from your family died (the amount of day given are according to how close the member of the family is to you) 2. is called maternal/paternal leave, which is given to one of the new parent. It is a paid leave for 2 years, and the amount of money given is directly proportionate with the amount of money you have earned while working - and it is for each child: it is a recent law that guarantees it, in cases of twins or triplets or more. This is why in the recent years was a high increase in fathers taking this kind of leave - they earn more then their wives so the amount of money received would be higher. To clear things out The money received are not a lot, in fact a lot of people still struggle with money here considering that they have three or more mouths to feed, but they dont lose their jobs because of having a baby or having medical problems, they are paid for staying at home, even if it is maybe less then what they could have earned of they would have been working, and mothers can even take this leave during pregnancy (but if they have more than 4 or 5 months) It may not be much, but from what ive heard, is better then in America, which Ive never thought I will say
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Janina McDaniel
While I understand the average Americans reservations about paying a little bit higher taxes from my own experience I can say it's worth every penny. I live in Germany and unexpectedly became pregnant at 17. Had I grown up in Ohio and West Virginia like my mother did I probably would have ended up dropping out of high school and returning after an incredibly short period of time to my fast food jobs as a teenager working at subway, ice cream parlours and the like. Instead I was able to enjoy 11 months of leave allowing me to breast feed the recommended amount of time as well as bonding with my baby and keeping us both physically and mentally healthy. Then I received government assistance while finishing high school and while becoming a registered nurse as well as enjoying government funded health care and child care. I am proud to pay my fair share of taxes now and am working on a degree to get an even better position in the future. The investment Germany made into me will eventually pay off as I will continue to pay more taxes on my nursing job and any higher position I may get than I would have paid staying in a fast food job. I am incredibly thankful Germany has these programs and honestly don't see myself ever moving back to the US.
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While I understand the average Americans reservations about paying a little bit higher taxes from my own experience I can say it's worth every penny. I live in Germany and unexpectedly became pregnant at 17. Had I grown up in Ohio and West Virginia like my mother did I probably would have ended up dropping out of high school and returning after an incredibly short period of time to my fast food jobs as a teenager working at subway, ice cream parlours and the like. Instead I was able to enjoy 11 months of leave allowing me to breast feed the recommended amount of time as well as bonding with my baby and keeping us both physically and mentally healthy. Then I received government assistance while finishing high school and while becoming a registered nurse as well as enjoying government funded health care and child care. I am proud to pay my fair share of taxes now and am working on a degree to get an even better position in the future. The investment Germany made into me will eventually pay off as I will continue to pay more taxes on my nursing job and any higher position I may get than I would have paid staying in a fast food job. I am incredibly thankful Germany has these programs and honestly don't see myself ever moving back to the US.
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Jackie Johnston
Sometimes I almost forget how good we have it here in Canada. Our parental leave is paid from our Employment Insurances (EI) premiums that are detucted by the employer and paid to the federal government, seprate from our Canada Pension Plan (CPP. Low income families have all or a portion of these premiums returned annually with our tax return. After 600 hours of employment anyone can access EI if you have been laid off, fired, or take leave for a number of approved reasons, including family and maternity. We recieve 65% of our regular pay, without deductions, so it's not much less than regular amounts. Some employers top this up to be equal to regular pay. We have a minimum of 52 weeks with the option of spreading that out to 18 months that can be split between parents after the initial 15 weeks. If your pregnancy has complications or your child requires extra care you can apply for even more. You Americans are fantastic neighbors and we love ya, but the grass is pretty green on our side of the fence, unless it's covered in snow, our weather truly sucks sometimes.
