Pregnant people in New York would have 40 hours of paid leave to attend prenatal medical appointments under a new proposal by Gov. Kathy Hochul after the state’s legislative session kicked off this week.
The Democrat’s plan to expand the state’s paid family leave policy, which would need to be approved by the state Legislature, aims to expand access to high-quality prenatal care and prevent maternal and infant deaths in New York, an issue that especially affects low-income and minority communities.
The U.S. infant mortality rate, a measure of how many babies die before they reach their first birthday, is worse than other high-income countries, which experts have attributed to poverty, inadequate prenatal care and other possibilities. The U.S. rate rose 3% in 2022 — the largest increase in two decades, according to a 2023 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
We’re saying that entire societies benefit from having parents spend early months/years with their young children. Because society as a whole profits from that activity, that activity should be subsidized by the government.
And I promise I’m at least as old as you
I think it’s fine raising taxes on the wealthy so working folks can stay at home with their families.
My issue is that requiring employers to do that means that it’s impossible to start a business if you don’t already have a lot of excess capital and an established customer base.
Can Google do it? Absolutely.
Can an average food truck do it? Absolutely not.
If your employer can’t afford to give new parents leave, then one way or another you are being exploited for somebody else’s profit.
What exactly is your point? That every business who can’t afford to pay employees who aren’t working shouldn’t get to operate? Just go ahead and say it, unless you’re afraid it’s a stupid idea and you’re purposefully avoiding admitting it for this reason.
That’s how you’re literally only left with big name companies like Google and Amazon.
If your business cannot support the basic operating costs of the humans it employs, it has no value to society. It’s a parasite that feeds off the welfare spending of the state to enrich it’s owner.
True, but businesses have proven that humans don’t need months off with pay for having children.
The solution of course is having a payroll type tax that funds parental leave. Everyone pays in, and the government pays out so companies, large and small, don’t have to deal with the issue you’re talking about. I’d like my employer to have zero say in things like this, unless they want to go above and beyond. Same for healthcare. Let companies be companies, and let’s use taxes to find societal needs
Pretty much every regulation like this has a minimum busi ness size it applies to, for exactly this reason