Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Without parental leave I might be dead

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 570 posts

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#361

Post by jrumbut »

showerst wrote: post #338
burntoutfire wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's $2983 per month. Biggest costs of life are housing, food and transportation. With one person staying at home, both the cost of transpo and food go down (because: one less person commuting to job, everything can be home cooked and the person staying at home have time to shop smartly and save a lot thanks to it). This lives housing costs. Here, it's all about location. In many areas (assuming renting), you can h…

> That's $2983 per month. Before taxes. That's in the area of 2400/mo after taxes [1]. My family of 3 pays around 600/mo for health insurance after employer subsidies, so call it 1800/mo. So after rent now you're living (with an infant!) on 800 a month. That's brutal. My newborn burns nearly that much just on formula, diapers, and life-critical medicine. [1] https://smartasset.com/taxes/paycheck-calculator#nNffey40fm

And of course, this is the median salary. 50% of people make less.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#362

Post by pc86 »

baq wrote: post #312
Clubber wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you really wanted to treat it like a business relationship, any employee should constantly be looking for higher paying / better job and leave immediately when that job is offered, not even giving 2 weeks, because that's 2 weeks of additional income the employee wouldn't be getting. Are you in agreeable with that as well? Hard, cold business decisions work both ways.

a fully rational actor would do exactly that, unless he also puts utility value on hard to define 'relationships', but why would he if money in hand has clearly defined utility...? just another hole in classical economics and theory of rational choice.

You're building up a ridiculous strawman. Why, in your farcical example, does "fully rational" mean by definition maximizing short-term economic gain? Even if it's hard to give an exact value to a relationship (are you quoting something or do you mean the word ironically?) certainly a good relationship is better than a bad one, and poisoning a relationship strictly for economic gain has some sort of opportunity cost.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#363

Post by sircastor »

kingsloi wrote: post #297
conductr wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. Suppose I was assuming that wasn’t a factor here since they said they would have quit if not for employer based insurance.

If I didn't have to pay for medical, I likely could've survived on savings and GoFundMe.

It’s insane to me that our absurd health care system has routed around insurance systems shortcomings by literally begging friends, family and strangers to help us afford basic living.

And the insurance companies are laughing all the way to bank.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#364

Post by Broken_Hippo »

conductr wrote: post #278
sangnoir wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FMLA leave is unpaid. Not many people can afford to go through 8 months without income, especially with a child in the NICU.

Good point. Suppose I was assuming that wasn’t a factor here since they said they would have quit if not for employer based insurance.

Unfortunately, insurance doesn't provide any pay for sick leave, but rather, makes medical bills less than they would be otherwise (in general). Lots of folks are stuck with unpaid leave from jobs they need for the health insurance, and it really is a shame.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#365

Post by cm2012 »

bko wrote: post #7

I believe parental leave should be provided, but I don't see how anyone expects employers to shoulder the burden of providing paid parental (in reality maternity) leave without an implicit bias towards hiring men (or at least paying women less). You can provide the same benefit to men and women, but let's be honest, even when available most men take only a fraction of the allowed time. I guess you can force people to…

I think there should be more leave but it needs very strong federal subsidies.

I worked with someone from a European company working in the USA. She started her full time job here while she was on an 8 month maternity leave from her old European company (which she didn't plan on returning to afterwards). It would be fucked if her old company had to eat 8 months expenses and then not even have an employee returning back after.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#366

Post by [deleted] »

vadfa wrote: post #329
kingsloi wrote: post #217

I literally worked for most of my child's 8 month life, from her ICU room, I worked the morning of her 9 surgeries, I worked through the genetic diagnosis, I worked through being told my child has brain bleeds, neuroblastoma, is deaf, re-intubated, etc... if my insurance wasn't tied to my work, I would've quit in a heartbeat. I'm convinced I'll go to my grave with working that time being my biggest regret in life. I…

Sorry for your loss, but this is textbook appeal to emotion.