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Sometimes I almost forget how good we have it here in Canada. Our parental leave is paid from our Employment Insurances (EI) premiums that are detucted by the employer and paid to the federal government, seprate from our Canada Pension Plan (CPP. Low income families have all or a portion of these premiums returned annually with our tax return. After 600 hours of employment anyone can access EI if you have been laid off, fired, or take leave for a number of approved reasons, including family and maternity. We recieve 65% of our regular pay, without deductions, so it's not much less than regular amounts. Some employers top this up to be equal to regular pay. We have a minimum of 52 weeks with the option of spreading that out to 18 months that can be split between parents after the initial 15 weeks. If your pregnancy has complications or your child requires extra care you can apply for even more. You Americans are fantastic neighbors and we love ya, but the grass is pretty green on our side of the fence, unless it's covered in snow, our weather truly sucks sometimes.
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DHScherocha
If you were to diagnose America's overall social health by the metrics of education, healthcare, wages, employment, welfare and incarceration, you would say it is gravely sick nation. The US flags behind not just the developed world but indeed many developing nations in every one of those and many other respects. A perfect example of how it got this way is that taxpayers will happily ignore the staggering amount that is funneled through government contracts into defense and security firms along with other military industrial expenditures all over the world, amounting to trillions of dollars invested into corporate interests, but ask them to invest not even a few hundred dollars a year to help protect the integrity and security of the family unit for tens of millions of struggling workers, and suddenly any real sense of community and social responsibility is ignored in favour of an almost objectivist approach to what in the entirety of the developed world outside of the US is seen as a basic human right that is tended in any responsible and healthy society.
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If you were to diagnose America's overall social health by the metrics of education, healthcare, wages, employment, welfare and incarceration, you would say it is gravely sick nation. The US flags behind not just the developed world but indeed many developing nations in every one of those and many other respects. A perfect example of how it got this way is that taxpayers will happily ignore the staggering amount that is funneled through government contracts into defense and security firms along with other military industrial expenditures all over the world, amounting to trillions of dollars invested into corporate interests, but ask them to invest not even a few hundred dollars a year to help protect the integrity and security of the family unit for tens of millions of struggling workers, and suddenly any real sense of community and social responsibility is ignored in favour of an almost objectivist approach to what in the entirety of the developed world outside of the US is seen as a basic human right that is tended in any responsible and healthy society.
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P D
Argentina here. While far from being an example, we have 12 weeks of paid maternal leave, they're by ANSES, which is a division by the department of health (in English ANSES means National Social Security Administration. Men get 2 days with pay, which is meagre, but there's been attempts to getting better conditions for these things for a while now. Argentina is just miles ahead of you guys when it comes to social security, even though we're an impoverished third world country. We manage to have free education on all levels (and this public university is ranked among the best in the world and has produced several Nobel prizes. We have free healthcare. Conditions for workers are just so much better. And none of that has ever been questioned by even the rightest of positions here, and none of that has affected our economy. It's just taxes. We're impoverished because of corruption, otherwise we'd probably be more than fine. It's wild to me that one of the world's biggest economies is still struggling with things we solved in the 70s.
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Argentina here. While far from being an example, we have 12 weeks of paid maternal leave, they're by ANSES, which is a division by the department of health (in English ANSES means National Social Security Administration. Men get 2 days with pay, which is meagre, but there's been attempts to getting better conditions for these things for a while now. Argentina is just miles ahead of you guys when it comes to social security, even though we're an impoverished third world country. We manage to have free education on all levels (and this public university is ranked among the best in the world and has produced several Nobel prizes. We have free healthcare. Conditions for workers are just so much better. And none of that has ever been questioned by even the rightest of positions here, and none of that has affected our economy. It's just taxes. We're impoverished because of corruption, otherwise we'd probably be more than fine. It's wild to me that one of the world's biggest economies is still struggling with things we solved in the 70s.
