New York governor pushes for paid medical leave during pregnancy
Pregnant people in New York would have 40 hours of paid leave to attend prenatal medical appointments under a new proposal by Gov. Kathy Hochul after the state’s legislative session kicked off this week.
The Democrat’s plan to expand the state’s paid family leave policy, which would need to be approved by the state Legislature, aims to expand access to high-quality prenatal care and prevent maternal and infant deaths in New York, an issue that especially affects low-income and minority communities.
The U.S. infant mortality rate, a measure of how many babies die before they reach their first birthday, is worse than other high-income countries, which experts have attributed to poverty, inadequate prenatal care and other possibilities. The U.S. rate rose 3% in 2022 — the largest increase in two decades, according to a 2023 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The US, the last western country lacking maternity leave. Compare that to what other countries do, providing months of maternity leave.
Don't be harsh. They have to give all their money to Israel. There is very little left for US citizens.
Regardless of the implications of what happens with the aid that's given to Israel, it's a tiny slice of the federal budget. It has absolutely zero to do with why we don't prioritize taking care of our citizens' health.
Don't forget Ukraine. And we have military bases everywhere. All on the backs of the common folk.
The difference is that defending Ukraine actually has value for the Western world.
Israel is an albatross around the neck of everyone supporting it.
Chiming in from Canada, wife and I are about to go on parental leave for our first child. I'm taking 3 months, she's taking 18.
I work with a lot of American vendors from Canada and we recently all said congrats and goodbye to a project manager on the vendor side who was taking her mat leave. When I came back from vacation I was surprised to see her in the weekly meeting... she had less mat leave than I have vacation.
My wife and I (Canadian & American Ex-Pat) did the same thing, but she took 9 and I took 3. It was one of the best and most meaningful times of my life. It allowed me to bond with my daughter in a way I hadn't gotten to.
It's a shame the entire country doesn't have it, but many states including New York do already. One advantage of a federal system I guess.
Here's a summary of parental leave by state if curious.
https://www.paycor.com/resource-center/articles/maternity-leave-laws-by-state/
There really should be a national requirement though.
Except it's unpaid.
The Federal FMLA is unpaid yes. Many individual states have their own paid leave policies though. The link I posted shows you the policies in each state.
If I counted correctly, there are 4 states that require paid leave. Another 6 where nothing is mentioned pertaining to paid/unpaid. And 22 states that don't mandate any leave at all...might be 23 since Kansas is just left blank.
In other states, you may or may not get leave (unpaid) depending how many employees there are at your job.
We really do suck in the US.
I don't disagree, just getting that info out there so if you're in one of the 10 states or the district of columbia that does have it, you know to access it. I've heard from people in states that have it that just assume they didn't since there's no national program.
This one's a map which makes it easier: https://onpay.com/hr/basics/paid-family-leave-by-state
The map is also nice because it shows which states have passed laws that will be taking effect in the future. Looks like 6 more on the way.
Do companies have to pay employees for months while they're not doing any work?
Or is it the government who allocates taxes to fund maternity leave?
As a business owner, a woman would have to provide enough value to the company to make up for potentially missing months of work while being paid in order to get hired over a man with no such risk.
I see you're operating under the misunderstanding that only women have to take time off of work to care for children. Or maybe you just think that somehow women are having babies all by themselves without men at all.
WOMEN DON'T HAVE BABIES, FAMILIES HAVE BABIES. EVERY PERSON DESERVES THE HUMAN DIGNITY OF BEING ALLOWED TO CARE FOR THEIR CHILDREN.
I'm sorry for yelling, but it's a fucking important. You're backwards thinking is a key failure of capitalism and a shining example of toxic masculinity.
We have national maternity leave here, but I recently worked at a company that gave the father 4 months off to be used however they wanted over the next year after their child was born. Was really heartwarming to see them give that extra benefit to help him spend time with the new family.
So you're saying everyone should be hired with the expectation that they will receive months of paid leave for having a child?
Nothing about this is 'toxic masculinity.' It's how the working world works, lol. You'll understand that when you're older.
We're saying that entire societies benefit from having parents spend early months/years with their young children. Because society as a whole profits from that activity, that activity should be subsidized by the government.
And I promise I'm at least as old as you
I think it's fine raising taxes on the wealthy so working folks can stay at home with their families.
My issue is that requiring employers to do that means that it's impossible to start a business if you don't already have a lot of excess capital and an established customer base.
Can Google do it? Absolutely.
Can an average food truck do it? Absolutely not.
If your employer can't afford to give new parents leave, then one way or another you are being exploited for somebody else's profit.
What exactly is your point? That every business who can't afford to pay employees who aren't working shouldn't get to operate? Just go ahead and say it, unless you're afraid it's a stupid idea and you're purposefully avoiding admitting it for this reason.
That's how you're literally only left with big name companies like Google and Amazon.
If your business cannot support the basic operating costs of the humans it employs, it has no value to society. It's a parasite that feeds off the welfare spending of the state to enrich it's owner.
True, but businesses have proven that humans don't need months off with pay for having children.
The solution of course is having a payroll type tax that funds parental leave. Everyone pays in, and the government pays out so companies, large and small, don't have to deal with the issue you're talking about. I'd like my employer to have zero say in things like this, unless they want to go above and beyond. Same for healthcare. Let companies be companies, and let's use taxes to find societal needs
Pretty much every regulation like this has a minimum busi ness size it applies to, for exactly this reason
If the government is paying for it I am all in.
Having businesses pay for it will just result in less women getting good jobs.
Alternatively we can go for mandated parental leave for both parents (not at the same time), which evens out the playing field between genders, men get to spend more time with their infants, and hiring women has no inherent disadvantage for businesses. There are countries in europe going for that - every other solution i can think of leads to a disadvantage for women.
Agreed.
I'm older. I have kids. I saw the value of getting time off as a father and wished it could have been more. I actually had better time off benefits than my wife though which is pretty disgraceful. No it shouldn't be on a business to fund families but it is on society as a whole to policy each other up. Like many, many other things, other countries have figured this out and America is WAY behind.
When my kids were born, I was able to take one week. It came out of my vacation time and I got very little time with my kid, due to the effing mother-in-law who apparently had priority over the Dad. I wish for everyone to meet their kids better than that, both in regards to time off and less toxic maternity
Okay. My point is that expecting and requiring every business to be able to pay employees who aren't working for months at a time is asinine.