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Obama pushes for paid family leave

2&2 Slider To Leyritz said:
Well it's something to strive for. Knock up the chick down the street, and you'll get a month's paid vacation to take that Eurotrip you've always dreamed of. Don't worry, there is no requirement that you actually help with the kid.
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Are you drunk? Your vision of giving parents a few weeks off is equal to you laying around cranking out babies and going on European vacations?
 
Liquid Karma said:
This is nonsense. Nobody minimizes the amount of work involved in rearing children. Nobody is saying that parents taking time to be with their kids in their first few weeks/months is not a noble cause.
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2&2 Slider To Leyritz said:
Well it's something to strive for. Knock up the chick down the street, and you'll get a month's paid vacation to take that Eurotrip you've always dreamed of. Don't worry, there is no requirement that you actually help with the kid.
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Seems like some people are insinuating this a little bit.
 
Yeah I'm certain we shouldn't pass a policy like this because of the unintended consequences of people knocking up randos and bailing to Europe for a month. That's a really intelligent and nuanced take 2&2.
 
Providing paid parental leave has been shown in many nations to increase the number of females in the work force. Who knows if it would apply to America too? I have no idea, I'm sure there's literature out there about the impact on America as well.

ETA: Quick article but I can find more substantive literature later if people want: http://qz.com/266841/economic-case-for-paternity-leave/
 
The kicker is when the employer not only pays the mother throughout the pregnancy when she is working at half speed, holds her job for her while on maternity leave, now has to pay her while on maternity leave, and then she decides at the end of the paid leave that she isn't coming back. That should be a blast.
 
i forgot that maternity leave is a gross welfare exploit and dead weight on GDP
 
Liquid Karma said:
Is it the responsibility of the federal government, with our tax dollars, to make up for that shortcoming?

No, it's not.
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2&2 Slider To Leyritz said:
Or requiring it. If a company doesn't care about doing it to attract top talent, then they shouldn't be forced to do so. It should be up to them.
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Can't speak to Ph's "active fathers" canard, but I do think the US govt has an active interest in US companies attracting and keeping top talent in US companies.
 
2&2 Slider To Leyritz said:
The kicker is when the employer not only pays the mother throughout the pregnancy when she is working at half speed, holds her job for her while on maternity leave, now has to pay her while on maternity leave, and then she decides at the end of the paid leave that she isn't coming back. That should be a blast.
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Do you run a sweatshop in China?
 
TownieDeac said:
Can't speak to Ph's "active fathers" canard, but I do think the US govt has an active interest in US companies attracting and keeping top talent in US companies.
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So the guy who isn't getting paid paternity leave is going to quit to relocate his newly created family to Europe so he can get paid to stay home with the next one? Gotcha.
 
America would rather just take talent from other countries than increase our own labor force participation.
 
2&2 Slider To Leyritz said:
So the guy who isn't getting paid paternity leave is going to quit to relocate his newly created family to Europe so he can get paid to stay home with the next one? Gotcha.
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Family leave is one in a long list of conditions that the US is behind Europe and Asia on.

You'd think that conservatives who point to burdensome regulation, taxes, etc. as reasons for US businesses moving overseas would also recognize other market conditions that lead talented workers elsewhere. Doesn't really move the needle if it's not about business owners, though, I see.
 
The irony of 2&2's position is that longer maternity leave in other countries actually increases their continued participation in the labor force which would prevent women from ditching his company after the very short-term maternity leave expires. Most European countries have longer maternity leave and then have women return to work after it. It's not particularly common for women to just stay at home in other countries.
 
TownieDeac said:
Family leave is one in a long list of conditions that the US is behind Europe and Asia on.

You'd think that conservatives who point to burdensome regulation, taxes, etc. as reasons for US businesses moving overseas would also recognize other market conditions that lead talented workers elsewhere. Doesn't really move the needle if it's not about business owners, though, I see.
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Yes, let's follow the european model and in a decade or so we can have soul crushing austerity measures to go with it.

I agree that family leave is important, but don't think it should be federally subsidized.
 
Considering my wife is a federal employee who sits on her ass all day this is good news. The hardest part of our conversations regarding the timing of having our first child center on how the heck we are going to be able to manage in the weeks immediately following childbirth (she will be the bread winner shortly and we couldn't have her go to unpaid status - judge as you may but student loan payments are no joke). We don't have any family within 5 hours and since she just started her job in July she has very little accrued leave/sick time - in fact she used all she had built up already to be with the family when my dad got real sick and passed away. This probably could speed up our having kids by a year or two - we are already both mid 30's so the clock is ticking if we want to help the economy by growing our family.
 
Liquid Karma said:
Yes, let's follow the european model and in a decade or so we can have soul crushing austerity measures to go with it.

I agree that family leave is important, but don't think it should be federally subsidized.
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Taking some of the "better" (relative term) aspects of the European economy while keeping some of our own is certainly not going to drive us into austerity.
 
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