this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2024
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A Boring Dystopia
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In this context, no, they're both labour protection laws. Do you know why minimum wage exists? Because without it, most bosses would pay even less.
Perhaps you've been lucky and been in jobs in which you've gotten above the minimum. Which should be expected after working for more than two decades. Why would you think that matters? Do you not think that every mother (and actually parent in general) should have the right to have paid leave for months? So that only the rich with free time get to procreate and anyone working a menial job literally can't if they want to make rent ?
I hope you realise that most companies do the bare legally required minimum and a lot don't even do that, breaking the (already weak) labour laws the US has, and usually without consequence.
So in this context what’s really being said is not that there is no parental leave, but that there is no workers protection of parental leave. Thinking of it this way helps. I wish this was more explicitly stated as I tend to be too literal about things.
No, it's pretty explicit.
Just like you'd say "there's no minimum wage" in a country with no minimum wage, even if a large portion are getting around min wage pay.
The US and some island micronations (with no offense to them not the most highly developed countries) are the only ones who don't ensure parental leave.
Are you genuinely pretending you don't understand that there are thousands of people in the US who'd have kids right now if they weren't afraid of becoming homeless if they have to take time off work / quit, since there's no required pay?
You're genuinely ignoring the issue. Saying it's not a problem. Because it's not a problem for you. This is what causes the problems in the world. Lack of empathy.
Please take it down a notch, because I’m very much not saying it’s not a problem, nor am I ignoring the issue. I am trying to improve my understanding of people’s situations that are not my own.
I disagree on explicitness of the statement. Saying the US does not have maternity leave is not the same, at least by my understanding, as saying “x has no minimum wage” it’s would be more like saying “x has no wage”. Taking the phrase literally, anyway, and I apparently have a tendency to be over-literal.
And I’m not pretending anything. I know people are choosing not to have kids due to the lack of economic security. But I’ve always thought that extends well beyond what parental leave would help with. Kids are expensive and not just in year one. Even if one is guaranteed steady income in year one, it would still be a question of how assured their income will be for an indefinite amount of time.
You're disagreeing with facts.
We're not talking about your personal experience.
The US is in the group of seven countries which do not mandate maternal let alone paternal leave.
This is a cold hard fact: the US does not mandate that employers give the option to paid maternal leave. Unlike literally most of the planet.