[deleted]

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#367

Post by chriselles »

kingsloi wrote: post #217

I literally worked for most of my child's 8 month life, from her ICU room, I worked the morning of her 9 surgeries, I worked through the genetic diagnosis, I worked through being told my child has brain bleeds, neuroblastoma, is deaf, re-intubated, etc... if my insurance wasn't tied to my work, I would've quit in a heartbeat. I'm convinced I'll go to my grave with working that time being my biggest regret in life. I…

I am so very sorry for your loss.

As a parent, your post is incredibly impactful.

As a company owner(20 FTE), I've had several staff take leave for catastrophic health issues in their immediate family.

It's been incredibly costly for my small company to keep paying them indefinitely beyond their accrued and used holiday/sick leave, but it's been worth it in the long run.

It has engendered the kind of effort, loyalty, and performance that can't be bought, only earned.

From the company's perspective, it hurts a lot up front but it makes sense ethically, morally, and I think financially as well.

Here in NZ, we have paid parental leave. Mostly taken by mothers, but with some nudging for fathers to take some of it as well.

When we had our children it was 12 weeks total combined paid parental leave.

It has since been extended to 26 weeks combined paid, with up to another 26 weeks unpaid.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#368

Post by sokoloff »

colechristensen wrote: post #214
KaiserPro wrote: post #28

I really cant understand the logic of forcing women back into work after 2-4 weeks. Its just not beneficial for anyone. The mum is utterly frazzled. The employer gets half an employee back Society is conditioned to think that the only practical way to raise a baby is to give up on work/get live in care. now, to look at it from a "my mum managed, I don't want to undermine the american nuclear family" point of view: Ye…

I think the core of the problem has a few basic parts: * the average person/family is trying to live a little beyond their means * “work needed to do” is like a gas, it expands to fit the hours worked * rent seeking elements expand to keep #1 true The takeaway is that there is a lot of “work” being done in the economy that doesn’t need to be done because prices will always rise a little past what people can pay comfo…

Renters are paying all the costs imposed upon landlords. Many people have perfectly valid reasons to want to rent housing rather than being coerced to buy by bearing the impact of huge taxes on rental property.

I’m not a landlord, but I rented 6 different places for a total of about 13 years after college plus my time during college. I’m glad those places were available at prices I could afford.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#369

Post by ProAm »

conductr wrote: post #258
kingsloi wrote: post #217

I literally worked for most of my child's 8 month life, from her ICU room, I worked the morning of her 9 surgeries, I worked through the genetic diagnosis, I worked through being told my child has brain bleeds, neuroblastoma, is deaf, re-intubated, etc... if my insurance wasn't tied to my work, I would've quit in a heartbeat. I'm convinced I'll go to my grave with working that time being my biggest regret in life. I…

US? FMLA? Just curious if you felt you couldn't take it due to company culture or if it just didn't apply to you? Either way, a horrible experience for you I know. I’ve been fortunate to work with folks that are family friendly when things like this arise. I can’t even imagine opening my laptop while in the hospital and in that headspace.

FMLA only applies for companies of a certain size

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#370

Post by alibarber »

beaconstudios wrote: post #300
ThinkBeat wrote: post #294

From the US live in Norway now. In Norway there are a lot of political parties that can matter. All depends on the election. Some grow, some dont, new ones are added, old ones go away. That is a dynamic that is entirely missing in the US. We have parties in the European left and we have parties on the European right, parties in the middle, green party etc etc. I try to get people to understand that we do not have a s…

It's really strange to think that the American left (AOC, Bernie) are fighting for such radical concepts as social healthcare, free education and paid maternity leave. I'm from the UK, the most capitalist European country and we had all three until we regressed on university fees thanks to our wonderful Conservative party.

Tuition fees were introduced in 1998, under a Labour government. Sure, at a tenth of their current rate but still, under a different government.
Post reply on HN