U.S. at bottom of pack to help working moms
By Sheelah Kolhatkar, Bloomberg
Bloomberg News has just completed an investigation into the plight of working mothers in America, and it’s not a pretty picture. Only 12 percent of those employed get paid time off to care for a new baby, according to U.S. Labor Department statistics. Only three states have programs offering paid family leave — California, since 2004; New Jersey, since 2009; and, as of last month, Rhode Island.
“Papua New Guinea is the only other nation that doesn’t provide or require a paid maternity leave, according to information on 185 countries compiled by the United Nations’ International Labor Organization,” Bloomberg reports. “It recommends 14 weeks off at a level no lower than two-thirds of previous earnings.”
Those who pay attention to the work-family debate have been aware of this for a long time. What is startling is how stubbornly it remains a non-issue in policy circles; even with increasing numbers of women now serving in Congress—20 in the Senate and 78 in the House, the highest ever—legislation that tries to address the current inadequate pregnancy and family policies is largely absent.
Currently, the Family and Medical Leave Act, which was passed in 1993, guarantees workers at companies with 50 or more employees 12 weeks of unpaid leave. The problem is that many people can’t afford to take it. Larger companies tend to offer more generous benefits, which have been shown to correlate strongly with an increase in women returning to their jobs after having a child.
The GOP fights tooth and nail against abortion but then fights tooth and nail to make sure nothing will ever again be done for that child once it is born.
Go figure.
Amen! This issue has needed to be addressed for a long time now.
America is on track to be at the bottom of the pack on most important societal measures.
Obama, Reid, Pelosi; our leaders in the race for the bottom.
“Fundamentally change America” for the worse.
Yah, It will get worse. Much worse.
‘America is on track to be at the bottom of the pack on most important societal measures.’
Like healthcare?
Please respond to your ignorant comments re: ideological shifts of the political parties in America from 1850-current.
cosa pescado = wrong
Lincoln was a Republican no matter how much the leftwingnuts lie about it.
Republicans are the party of freedom Democrats are the party of lies.
Only the democrat party has shifted, the Republican party has always been the home of conservative principles.
That is not to say there are not Progressive Liberals in the party, there are. Conservatives work to oust them.
CJMCoy.
What I’m going to say may get me in hot water with Kae, the publisher of this fine paper, The Lake Taahoe News, but I’ll take my lumps and move on if that’s the case.
CJ, I don’t have the authority on LTN to kick you off of here , but would you please leave? Your comments are insulting, often incorrect and your “facts” are often anyting but that. You espouse hatred and lash out at anyone with a view other than yours.
I’m a patient and mellow person who’s slow to anger but I’ve reached that point. You’re an annoyance and an irritation and make what should be a healthy discussion or comments on the community or an article written here into one of your hate filled diatribes. Go away!!!
Sorry Kae, I couldn’t hold back any longer. If you kick me off I’ll understand.OLS, a paid subscriber.
What facts are wrong?
Put up an argument if you think I am wrong.
What is insulting is what has been done to South Lake Tahoe by the City, County and State.
I agree with Bill Maher’s assessment of what has happened to our political parties since the election of ’80 that started the sell-out to globalism and the demise of the middle class in America: “Over the last thirty odd years, Democrats have moved to the right and the right has moved into a mental hospital. So what we have is one perfectly good party for hedge fund managers, credit card companies, banks, defense contractors, big agriculture and the pharmaceutical lobby…That’s the Democrats. And they sit across the aisle from a small group of religious fanatics, flat-earthers and civil war re-enactors who mostly communicate by AM radio and call themselves the Republicans and who actually worry that Obama is a socialist. Socialist? He’s not even a liberal.”
I think we must make major changes such as election reform that takes the billionaires out of the equation and eliminates corporate personhood as a good first step. Otherwise we will just continue down this road to nowhere brought to you by the 1%ers.
We spend obscene amounts of our national treasure on the DOD: http://www.armscontrolcenter.org/issues/securityspending/articles/2012_topline_global_defense_spending/
When we have regressed so far in the last few decades regarding the way we treat our working families and are continuing on this race to the bottom on wages and benefits my question is this…. Just exactly what are we spending all that money to defend? I’m convinced at this point that it’s only the 1% that are receiving any benefit.
OLS,
McCoy does serve one purpose, which is to constantly remind us that the extreme wingnuts really are batty, uncreative, closed minded, and counter productive. As if that were news.
While highly ignorable, his posts do tend to pollute what is otherwise an excellent and informative website. There are plenty of people who post valid and reasonably argued conservative viewpoints here, he just doesn’t happen to be one of them.
Unfortunately Bijou, I think that your prescription will have to wait at a minimum until sometime during the next 8 presidential years, likely under Clinton, for there to be a chance for the supreme court composition to change sufficiently to make any changes to campaign financing laws.
Even then, the financing of elections seems to have too many loopholes even with restrictions. It may take the further advancement of the demographic change happening in the US and enough years of middle class impoverishment to fire up the masses enough to elect serious agents of change from either party.
OLS, BB, NBotB, Thumbs up, all good points, I agree ;)
OK CJ and OLS. Let’s have a compromise.
CJ has to submit their ideas about the Republicans of 1860 and being the same as the Republicans of today to a professor, or any third party who is knowledgeable.
And if they fail, they have to leave.
CJ also need to submit your Uhaul metric on a college level. It is wrong. And worse, you plagiarized it. You will fail, and you will have to leave.
You are the only one who doesn’t think you are a total hack. Well there is one person who seems to fall for your BS, but I am pretty sure their IQ is around 80.
Right on BB – Campaign finance reform is the root issue that musy be adressed before any real progress can be made toward dealing with the real issues that affect the vast majority of the electorate. This unfortunatley is what the Occupy Movement should have focussed on instead being perceived as lazy nut cases with no apparent agenda. Campaign finance reform is a bi-partisan issue that should be embraced by both conservatives and liberals. It needs to be forced on the law makers of both parties by the sheer will of the people. They certainly have no impetus to take this on unless there is a strong and coordinated push by average Americans willing to to work to make this happen.
Hey CJ! Lincoln himself wrote to Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune in 1862 that, “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.” So much for you republican “freedom” argument.
Right on ols, I agree 101%
@OldLongSki’s-CJ’s ‘facts’ are not ‘wrong’…they are not facts at all. They are just opinions. A rose by any other name still smells as sweet. A t urd by any other name still smells like sh yt. Claiming a tur d is a rose just makes him look uneducated and uncaring. Calling an ‘opinion’ a ‘fact’ does not make it a fact, just like calling ‘creationism’ a ‘scientific principle’ does not justify it being taught next to evolution. Being independently verifiable makes something a fact.
i kinda like CJ’s uneducated rantings…he’s gonna creamhisjeans at this—but he’s kinda like our own little rush limbaugh wannabe-just like dogula is our own little michelle bachmann/ayn rand clone. They’re kinda ‘cute’ in a ‘predictable pathetic eye-rolling sort of way’, but when they abuse their meds they go tend to go ‘off the reservation’. Makes for good theater.