Unconditional Basic Income as Paid Family Leave
In an episode of Last Week Tonight about paid family leave, John Oliver shined a light on something important we tend to not discuss, and that is the way we in the United States collectively treat those who just gave birth - we force them right back to work.
That part at the end... where they show the mothers involuntarily forced to return to their jobs... imagine that one of those jobs was taking care of someone else's newborn. Does that idea make this even more absurd? Because it should.
Why is it only considered work worthy of pay when a parent is paid to raise a kid other than their own?
Raising kids is work. In fact, a stay-at-home parent can be seen as equivalent to about $74,000 in free labor. A study by the University of Washington estimates the total amount of unpaid care work in the US as being over $700 billion per year, or over 4% of GDP. In fact, if we look only at those of working age outside the labor market, 39% of them are actively engaged in unpaid care work, most of whom are women.
The idea that parenting is work that shouldn't go unpaid isn't new. Starting in the late 1960s and peaking in the 1970s, groups of women in the UK referring to themselves as "unsupported mothers" went about forming "Claimants Unions"with one major goal.
Here “claimants” refers to the people who claim various social benefits and services; pensioners,the disabled, the sick, social assistance recipients, single parents, students, the unemployed, etc. While these people were not perceived as having common interests before, claimants unions sought to make their common interests explicit by recognizing a common enemy; i.e., the department of social security, and then pressing the same demand; i.e., Basic Income.
They sought this goal for two decades. And they were not alone.
Another movement in the 70s was the Wages for Housework movement started in Italy that went global in the attempt to get home care work recognized as work worthy of pay. This image from around the same time explains the reasoning well at a glance.
Workers get paid, but those who are making the workers don't. Their labor is free and their value to the entire system goes unrecognized.
Now here we are decades later, and we're still not recognizing the work of parents, despite all of our empty talk to the contrary as pointed out so well in John Oliver's piece. We are hypocrites. We are hypocrites who go on and on about the value of parents and how much they mean to us out of one corner of our mouths in America, while outright punishing them out of the other, in our refusal to legislate paid parental leave as almost every other country in the world has already done.
So what can we do? If we as Americans hate mandates so much, and refuse to force businesses to offer paid time off to new parents, what can we do? Is there a way to effectively enable it without a mandate?
Yes. And guess what the answer is? It's universal basic income.
We tested the idea of a basic income guarantee here in the US in the 1970s, as did Canada, and we did it specifically to look at the effect it would have on hours worked. The results are summarized in the table below.
The far right column shows the effect on single mothers. The largest effect in terms of fewer hours worked was 134 hours in Denver and Seattle. The largest effect in terms of percentage reduction in hours worked was in Gary, Indiana at 23%. Since 134 hours is equivalent to about seventeen 8-hour days, single mothers in Denver and Seattle effectively took just about a month in paid vacation. It's important to note too that this effect was mainly only among new mothers. New mothers used their basic incomes to extend their maternity leave, not all mothers. Single mothers with older kids continued to work as usual.
Now, since one of the biggest fears of basic income opponents is the reduction of hours worked, let's assume the "worst-case scenario" of all new parents, mothers and fathers both, reducing their hours by 23%, as was seen in Gary, even though that reduction was actually only 84 hours, which was the national average.
A 23% reduction in hours for a full-time worker working 40 hours a week (1,700 hours per year) would be 391 hours. That works out to just about 10 weeks. In other words, it's possible that if everyone had a basic income, new parents would use their basic incomes to voluntarily take about 10 weeks of parental leave on average. And where would that put us compared to other countries?
We'd still be at the bottom but we'd be just about on par with Switzerland and the UK, and it would be entirely voluntary instead of mandated. For those who are against government mandates, this should be an extremely appealing alternative to mandated leave.
If new parents will voluntarily choose to work a bit less so as to spend some weeks or months away from the office and instead at home with their newborns when given basic incomes, why not make that choice possible? Why force people to work or force people not to work, when you can just make work itself voluntary in the first place, and trust the evidence we have that shows how primary earners with basic incomes continue working, and even create new businesses at higher rates?
