In Canada, if you’re working, you are paying into Employment Insurance. Assuming a person has worked a certain amount of hours in the preceding 52 weeks (and is not self-employed), the parent (mother/father/adoptive parent) would be entitled to 55% of their wages for 50 weeks (these can be divided between the parents). How I wish I was employed.
I am constantly amazed at how little time Americans are permitted to take after giving birth/adopting a child.
Take as much time as you like. But why on earth would anyone expect to be getting paid for doing so?
Hey, things could be worse, Inkleberry. You could own the place you’re living and deal with having it on the market.
I used to be a big proponent of staying with the neighborhood, running out the crack dealers, improving the schools, etc., etc. When it came to the point that the police were knocking on my door at midnight to tell me they were going over my fence and into my back yard (note: not a mythical “in your back yard” meaning close, but actually inside my six-foot, locked fence), and could I please keep my dog inside and stay away from the windows . . .
At that point every house on the block had a FOR SALE sign in front of it. They were sprouting like weeds. My realtor thought I should send my dog to a kennel because having a dog like that made it look like a bad neighborhood–but it was a bad neighborhood, and the dog, while also a family pet, provided protection. Or at least the illusion.
Anyway we bailed and, not having enough money to pay rent and the house payment, we ended up giving the house back to the bank. Which is not a hell of a lot better for your credit rating than actually getting foreclosed. On the plus side, if there was one, it really pissed off the realtor. (Groan . . . if we could have held on for 10 more months, as it turned out, and if we hadn’t had two elementary school-aged kids, maybe we could have–but no. That house is now valued at $350,000 and the neighborhood is fine. What a difference ten years makes.)
Anyway, hope things get better for you, and I know they will.
Maybe so their valued employees will return after their maternity leave? C’mon, somebody else pointed out that a great many SDMB members post and read from work. Do you suppose they are getting paid for labor the business isn’t receiving?
Anyway the average worker is productive something less than four hours a day, in many cases considerably less. I don’t think it’s a law, but a lot of businesses have some kind of short-term disability program that entitles the employee who takes time off for medical reasons to something like 60% of their salary, for up to two years. For labor that the business doesn’t receive.
Seems like it would be easy enough to rewrite this kind of policy to include parental leave. “Embracing family values” in this country seems to mean that mothers shouldn’t work and workers shouldn’t mother.
I don’t know how the US system works, but in Canada, we expect to be paid since we paid into Employment Insurance.
He’s being an asshat. He knows damn well it’s the same here. Disability insurance and such.
Nope.
I’ve lived in the US all my life and I have no clue about this “Hayward”, either. I gather it’s in California and not quite as well off as, say, Malibu. Then again, how wonderful can those neighborhoods with the 100 million dollar mansions be, what with the mudslides and homes falling off cliffs into the ocean?
(see, Inkleberry, everyone in California has porch problems 
)
Neither do I. But from what she says it reminds me considerably of living in East Edgewater in Chicago in the 1980’s
Um-'cause we are supposed to value people? Because if we invest in families in all ways, the dividends, both financial and social will be better? Because it’s the right thing to do? Because if you want an educated, healthy workforce in future, you need to support the parents?
inkleberry --my bootstrap comment was sarcasm! I loathe the whole “pull yerself up godammit” mindset.
I always want to grab those people, throw them against a wall and say:“you’re depressed when Starbuck’s frappochino machine is on the blink! You try to handle literally living hand to mouth–when missing one day of work means bye bye job etc…”
Entitled assholes piss me off.
(I’m a doctor’s daughter–so I know the intolerance and ignorance that pervades the upper classes about the those less fortunate–morons).
If you offer some sort of benefit to the employee, the odds of that employee returning to work grow exponentially. This is actually a savings to the employer. If I pay you 50% of your salary for 6 weeks while you’re out, and you return, I don’t have to train someone new. Usually it costs somewhere between 100% and 200% of salary to train someone when you figure in thier salary, and the salary of the person doing the training. The best way I’ve seen this handled in the past is to find someone, often through a temp agency, who is somewhat qualified, and have them shadow the person leaving, so they can do the job. That person will usually be paid less than the person going on leave, as temps usually are, and will understand that the person is returning. They also get something nice on their resume as far as experience goes. It still saves the company money in the long run. It also creates employee loyalty, reducing turnover, reducing training costs, and statistically reducing sick days. By offering great family benefits, even the people without families realize they work for a great company. Everybody wins.
Do you remember a few years ago when East Palo Alto finally beat out Washington DC for the top homicide-per-capita rate? East Palo Alto (EPA) is across the Dumbarton Bridge from Hayward, and after that infamous year many of the slums in EPA were torn down. Apparently all the desperate people moved to Hayward, because now that the cheap housing in EPA is gone, working class people (teachers, nurses, technical writers) can’t afford to live on this side of the bay unless they are stacked like cordwood 10 to a bedroom.
