Guest Post by John Stossel
Both Republican and Democratic politicians want government to “do more” to give parents paid time off.
“This is not a women’s issue. It’s a family issue,” says Ivanka Trump.
“(E)very worker in America should be guaranteed at least 12 weeks,” says Sen. Bernie Sanders.
“That’s a very arbitrary number! Why not 14 weeks? Why not 26 weeks?” asks Independent Women’s Forum analyst Patrice Onwuka. She opposes Sanders’ plan, saying government one-size-fits-all policies don’t meet most parents’ needs.
When Onwuka had a baby, IWF gave her six weeks off with pay. She wanted more time off, so she supplemented her maternity leave with vacation time and “personal days.” In my newest video, she says she was glad “to be able to customize the time off.”
Of course, government programs are hard to customize. But that’s where the U.S. is probably headed.
“Just us and Papua New Guinea!” complains comedian John Oliver, sneering that those are the only two countries in the world that do not require paid time off.
“It’s disingenuous,” responds Onwuka, pointing out that most American workers already get paid parental leave. “Seventeen percent,” she says, and the number “jumps to 60, 70, 80 percent when you consider people have sick time off, overtime or all-encompassing personal time.”
In other words, companies and workers already are working this out — voluntarily, without government telling them how they must handle it.
“Paid leave is spreading,” says Onwuka, and not just for high-earners. “Chipotle workers, CVS workers — Walmart workers started to get paid leave.”
Why would CVS and Walmart provide this voluntarily?
“For an employer to attract good talent or retain talent, they need to offer benefits that really resonate with workers. Paid maternity and paternity leave is one of those benefits.”
Arrogant politicians claim they must tell ignorant businesses what’s good for them. President Obama and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand both claim mandated parental would be “good for business.”
But business owners know better what’s good for business. Most, as Onwuka pointed out, offer paid time off, but not all do. Every business has different needs.
In truth, mandated leave is not only bad for most businesses, it’s bad for many women. That’s because such mandates could make hiring a young woman a risk.
“If an employer has a young woman of childbearing age in front of him, he’s thinking, OK, I have to provide paid time off,” Onwuka points out. He hires “another employee who’s a male.”
Sure enough, in California, the first state to mandate leave, a study from the IZA Institute of Labor Economics found women of childbearing age were more likely to be unemployed.
In Europe, lots of women work, but most work in lower-level positions — probably because companies worry less about leaving those positions empty for months if the woman takes her government-dictated parental leave.
“American women are more likely to be in senior-level positions, managerial positions, than women in Europe,” says Onwuka. “Twice as likely. And it’s very much tied to these mandates around paid leave.”
American politicians make it sound as if companies will face hardly any new costs if leave is mandated. “It’s such a small amount of money — the cost of a cup of coffee a week,” says Gillibrand.
“$1.61 a year,” said Sanders, sounding even more optimistic.
He probably meant to say “per month” and “spread over all employees” but even that’s not true. In California, the estimated cost is already $12 a week. And government programs grow.
Can’t we just leave government out of it and let employers and employees work this out to meet individual needs?
Apparently not, because now even “conservative” politicians want government to “do something.”
Senators Marco Rubio, Joni Ernst and Mike Lee propose that parents be allowed to tap into Social Security savings for childbearing expenses.
But Social Security is fiscally unsustainable already. Allowing parents to take out money early will make that worse.
At least the Republican plan wouldn’t be mandatory. But give me a break — can’t we ever say something is not government’s job?
America’s already $22 trillion in debt. We don’t need another government program.
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“American women are more likely to be in senior-level positions, managerial positions, than women in Europe,” says Onwuka. “Twice as likely. And it’s very much tied to these mandates around paid leave.”
There’s the money quote.
.
On the downside, American’t women are also twice as likely to not be women at all.
Chastity is STILL A WOMAN. And don’t forget that or be confused by the beard.
That’s what happens when you have a mother like has-been Cher.
Indeed, there is NO WAY that the trauma of watching her mother emasculate her father on television ever week (and likely 24/7 otherwise), watching her jump from bed to bed to find new male companionship, and god knows what other behaviors she was subjected to, did NOT in some way undermine her natural attraction to men or her genetic predisposition to carry on in life as a woman. I am certainly not saying that EVERY person who suffers such trauma, sexual abuse, or other traumatic living circumstances, will consciously or sub-consciously run and hide behind the mask of homosexuality or “transgenderism,” but there is no way that these kinds of things are not at the ROOT of these deviations from what their genes intended. Rosie and Ellen DeGeneres have both finally admitted to sexual assaults by men in their past. Of course there was something, regardless of how much they tried to hide it or hide from it.
Not only that, Iska, but here’s something else to consider. Most of those American women in “senior level positions” are in the government/medical/education complex. And most of those positions are optional to anything getting done anyway. If Sally gets pregnant and is out of the office for 3 months, productivity doesn’t suffer at all, because there is barely is any productivity in the enterprise to begin with. Try taking a key person out of a lean mean production machine type of business. That’s a lot more expensive and disruptive than the paid time off is.
Signs You May Be Living In A Collapsing Third World Craphole:
Everybody and their mother wants to get paid for doing absolutely n-o-t-h-i-n-g.
“Uh, uh! I needs me some 9 months off paid, so’s that I cans have me the time to gets pregnant again and then get another 9 months paid!”
What the heck, why not a year like Canada for men or women. Maybe it’s a year and half now. Golly, sure does make for a productive society.
Now that I am retired, this makes me want to go back to ‘work’ so I get all this paid time off!
They want to force me, as a business owner to pay for my employees to have kids. Ain’t that special.
If my memory is correct, the photo of the woman feeding the baby is from the Paradise City fire, where the people who were burned out were living in a Walmart parking lot, until they were run out.
Got to love those Direct Energy Weapons used by your very own elected government.
I’d like the government to do more to get women to stay home with their kids until they’re old enough to walk, talk, and are potty trained. Of course this shouldn’t be a problem for women unless they’ve made the disastrous decision to be single mothers.
I separated from my husband while I was pregnant with my son. I had to pay monthly to cover the $900 (back in ’96) required to pay the OB/GYN’s fee before my delivery, which my insurance wouldn’t cover. And I had to save up during that time to cover the time I would be out of work, which was two whole weeks. I would have loved to have been home with my son for months on end as my employer paid me, but that’s not reality, and it’s not something I would expect or that I find feasible.
There is no such thing a s free money. Somebody has to produce it.