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Associations Among School Absenteeism, G.I. and Respiratory Illness, and Income

cdc.gov

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Re: Associations Among School Absenteeism, G.I. and Respiratory Illness, and Income

#11

Post by School-Cotton »

The headline here is incredibly misleading. The CDC is not making the factual claim that "low-income parents send sick kids to school due to lack paid sick leave".

The actual truth: a paper from the CDC finding an apparently quite weak link between poverty and rate of school absence due to sickness stuck that in as one of many somewhat plausible explanations, in a very speculative discussion section.

To emphasize: the headline of this story is not one of the factual scientific claims of the paper.

Re: Associations Among School Absenteeism, G.I. and Respiratory Illness, and Income

#12

Post by School-Cotton »

markdown wrote: post #5

Fiji just introduced 5 days/yr of "Family Care Leave" on the 1st of Jan, 2019. The Act doesn't require there to be sickness involved, so while you can take leave to care for your sick family member, theoretically you can also do so to support them at a school rugby match: https://i.imgur.com/Ct0wv5D.png Fiji is just barely above "third world" status. What's your excuse, USA?

> What's your excuse, USA?

Well, what's Fiji's excuse for being "barely above 'third world' status" ?

What makes you think it's normal for Fiji to have low standards of development, but it's an aberration for the USA?

It turns out there are many different dimensions of development, and just like many countries, the US ranks poorly on some of those dimensions, due to extremely complicated and maybe intractable political and cultural issues.

Re: Associations Among School Absenteeism, G.I. and Respiratory Illness, and Income

#13

Post by zeroname »

markdown wrote: post #5

Fiji just introduced 5 days/yr of "Family Care Leave" on the 1st of Jan, 2019. The Act doesn't require there to be sickness involved, so while you can take leave to care for your sick family member, theoretically you can also do so to support them at a school rugby match: https://i.imgur.com/Ct0wv5D.png Fiji is just barely above "third world" status. What's your excuse, USA?

Who is paying for those five extra days? Is it the health insurance? Your cost of health care will go up or service will get worse.

Is it taxes? Your taxes will go up or money will be missing in the budget (or you will need to get more debt).

Is it the employer? Wage suppression.

You haven't gained or won anything really. There's no free lunch.

I will make an exception though: If you make people stay home when they are sick, you may reduce sickness overall. However, if people spend their entire "Family Care Leave" on rugby matches and then illness strikes, it's not going to work.

Re: Associations Among School Absenteeism, G.I. and Respiratory Illness, and Income

#14

Post by jelliclesfarm »

Children are expensive. And it’s not about money. It’s about time and energy and effort and incessant tending and bonding.

I honestly think people need counseling and planning before they start to think about starting a family. They need back up plans and contingency strategies.

It used to be that we lived in small communal groups and non nuclear families. Usually matriarchal wherein the post menopausal grandmother plays a crucial role in the post reproductive years to give the attention children need.

Clearly this system worked. We will be hitting 10 billion by 2050 due to exponential population growth. But the world has changed. Coping with the new resource strapped crowded new world is not by handing over the responsibility of child rearing to the state or the tax payers.

There is NO village that will raise YOUR child. It’s time for responsible procreation and talk about such things without fear or shame of being chastised. We can now store our genetic material. People should be given a lot of advice and caution before they want bring children into our future. Responsible parenting must be incentivized and not just procreation in the form of tax breaks and taking over of child rearing by the state. This issue really stresses me and I only see it getting worse.

I don’t know why there isn’t enough funding or initiatives to address this.

Re: Associations Among School Absenteeism, G.I. and Respiratory Illness, and Income

#15

Post by renholder »

School-Cotton wrote: post #11

The headline here is incredibly misleading. The CDC is not making the factual claim that "low-income parents send sick kids to school due to lack paid sick leave". The actual truth: a paper from the CDC finding an apparently quite weak link between poverty and rate of school absence due to sickness stuck that in as one of many somewhat plausible explanations, in a very speculative discussion section. To emphasize: th…

Upboat for rationalisation.

Also, from the European perspective (and specifically speaking of the technology sector, as that's what I have first-hand experience with), taking sick leave to take care of a child at home isn't a thing, whatsoever. You would just send an email to your team saying that you're sorry but you're working from home because your kid is sick and that would be the end of it.

No compulsion to take vacation.

No compulsion to take sick leave.

No punitive punishments for being human and for your family members being human.

It really is a different world, over here. However, given the American exceptionalism showing up in the thread, I'm going to wager that this probably going to see some vitriolic response.

Re: Associations Among School Absenteeism, G.I. and Respiratory Illness, and Income

#16

Post by [deleted] »

posix_me_less wrote: post #9
eecc wrote: post #6

What sort of failed state does not mobilize to support and ease the pain of fellow humans living through such hardship. By the way, “poor life choices” is not a valid argument. Edit: ok, in view of the objections regarding the technical definiton of “failed state” let me reword it to “failed society”. It is closer to my own objection anyway

It isn't surprising to hear "failed state" in case of U.S., but in this case a lot of people do not want to spend money to ease the pain of other people living nearby, because living nearby does not mean being close anymore. This isn't due to failed state, this is due to people not feeling very close to each other.