Without our parents, all the work we do now would not exist because we would not exist. They created the entire labor force. The work of parents should no longer go unrecognized, and all parents should have the option to voluntarily take some time off to start off the lives of their children on the right foot. This means income outside of the labor market to prevent poverty. This means, unconditional basic income.
Interested in doing more to grow the basic income movement than you can through social media alone? Filling out this survey from the Universal Income Project would be helpful. You can also sign the Economic Security Project's belief statement, join the Basic Income Slack channel, Basic Income Action, and the U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network.
I can't help but have the following train of thought....
It would appear then, that some Christians in Congress have some notable and unsupported beliefs about the role of women in a capitalist society.
I know I'm going out on a limb here, but suffice it to say, if free market proponents truly want to live in a civilized society, the creation of that society starts in the home. Supporting the otherwise unpaid caregiver is one way to do that. If life is a fight over a sandwich for the mother, then don't expect to see very civilized people going forth and multiplying.
I note also studies I've seen to show that men who are fathers tend to be paid less than men with no families because they are wiling to work for less. A man with a family is not willing to risk losing income over a fight for higher wages when he has a job.
It would seem to me then, that even men who support a mother and kids is getting shortchanged because he is not willing to entertain the risks that a worker without a family would face in the quest for a a raise.
A universal basic income would help to even the playing field for parents with kids, single parents with kids, and even a single earner family. A universal basic income would help to quell much of the unrest in America when 75% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.
I do not believe that the majority of people who claim to be Christians actually are. Nowhere in the teachings of Jesus does he tell us that women are chattels. Nowhere does he say that men should decide what happens to women's bodies.
For example, I do not think that, under many circumstances, abortions are proper. I support my belief by promising never to have one.
Of course, there would be far fewer abortions if "Christian" men were not hell bent on making it extremely difficult for women not to get pregnant in the first place.
Let's see just what these so called Christians want for our women:
5 etc.) I could go on and on, but I think this is enough rant for now. Sorry, couldn't help it.
Oh, I nearly forgot the arsehole who said, with a straight face, that if it's truly rape a woman cannot get pregnant. I guess the egg magically knows the difference.
Trust me, I'm a doctor.
Catweasel
Just as they say to beware of false prophets, so too do we need to beware of false Christians. I agree with you on all points. Well said.
On another tangent, I have written about how odd it is that Martin Luther King arrived at such a different conclusion as so many racist Christians have with regard to the supposed supremacy of whites. As you say, racists must not be truly Christian, for I doubt Christ said anything about the color of skin with regard to whom shall be saved (I'm not a Christian and have never read the Bible all the way through but I'll take it on King's word that he's right).
I'm not opposed to UBI, but I'm also not convinced that we should do whatever everyone else does.
Doing what everyone else is doing would be mandating paid parental leave. My point here was that we could not do paid parental leave, and instead do universal basic income, so as to accomplish the purpose of paid parental leave, but voluntarily instead of via government mandate.
Is the purpose of paid family leave a good cause?
I can foresee this as Pandora's Box, where there is constant pressure to increase UBI to accommodate this or that group, until we tax ourselves into Oblivion.
I recommend watching the video at the top of this when you have the time to do so.
Okay. That doesn't really answer my question.
I suggest we not take Comedy Central editorials too seriously.
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I'm less opposed to this particular idea than I am the core principles behind it.
Just because every other country is doing something does not make it a good idea. The US is on top for a reason. Part of that reason is the relatively free market economy and business friendly regulatory system.
Some employers (namely those hiring skilled workers) should take care of their employees. Their reputation and their business model depends on it. Others, (those hiring unskilled workers) should not realistically be expected to provide the same level of pay or care. Why should I go through all the work of gaining training and expertise to provide greater value for an employer when I can just flip burgers or check people out at the grocery store for the same gain?
A free market economy provides a place for the upper class and lower class alike. The result is that even the poor living in a rich free market system are better off than the poor in a heavily regulated socialist system.
So if you want this, you can get it. But you're going about it the wrong way. You need free market solutions to incentivize employers to do what you want, not place mandates on them. Look at services like glassdoor.com which is doing a fantastic job of holding employers accountable the free market way with ratings and reviews.
