Paid Leave
Should businesses be required to provide paid leave for full-time employees during the birth of a child or sick family member?
We agree with the 2016 Democratic Party Platform:
"Democrats will make sure that the United States finally enacts national paid family and medical leave by passing a family and medical leave act that would provide all workers at least 12 weeks of paid leave to care for a new child or address a personal or family member’s serious health issue. We will fight to allow workers the right to earn at least seven days of paid sick leave. We will also encourage employers to provide paid vacation."
We agree with the Peace and Freedom Party Platform of 2014:
"We demand a legally mandated annual paid vacation of at least 4 weeks.
We demand parental leaves and time off work for childcare."
We agree with Our Revolution:
"Real family values are about making sure that parents have the time they need to bond with their babies and take care of their children and relatives when they get ill. Employers [should be required] to provide at least 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave, two weeks of paid vacation; and 7 days of paid sick days."
We agree with Andrew Yang 2020:
"America’s lack of mandated paid family leave is, quite frankly, stupid. Robust family leave plans have been shown to improve children’s health and increase women’s employment rates. We’re one of only a handful of countries to lack a federally mandated family leave policy and the others are Suriname, Papua New Guinea, and a few south Pacific island nations.
It’s embarrassing and unconscionable that in the most advanced country in the world we don’t account for something as basic as needing to spend time with your child when he or she is born. This drives mothers out of the workforce prematurely and impedes healthy development of infants, which is something we all pay for. We need to catch up to the civilized world and mandate paid family leave."
We agree with the Justice Democrats:
"The United States is one of just three countries in the world that doesn’t offer paid maternity leave, the others being Oman and Papua New Guinea. We are the only industrialized nation that doesn’t offer paid vacation time. This should be changed immediately."
