{"id":36609,"date":"2017-05-24T00:58:31","date_gmt":"2017-05-24T00:58:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefastfashion.com\/?p=36609"},"modified":"2017-05-24T00:58:31","modified_gmt":"2017-05-24T00:58:31","slug":"ivanka-trumps-maternity-leave-plan-cruel-joke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thefastfashion.com\/?p=36609","title":{"rendered":"Ivanka Trump\u2019s Maternity Leave Plan Is A Cruel Joke"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the urging of his daughter, Ivanka Trump, President Donald Trump made sure to include a provision for six weeks of paid parental leave in the budget plan his administration released Tuesday.<\/p>\n

This should be a welcome, landmark development for women in the U.S., the only developed country that doesn\u2019t require some kind of paid time off for new mothers.  <\/p>\n

Instead, it amounts to nothing more than a cruel joke in a budget that proposes gruesome reductions to social programs over the next decade. The plan includes a breathtaking overall cut of $1.4 trillion to Medicaid (a figure that presumes repeal of Obamacare) and the Children\u2019s Health Insurance Program. It also calls for a $193 billion slice out of food stamps and $272 billion in cuts to other programs that serve the poor.<\/p>\n

The budget seeks $19 billion for paid parental leave over 10 years.<\/p>\n

What good is the paid leave if you can\u2019t afford to feed yourself, take your baby to the doctor, pay your hospital bills, or get access to quality pre- or post-natal care?<\/p>\n

Advocates for paid leave, who\u2019ve been fighting for years for change, were near universal in their condemnation of the proposal. \u201cWorld\u2019s worst parental leave plan,\u201d said Katie Bethell, the founder of Paid Leave for the United States, a nonprofit group.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a testament to the national movement to solve the paid leave crisis that the Trump administration is even expected to offer a parental leave plan in its proposed budget. Unfortunately, based on details released so far, the proposal falls far short,\u201d  Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Even if the leave provision did not come wrapped in a package of brutal cuts to social services, the policy still falls down in its details.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n\n
<\/p>\n

Trump did expand the six weeks of leave to fathers and adoptive parents, who were excluded from the plan rolled out during his presidential campaign. However, the policy leaves out those workers who would need time off in case of serious illness or to care for ailing relatives, considered a standard part of family leave.<\/p>\n

The 1993 federal Family and Medical Leave Act, which provides 12 weeks of unpaid leave to workers at companies with more than 50 employees, includes that type of time off \u2015 as do state paid-leave plans in Rhode Island, California, New Jersey, and the one scheduled to go into effect next year in New York.<\/p>\n

For funding, the Trump leave plan would rely on the unemployment insurance system, already under-financed and under-utilized. The White House leaves the details entirely to the states to work out.<\/p>\n

Unemployment benefits are woefully inadequate, paying an average of $344 week, according to the National Employment Law Project. In 14 states unemployed workers get less than $300 a week. Fewer unemployed women typically qualify for unemployment insurance.<\/p>\n

Theoretically, Trump\u2019s leave plan could help someone like Regina Mays, who took six weeks of unpaid leave from her job that pays her about $10 an hour at a Walmart in High Point, North Carolina, after she had a baby girl last year<\/p>\n

With no money coming in, she struggled to feed herself and her four other children at home. \u201cThere was time when I paid the bills and I literally didn\u2019t have money for food,\u201d Mays told HuffPost recently. A relative came by with groceries for her and her kids so they didn\u2019t go hungry.<\/p>\n

There was at least one thing Mays said she didn\u2019t have to worry about: paying her hospital or doctor bills, which were covered by Medicaid.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s budget would rip that rug out from under mothers like Mays who theoretically would get about $1,800 for her six weeks at home, but without healthcare would also be on the hook for potentially tens of the thousands of dollars in medical bills.<\/p>\n

The math is terrifying.<\/p>\n

Cutting Medicaid would be devastating for all low-income Americans, but particularly for women and mothers: 45 percent of childbirths in the U.S. were funded by Medicaid in 2010, according to data from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.  <\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s budget also cuts funding for after-school programs for children and support for domestic violence victims.<\/p>\n

The budget proposal lays bear a perverse, reverse Robin Hood administration \u2015 taking from the poor to give tax cuts to the wealthy (proposed earlier this month).<\/p>\n

But on the bright side, like most White House budgets, Trump\u2019s is unlikely to become reality. As for the parental leave plan, Democrats see it as too skimpy. And there\u2019s little indication that GOP lawmakers, who are typically eager to cut taxes and slash social programs, would want to give Americans what the Republicans likely to view as a new entitlement.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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At the urging of his daughter, Ivanka Trump, President Donald Trump made sure to include a provision for six weeks of paid parental leave in the budget plan his administration released Tuesday. This should be a welcome, landmark development for women in the U.S., the only developed country that doesn\u2019t require some kind of paid time …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36610,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[38],"tags":[742],"yoast_head":"\nIvanka Trump\u2019s Maternity Leave Plan Is A Cruel Joke - TheFastFashion.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thefastfashion.com\/?p=36609\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ivanka Trump\u2019s Maternity Leave Plan Is A Cruel Joke - TheFastFashion.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"At the urging of his daughter, Ivanka Trump, President Donald Trump made sure to include a provision for six weeks of paid parental leave in the budget plan his administration released Tuesday. 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