Not everyone will be able to work for a 5 star employer. Not every employer will care to become a 5 star employer. If you want a good job with good pay and good benefits you have to have the skills required to get it.
As an employer myself I can tell you - when deciding between two equally qualified candidates, one who may require extra leave and one who won't, I'm going to choose the one who won't. Because why wouldn't I?
What right do you have to decide what a candidate may or may not do? She may be a lesbian, she may be infertile, she may just not want children. You have no right to ask if any of these are true, and she is under absolutely no obligation to tell you whether any of these do or do not apply.
Furthermore, chances are she'll work harder than the man, just to appear as good. And you'll probably pay her less.
Another way you could look at this is, she deserves a job she's qualified for.You may be her best chance to get one. The man she's competing against stands an excellent chance of getting hired elsewhere. The lady you just turned down will go on to another interview, where chances are she'll meet a bigger arsehole who will turn her down in favour of a less qualified man.
Trust me, I'm a doctor.
Catweasel.
Exactly. I'm not saying it's fair. I'm saying it becomes less fair when you place a regulatory burden and incentive for hiring one person over another. It's not a matter of whether I'm an asshole or not, it's simple math. I am buying a person's time and effort for money. One candidate will give me more time and effort, the other less. If the time and effort of both are otherwise equally valuable and will cost the same, why would I take the one who is more likely to give me less?
I'm not a heartless person, actually quite the opposite. I donate to charity, I give to homeless, I help people where I can. But math is math and statistics are statistics. Men require less maternity leave than women, and maternity leave is a burden on the business. If I'm choosing between two candidates, it's no more heartless to turn down one candidate over another. A person of equal value is being turned down either way. It's not my fault that things are the way they are.
Further, it's not a matter of what I will do. It's a matter of what everyone will do, or what people will do more often than not. You'll probably still be able to find a job as a pregnant woman, but it will be just that little bit more difficult.
If you hire only men who don't have or plan to have families your pool of talent is significantly diminished. And there are probably those you wish to hire who have a problem with this policy.
On a utilitarian basis alone I think your model will produce poorer results. I won't try to argue the ethics of the position since you are proposing that ethics don't have a place in this equation. People however, do have values that come into play when deciding what makes a company a better employer.
Then there's the argument that diversity tracks positively with greater profits. I buy that argument since a diverse workforce is likelier to understand the needs of a greater range of customers.
So again, I'm not saying you hire certain people based on a single factor alone. I'm saying that all the factors weigh together. It probably won't affect the decision 95% of the time. But that 5% that it DOES matter means that the workforce will be majority males, even if by a slight margin.
You're not making it impossible for a certain demographic to find a job, but you are making it slightly harder.
I live in the UK and I remember being gobsmacked when I heard the US doesn't have any maternity/paternity leave. It's just such a foreign concept not to have that.
Pretty crazy isn't it? It makes me wonder how many people in the US realize how almost everyone else has it except us.
and @cantonwheels - I teach Global Development - there's a pretty strong case to made for the argument that America is a Less Developed Country - I'll have to add in lack of maternity pay to the list!
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Right on the money, as usual, Scott. I've only lived / spent time in one country that does not make some provisions for proper care of newborns. Some are better than others, but anything is better than nothing.
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@cryptomomma just started back to work yesterday, our son being 10 weeks old. She didn't have paid leave from work because she wasn't a "full-time" employee, as she is also in her senior year of college. I'm not so sure that anyone should have had to pay for us to have a child, though. We made a decision that we knew would have an impact on our budget, so why should anyone else be required to cover even part of that burden?
The reason society might have a compelling interest in supporting childbirth is to support new tax payers (i.e. kids who grow up, work and pay taxes) Those taxes go toward maintaining existing services including Social Security for retirees. If there are too few paying taxes the whole system falls apart. Here's a link to an article on countries experiencing negative population growth. And here's a wikipedia entry on Population Decline - the sector titled, "Economic consequences" is a good historical overview. It also covers what can be expected when a country either doesn't have a replacement rate or has a declining population.
So it's not only a selfish position to think government funded childcare and basic income are good things. They can benefit society. And yes, 'the devil's in the details'. That's why there should be thoughtful experiments to see what gives the greatest benefits to the greatest number of people.