Yesterday Hillary stepped up her efforts to appeal to women and/or parent voters by laying out her plan modernize our approach to work and family. According to her website, Hillary’s work-family agenda will:
-Expand paid leave across the country through a new State Family Leave Innovation Fund
-Extend the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) to cover 13 million additional American workers and guarantee workers at least 7 paid sick days per year
-Promote model workplaces with grants to support new workplace flexibility programs and a federal telecommuting initiative
-Ensure better access to affordable, high quality child care; and
-Prevent parents from being discriminated against because of pregnancy or their care giving responsibilities.
To fund this new model, according to her website:
The total cost of Hillary Clinton's work-family agenda is approximately $1.75 billion per year. Hillary will finance this cost without increasing the deficit by dedicating the revenue from enacting the anti-tax sheltering reform referred to as "codifying the economic substance doctrine." By establishing a uniform definition of a tax shelter, this reform will help crack down on abusive tax transactions that have no economic purpose. It will raise $2 billion in 2012 and about $26 billion over ten years, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.
A new study released by the Project on Global Working Families at the Institute of Health and Social Policy at McGill University, finds the "United States lags behind all high-income countries, as well as many middle- and low-income countries, in providing paid childbirth-related leave, workplace protections for breastfeeding mothers, and family-friendly working time regulations." For example, "of 173 countries studied, 168 offer guaranteed leave with income to women in connection with childbirth; 98 offer 14 or more weeks of paid leave. The five countries that do not provide paid childbirth leave are the United States, Lesotho, Liberia, Papua New Guinea and Swaziland." Hillary's initiatives would go a long way toward a more appropriate work and family balance.
These issues are not new for Hillary. She's talked about paid family medical leave for sometime, she was the first to announce a proposal for a major expansion of S-CHIP, and she's already co-authored a proposal to expand choices in child care for low-income parents. While some of these ideas may appeal more to women or parents, they are really proposals that will effect all Americans.
When you take in totality this plan, her American Retirement Accountsproposal, and her American Health Choices Plan, she's really laying out a vision for empowering American workers. Hillary's work/family plan would empower workers to ask their employers for a more flexible schedule. While the employer would not be required to accept the request, just the notion that one has the guaranteed right to ask for such changes as job sharing or telecommuting is powerful. According to Hillary's website, "In the United Kingdom, after adoption of a similar law, 7 out of 10 requests made by employees were granted, and 80% of employers surveyed felt that flexible workplace arrangements were easily accommodated in their organization." Hillary has also promised to sign into law the EFCA.
With portable health coverage and access to a medicare-type program, workers will be able to leave their job without the burden of losing their health insurance. Entrepreneurs will be free to start new small businesses without the worry that they will be priced out of health care. With her retirement savings program, Americans will be able to borrow against their accounts during unexpected periods of unemployment, or to help pay for irregular large expenditures, like a down payment for a new home. According to the Washington Post, Hillary's savings plan (unlike current savings incentives, and a Republican plan brought forward by Mitt Romney) would "direct savings where they are most needed -- to retirement accounts -- in a way contrary to the perverse current system, in which the best-off Americans get the most from tax incentives to save." Like her health initiative, the savings plans are fully portable, would encourage employers to adopt an opt-out policy, and would offer a federal plan modeled on the Congressional Thrifty program, which companies or individuals could utilize.
While Hillary has vowed not to touch social security, it's worth noting, according to the Post, "Nearly one-third of households do not have enough retirement savings, along with Social Security benefits, to replace even half their pre-retirement incomes." This is a real concern especially since according to that same article, "American's don't save enough. For the past few years, Americans have been saving less than 1 percent of their disposable incomes, down from 11 percent in 1984." So, this supplemental program would work to boost savings as well as offering a career long safety net to American workers.
What Hillary is proposing is a real change in American life. Our approach to work, health, and home is outdated. It worked when people spent their careers at the same company, when a family could succeed on one income, and when post retirement life expectancies were much shorter. But, it doesn't work anymore. There is a distinct imbalance and American workers are bearing the brunt of it. Hillary is careful to include measures to off-set the costs of her proposals, such as freezing the estate tax, and closing corporate tax loopholes. Hillary's plans require and reward individual responsibility. These are not entitlements, but rather a forward thinking approach to today's changing landscape.
Hillary's plans put the worker in the driver seat of their life decisions. From the small stuff...Kid sick? No worries, you're covered, you can take a paid sick day to care for your child. Have to care for an elderly parent in a health emergency? You can take some family leave time to sort things out. To the larger decisions... Work schedule no longer working for you? Ask your employer about telecommuting a couple of days a week. Buying a new home? Borrow a little from your retirement plan to to pay for the down payment. Having a baby? Don't worry, you're going to be able to take those first vital months at home without going broke, and without risk of losing your job. Opening a bookstore(my dream) but can't afford private health insurance, buy into the Congressional plan, it's affordable. This kind of clarity of purpose is why I am so excited about Hillary's run for president.
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