It really says something about the times and the area when “teachers, nurses, [and] technical writers” are considered “working class.” 
Yup. The city I live in (not EPA anymore, praise G-d) has a subsidy program so if you work *and * live in the city you can get help with your rent or mortgage. The program is directed at nurses/cops/public school-teachers. I often wonder where the real working class (FedEx drivers, waitresses, grocery store clerks) people who work in my neighborhood live.
Sometimes. Some employers offer disability insurance, but at least here in IL there is no legal requirement for them to do so. I’m damn glad to have mine, but at my last job short-term disability with pay was at management discretion except in very limited circumstances. I think my new job gives a couple of weeks paid 100% until you’ve been there a few years, and then bumps it down to 60% or so until you’re eligible for long-term disability after 26 weeks. Long-term disability insurance is available, but you have to pay for it, and it doesn’t pay full salary either (though you can purchase it at a couple of different levels of income replacement).
This is way above the norm of all the places I’ve worked - my company has something like 80,000 U.S. employees, and some of the best benefits out there.
You answered your own question here.
Likely the baby wasn’t planned. It happens to the best of us. Birth control fails. Hell, I was THIRTY when I found out I was going to have an “oopsie” baby.
Now I am a hardcore believer in personal responsibility and get very frustrated at the worthless leeches and bums in society, but those of you that are condemning someone’s lifestyle AFTER the fact and without knowing the situation sound like Dr. Laura trying to close the barn door after the horses have all escaped.
People do the best they can. the bootstrap process doesn’t happen overnight. Even if inkleberry (or families like hers) DON’T have some medical reasons for getting or being behind. Good GOD, they’re working on it, they’re not on welfare, they understand the process and are working within it the best they can.
inkleberry, have you considered trying to find another young couple in a similar situation with whom to share a house in a better area? That is what my husband (now ex) and I did when we were very young and expecting our daughter. Shared babysitting responsibilities can help you all with your work and/or schools schedules.
In the meantime, I’m sorry things are sucky right now, it does get better though, don’t give up, do whatever you can to GET that secondary education, imho, that’s key to rising above “working poor”.
And above all, don’t beat yourself up for your current status, it’s quite obvious from your posts that you are very aware of what’s going on around you and that you’re working hard to change it.
Gah, somehow I missed your post about already having an education so strike that part of my post (sheepish smiley).
I THOUGHT you sounded awfully well-spoken.
The rest of my post stands though, and I agree with the tone of the post of yours I missed. The part regarding the mentality of “only certain classes of people being “suitable” to have children”.
So, if a couple’s financial abilities become reduced do they then need to give up their kids?
Sheesh.
We spent last weekend in Indianapolis visiting relatives, and I have to say it was a relief to be in an area full of ordinary working-class people who are able to support themselves. Chicagoland is awful in this regard, although teachers in my district are very well paid with the mean salary in the mid-$70s (houses are $400k).
inkleberry good luck! California prices are crazy!
You probably only meant this in the rhetorical sense, but I’ve got to call it out anyway. I know you’d rather have some CD’s stolen out of your car than have your children shot in the face just for evil’s sake.
Hayward is probably in the first stages of gentrification. Do you notice artists and gay people moving in? If so, buy some property NOW! Your investment will probably triple over the next 10 years. As soon a sproperty values rise, the homeless and addicts will move out=and you will have some decent neighbors.
The same thing happened here in the South End of Boston-property you couldn’t GIVE away 15 years ago is now selling for millions!
Hang in there, and protect yourself-there is a light at the end of the tunnel!
I know this is going to come off as just adding to the pile-on, but it’s really not. I’m genuinely curious: are you planning to stay in CA and, if so, why?
I know that you can’t afford to move now, but you’ve said many times that you are trying to move somewhere better. Is that somewhere better still in CA? Your and your husband’s jobs aren’t so specialized that you need to be there; it sounds like you could live in pretty much any large-ish city. There are plenty of towns where the working class actually lives pretty well.
Again, I’m really not criticizing; everyone makes their own choices. I’ve just never understood why struggling in CA is so much better than being okay somewhere a little less…uh…glamorous?
Wrong bucko. Pregnancy is NOT a disability, and does not qualify you for benefits under any “disability insurance” in the U.S. Unless you have an actual cite to prove otherwise? I’ll wait, but I’m not holding my breath, either.
Yeah, I understand that, and agree completely. But paid maternity leave is still a benefit, not a right. So if some company offers a 50% of salary benefit, how is that not better than the 0% one is legally entitled to?
How is some benefit, rather than no benefit, “obscene”, as Inkleberry claims?