185 Countries Provide Paid Maternity Leave; 78 Paid Paternity Leave. Here In Barbaria?

The United States of Barbaria

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More numbers on paid maternity leave. "185 countries provided paid maternity leave....Seventy-eight of those countries also provide paternity leave. While the 1993 Federal Medical Leave Act provides as much as 12 weeks of leave for a worker to care for a new addition...or an ill family member, there is nothing that guarantees that time off is paid. In fact, only California, New Jersey, and Rhode Island offer paid family leave. just nine more states even have defined family-leave laws. Most estimates find that only half of the working population is eligible for medical leave under the FMLA. People who are left out include couples whose marriages aren't recognized, part-time workers, and people who are simply unable to afford taking time off without pay.But there seems to be broad support for paid leave in the United States." Tanya Basu in The Atlantic.

Child-care issues move to political forefront. "A high-profile White House 'working families' summit Monday will focus on issues such as child care, paid family leave and equal pay between men and women. Politicians in both parties are also rolling out new...legislation amid predictions that such issues will be prominent in the 2014 midterm and 2016 presidential campaigns. Paid leave and child care are emerging as centerpiece issues for many Democrats, part of their broader attempt to portray Republicans as hostile to issues important to women....Republicans, meanwhile, are pushing for additional tax breaks for working parents and other family-friendly proposals in hopes of attracting support from independents and Democrats." Zachary A. Goldfarb and Juliet Eilperin in The Washington Post.

Chart: Here's how few people in America have paid family leave. "Just 11 percent of Americans employed by private industry have access to some sort of paid family leave. For state and government employees, 16 percent can take paid family leave. The U.S. federal government provides no paid family leave to its employees, though they can use their sick days or vacation days that they've saved up. This state of affairs places America in a very small group." Rebecca J. Rosen in The Atlantic.

What about the federal government? Nope. "There’s paid sick leave, paid annual leave — and there’s planning ahead....For other federal employees, pregnancy often means unpaid leave....The conference comes two decades after Congress last changed federal leave standards in 1993 with the Family and Medical Leave Act. It promised workers a job-protected three months of unpaid leave for childbirth as well as familial and personal illnesses. While the law does not cover more than 40 percent of workers in the U.S., most federal workers fall within the law’s parameters _ as long as they have been in the job for a year. To expand protections, Obama supports the Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act, which would require four weeks of paid parental leave." Stephanie Haven in McClatchy Newspapers.