America, Surinam and Papua New Guinea (warning Bernie diary)

As you can see, we are a red country as are Surinam and Papua New Guinea because we have no paid maternity leave.  The other 200+ countries do.  I got this shocking map from Upworthy (Here’s what one small-business owner thinks of paid parental leave) and it got me thinking.

Paid maternity leave is not an issue that resonates with me.  I have no progeny.  My big issues are money out of politics, Glass-Steagall, not being the world cop, single payer, etc. But it is an issue that Bernie keeps talking about;

x YouTube Video

So I decided to open the hood on the issue and did some googling.

Paid Family & Sick Leave — Plus Vacation

Sanders Supports Paid Family Leave, Urges Clinton to Back Proposal

The Repugs had a few things to say, for example;

James Woods to Bernie Sanders: 'China Has Notoriously Killed Female Infants for Population Control'

And this in Politifact;

Bernie Sanders says 'every other major country' has family paid leave except United States

 U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders defended his record as a democratic socialist by calling for the United States to bring its family leave policy in line with other countries.  

"You see every other major country saying to moms that, when you have a baby, we're not gonna separate you from your newborn baby, because we are going to have medical and family paid leave, like every other country on Earth," he said during the first Democratic presidential debate. We will put aside the narrower question of medical leave and focus on family leave. United States lags behind on paid leave  A spokesman for Sanders pointed to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which studied paid maternity leave for about 34 OECD countries -- advanced nations -- and seven additional European Union countries. On average across OECD countries, mothers are entitled to 17 weeks of paid maternity leave. However, the United States is the only country to offer no statutory entitlement to paid leave on a national basis. (my bold) Another widely respected source of data on this topic is the International Labor Organization, an agency of the United Nations. It found in 2014 that out of 170 countries, all but two provide cash benefits to women during maternity leave: the United States and Papua New Guinea. In the United States, under the federal Family Medical Leave Act, employers with 50 or more workers must allow parents 12 weeks of job-protected leave annually to care for a newborn or to care for a family member with a serious medical condition. While that law protects their job, in most cases the leave is unpaid. Some employers choose to offer paid leave. About 13 percent of workers had access to some kind of paid family leave in 2014, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s a very low rate compared to the rest of the developed world. Of 41 other developed economies, the United States also mandates the shortest period of unpaid leave — 12 weeks. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom and Australia each allow a full year off (though not all of it is paid). Paid family leave was something all candidates seemed to agree in principle on the first debate; x YouTube Video This is what Hillary says in her website; Fight for paid family leave. No one should have to choose between keeping their job and taking care of a sick family member, and no parent should have to go back to work right after they welcome their newborn baby. A quarter of all women in America return to work within ten days of having a child because they have no paid leave. The United States is the only country in the developed world without guaranteed paid leave of any kind. That has to change. This is what Bernie says in his;

We are the only major nation in the world that doesn’t guarantee paid time off for new parents. Of 182 nations that do provide paid leave for this purpose, more than half guarantee at least 14 weeks off.

We are the only one of 22 wealthy nations that does not guarantee some type of paid sick leave, and the only one that does not provide paid sick leave for a worker undergoing a 50-day cancer treatment.

...

Cosponsored Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s FAMILY Act, which would guarantee every employee twelve weeks of paid family and medical leave. This program would be funded through an insurance program, the way Social Security is today. Workers would pay into it with every paycheck, at the price of roughly one cup of coffee per week.

Bottom line, I go with Bernie and his co-sponsored legislation.

Let the pie fight begin.