According to a poll quoted in the May 2008 Redbook magazine, which surveyed 177 countries, 169 of them gave women paid maternity leave, 145 provided paid sick days, 137 required businesses to give paid vacation time, 107 allowed women to take breaks to breast-feed their babies, and 66 even gave dads paid paternity leave.
How many of these benefits are guaranteed in America?
None of them.
The same poll found that the top 3 best countries for working moms, benefit-wise, were Bulgaria, which offers 45 day of paid maternity leave plus two weeks paid leave after the child is born; Sweden, which offers all working parents 18 months of parental leave, most of which is paid, and some of which must be used by the father to make sure both parents are involved with their children! Even non-working mothers are compensated! Germany is the third of the top 3, offering new moms 67 percent of their net salary for a full year after their child is born. Once the mother returns to work, the dad can then take another 2 months with the same benefits!
Can you even imagine being offered that in America?
I can't! There were days when my daughter was twelve and thirteen when I had no choice but to leave her at home alone, sick, because I did not have any days to take to stay with her and I couldn't afford not to get paid. (I didn't have the same problem when they were younger because my then-husband and I worked different shifts.) I hated it, but that was my reality as a divorced woman and mom.
Do you think that this would hurt the economy?
Statistically, nope.
According to Redbook, "Of the ten countries with the most competitive economies,The United States is the only one with less than 10 guaranteed sick days. "
We guarantee none.
It's true that most employers do give sick days, but how many and with what restrictions is entirely up to the employer.
How can Bulgaria offer more to its working parents than America does? In what way does that make sense?
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Comments: 13
"Americans work two weeks longer than the work-till-you-drop Japanese, and two months longer than the Germans, who sometimes receive up to 15 weeks paid vacation each year, according to the Hay Group, a human resource consulting firm."
So if you consider how stingy our corporations are in the area of paid vacations, we must be equally stingy on the subject of other area including maternity leave.
Don't blame the Republicans, this has been going on since FOREVER.
"Compared to almost every other country, Americans work longer and harder and vacation the least. But before you get bent out of shape about the inhumane ways of U.S. employers, know this: Your boss isn't obligated to give you any vacation time. Why? Because the U.S. is one of the very few industrialized countries where the government doesn't regulate benefits in the private work sector. "
The government is touts itself as the government of the people, by the people, for who?...The people. Are we NOT, the people?
If the government of, by, and for the people is not supposed to be taking care of this for, the people, with the peoples money, than what exactly are all those elected governmental people doing, and doing it with the peoples money?