[deleted]

Re: Associations Among School Absenteeism, G.I. and Respiratory Illness, and Income

#17

Post by markdown »

School-Cotton wrote: post #12
markdown wrote: post #5

Fiji just introduced 5 days/yr of "Family Care Leave" on the 1st of Jan, 2019. The Act doesn't require there to be sickness involved, so while you can take leave to care for your sick family member, theoretically you can also do so to support them at a school rugby match: https://i.imgur.com/Ct0wv5D.png Fiji is just barely above "third world" status. What's your excuse, USA?

> What's your excuse, USA? Well, what's Fiji's excuse for being "barely above 'third world' status" ? What makes you think it's normal for Fiji to have low standards of development, but it's an aberration for the USA? It turns out there are many different dimensions of development, and just like many countries, the US ranks poorly on some of those dimensions, due to extremely complicated and maybe intractable politic…

> Well, what's Fiji's excuse for being "barely above 'third world' status" ?

Well there's a very long list of reasons starting from geographic isolation to brain drain (incl. to the USA) all the way up to military coups, but I doubt that was a serious question so there's no point me answering your question in any great detail.

> What makes you think it's normal for Fiji to have low standards of development, but it's an aberration for the USA?

See above for why Fiji has low standards of development. In comparison, USA is the most prosperous and powerful nation on earth and has been for over a century. You've enjoyed democracy for almost 250 years. You've been to the moon.

> the US ranks poorly on some of those dimensions, due to extremely complicated and maybe intractable political and cultural issues.

And at last after the defensive stuff is out of the way, we see an attempt at an answer, abstract and hand-wavy though it is.

Re: Associations Among School Absenteeism, G.I. and Respiratory Illness, and Income

#18

Post by zeroname »

renholder wrote: post #15
School-Cotton wrote: post #11

The headline here is incredibly misleading. The CDC is not making the factual claim that "low-income parents send sick kids to school due to lack paid sick leave". The actual truth: a paper from the CDC finding an apparently quite weak link between poverty and rate of school absence due to sickness stuck that in as one of many somewhat plausible explanations, in a very speculative discussion section. To emphasize: th…

Upboat for rationalisation. Also, from the European perspective (and specifically speaking of the technology sector, as that's what I have first-hand experience with), taking sick leave to take care of a child at home isn't a thing, whatsoever. You would just send an email to your team saying that you're sorry but you're working from home because your kid is sick and that would be the end of it. No compulsion to take…

> (specifically speaking of the technology sector, as that's what I have first-hand experience with)

In other words, you're out of touch with ordinary, less privileged workers.

> It really is a different world, over here. The antithesis to the apathetical, if I may be so bold...

Oh, come on. If you're a developer you can have a "work from home" day in the US as well. Plus, you can earn far more and you pay less in taxes.

Re: Associations Among School Absenteeism, G.I. and Respiratory Illness, and Income

#19

Post by benj111 »

School-Cotton wrote: post #12
markdown wrote: post #5

Fiji just introduced 5 days/yr of "Family Care Leave" on the 1st of Jan, 2019. The Act doesn't require there to be sickness involved, so while you can take leave to care for your sick family member, theoretically you can also do so to support them at a school rugby match: https://i.imgur.com/Ct0wv5D.png Fiji is just barely above "third world" status. What's your excuse, USA?

> What's your excuse, USA? Well, what's Fiji's excuse for being "barely above 'third world' status" ? What makes you think it's normal for Fiji to have low standards of development, but it's an aberration for the USA? It turns out there are many different dimensions of development, and just like many countries, the US ranks poorly on some of those dimensions, due to extremely complicated and maybe intractable politic…

Unless you're suggesting causation between barely above 3rd world status, and having family days off I'm not sure what your point is?

Richer countries tend to (or should?) have nicer things, its reasonable to ask why one of the richest doesn't have something that much poorer countries do.

Re: Associations Among School Absenteeism, G.I. and Respiratory Illness, and Income

#20

Post by markdown »

zeroname wrote: post #13
markdown wrote: post #5

Fiji just introduced 5 days/yr of "Family Care Leave" on the 1st of Jan, 2019. The Act doesn't require there to be sickness involved, so while you can take leave to care for your sick family member, theoretically you can also do so to support them at a school rugby match: https://i.imgur.com/Ct0wv5D.png Fiji is just barely above "third world" status. What's your excuse, USA?

Who is paying for those five extra days? Is it the health insurance? Your cost of health care will go up or service will get worse. Is it taxes? Your taxes will go up or money will be missing in the budget (or you will need to get more debt). Is it the employer? Wage suppression. You haven't gained or won anything really. There's no free lunch. I will make an exception though: If you make people stay home when they a…

> Who is paying for those five extra days?

The cost is shared between taxpayers and the employer – employers get a 150% tax deduction for wages paid for family care leave.

Taxes will go up, and perhaps some prices. This is good.

> You haven't gained or won anything really. There's no free lunch.

Workers maybe haven't gained anything, but a worker has, and that's wonderful. You can argue all you want about economic models and the absence of free lunches but at the end of the day, a parent who needs to take care of a sick child gets to do that, and having the cost paid elsewhere in taxes or higher prices is a boon.

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