Sanders Endorses Small Tax Hike On All To Fund Family Leave

[JDPriestly]

6. If other countries like Hungary and Austria (used to have this kind of leave)

can afford to pay for it, certainly we can.

We already pay for it in lost income for mothers who do stay home and costs of infant care for mothers who work.

The minimum wage is $7.25 going up to $15 in Los Angeles in a few years.

The cost of a full time baby-sitter for one week for one baby at $8 per hour is going to be at least $320 per week. That for 12 weeks would be $3,840.

The mother would probably be paid not her full salary but a stipend that was standard. Employers could also be required to pay the cost of the leave. There are two possibilities right there, probably more.

Perhaps the amount paid to the mother during her leave would be reduced to a standard rate that Congress would agree upon.

My guesses based on my experience living in countries in which this leave is routine. I did not, by the way, live in Hungary. But I know they at least used to have it. So do countries like Sweden, and most of the countries that are democracies.

More on this issue:

When Australia passed a parental leave law in 2010, it left the U.S. as the only industrialized nation not to mandate paid leave for mothers of newborns. Most of the rest of the world has paid maternity leave policies, too; Lesotho, Swaziland and Papua New Guinea are the only other countries that do not. Many countries give new fathers paid time off as well or allow parents to share paid leave.

. . . .

The U.S. joins Lesotho, Swaziland and Papua New Guinea as the only countries that do not mandate paid maternity leave. Most countries insure at least three months of paid leave for new mothers, and many give fathers benefits too.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/04/maternity-leave-paid-parental-leave-_n_2617284.html

There is a chart at that website. In Brazil (a poorer country than the US), new mothers get 100% of their pay for 120 days of leave.

In China, new moms get 90 days at 100% of pay.

Nasty, mean old Russia gives 140 days at 100% of pay.

Even Saudi Arabia gives 50% of your pay for this kind of leave.

It's a disgrace that we do not have this leave. The cost is bound to be something we can afford.

Good Heavens. How penny wise and pound foolish can we be.

The relationship between mother and baby that is established in the first days and weeks of life after birth is utterly essential. It's value in human terms cannot be measured in money.

The baby has lived for about 9 months within the body of the mother. It knows the mothers smell, the gait of her walk, her voice. And then suddenly it is torn into a world that is new. New mothers should have time with their babies so that the babies can cross over into our world from the protected haven of the womb. This precious, irreplaceable time is probably even more important to adoptive mothers than to natural birth mothers.

I just can't believe that we in the supposedly richest country in the world do not already provide this leave to new parents.

I am appalled at the materialistic values in our country.