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REG.T
In Lithuania (EU) Mom gets 2 months before birth of a child and 2 months after. Dad can have 4 weeks off work during the first four weeks of childs life (together with mom. 2 months after child is born the child care time starts. Child care time can be taken by mom or dad, or some time by mom, then by dad, then again by mom (and so on. Child care time can be up to third birthday of the child. Two models of compensation: a) 1st year 100 % of ones salary and 2nd and 3rd with no pay, but you do not loose your Job and keep social security benefits and healtcare, b) 1st year 70 %, 2nd year 40 %, 3rd year as in a) (+ during second year it is possible to work part time and still get 40% compensation. Child has full Health insurance till 18 years old or as long as studies full time at college or University. Lithuania is no economic paradise, but families who wish to be together during first years of childs life have an option to do that.
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In Lithuania (EU) Mom gets 2 months before birth of a child and 2 months after. Dad can have 4 weeks off work during the first four weeks of childs life (together with mom. 2 months after child is born the child care time starts. Child care time can be taken by mom or dad, or some time by mom, then by dad, then again by mom (and so on. Child care time can be up to third birthday of the child. Two models of compensation: a) 1st year 100 % of ones salary and 2nd and 3rd with no pay, but you do not loose your Job and keep social security benefits and healtcare, b) 1st year 70 %, 2nd year 40 %, 3rd year as in a) (+ during second year it is possible to work part time and still get 40% compensation. Child has full Health insurance till 18 years old or as long as studies full time at college or University. Lithuania is no economic paradise, but families who wish to be together during first years of childs life have an option to do that.
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V1DE0
Paid family leave should be a must and citizens that think the same should be willing to pay for it via taxes. Employers should also not take social assistance programs as an insult. Far too often I've seen employees/citizens take 100% necessary welfare, unemployment insurance, workers compensation, or maternity leave only to be screwed over by their employers and even society as soon as it becomes legally possible to do so. Businesses need to understand that employing people to work for them is a business arrangement and not a gift of graciousness. As for society, ya'll need to understand that NOTHING in life is free and someone always needs to pay for it. I get hating on people who can work and chose not to but leave those who can't alone. Some day you'll be old, crippled, or unemployable and when that happens you'll find that your pension won't be enough and you'll need to use these social assistance programs yourself.
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Paid family leave should be a must and citizens that think the same should be willing to pay for it via taxes. Employers should also not take social assistance programs as an insult. Far too often I've seen employees/citizens take 100% necessary welfare, unemployment insurance, workers compensation, or maternity leave only to be screwed over by their employers and even society as soon as it becomes legally possible to do so. Businesses need to understand that employing people to work for them is a business arrangement and not a gift of graciousness. As for society, ya'll need to understand that NOTHING in life is free and someone always needs to pay for it. I get hating on people who can work and chose not to but leave those who can't alone. Some day you'll be old, crippled, or unemployable and when that happens you'll find that your pension won't be enough and you'll need to use these social assistance programs yourself.
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Ben Newton
I'm an American living in Germany and I can promise you that it works differently here than Americans assume it does. Essentially, it's not much different than being on unemployment for however long you take it. For me, it was less than half as much as I usually take home and well under my monthly expenses, in addition to not accruing vacation days while I was on it. The irony is that if I had an equivalent job in the US I would almost certainly have gotten full pay and benefits (in addition to my base salary being significantly higher. There probably are people who would personally benefit from compulsory government funded family leave in the US, but it will not be anyone with a normal sort of salaried professional job. They will get screwed. Given that those sort of jobs are what people are supposed to aspire to (which I think is lame, for what it's worth, that fact should probably be part of the discussion.
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I'm an American living in Germany and I can promise you that it works differently here than Americans assume it does. Essentially, it's not much different than being on unemployment for however long you take it. For me, it was less than half as much as I usually take home and well under my monthly expenses, in addition to not accruing vacation days while I was on it. The irony is that if I had an equivalent job in the US I would almost certainly have gotten full pay and benefits (in addition to my base salary being significantly higher. There probably are people who would personally benefit from compulsory government funded family leave in the US, but it will not be anyone with a normal sort of salaried professional job. They will get screwed. Given that those sort of jobs are what people are supposed to aspire to (which I think is lame, for what it's worth, that fact should probably be part of the discussion.
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