Pregnant people in New York would have 40 hours of paid leave to attend prenatal medical appointments under a new proposal by Gov. Kathy Hochul after the state’s legislative session kicked off this week.
The Democrat’s plan to expand the state’s paid family leave policy, which would need to be approved by the state Legislature, aims to expand access to high-quality prenatal care and prevent maternal and infant deaths in New York, an issue that especially affects low-income and minority communities.
The U.S. infant mortality rate, a measure of how many babies die before they reach their first birthday, is worse than other high-income countries, which experts have attributed to poverty, inadequate prenatal care and other possibilities. The U.S. rate rose 3% in 2022 — the largest increase in two decades, according to a 2023 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
I really wish someday there would be more a push for paid leave for EVERYONE.
I do not begrudge parents paid parental leave and think it should be offered. But it would be nice if someone were to consider doing something, anything for the rest of us. Instead, we only get the extra work of picking up the slack.
This is leave to attend prenatal medical appointments, not vacation time. They don’t schedule those for funsies, it’s to see if you or your fetus might die.
Like, yes, everyone deserves more time off. At the same time, prenatal healthcare in the US is inaccessible for many and it has lifelong or even deadly consequences. Framing this as a “time off” issue instead of an “able to afford access to medical care” issue is missing what’s causing the need for this in the first place.
Do you think pregnant people are the only ones that need to go to the doctor? They could still make it medical only and apply to everyone.
And medical care or vacation, you think the rest of us don’t have to pick up the slack just the same?
The fact is, the US is doing it wrong. Other countries have more generous family leave, but it is a government benefit, not employer-paid. That often lets employers hire temporary replacements regather than be short staffed. Also, they offer ample vacation benefits so everyone else isn’t burnt out.
Do you not understand that pregnancy is a high risk condition (even outside high risk pregnancies, you are already more medically fragile just from pregnancy)?
Why are so you insistent that everyone has to benefit from policies that are aimed at fixing infant and maternal death rates in the US, which I will emphasize again are comparable to developing nations and not industrialized nations?
Why are you crying about “picking up slack” when pregnant people are literally dying due to lack of access to prenatal appointments? I’m sorry but wake the fuck up. This is not a vacation. It’s not a visit to the dentist. If you think it’s more important to make sure everyone is treated the same than it is to address people and infants dying in childbirth then you have your head screwed on backwards.
Do you not understand that pregnancy is a high risk condition (even outside high risk pregnancies, you are already more medically fragile just from pregnancy)?
Do you think pregnancy is the only high-risk condition there is? Screw people with diabetes, cancer, multiple sclerosis, ALS, lupus, Crohn’s disease, schizophrenia, and a litany of other health problems, I guess.
Why are so you insistent that everyone has to benefit from policies that are aimed at fixing infant and maternal death rates in the US, which I will emphasize again are comparable to developing nations and not industrialized nations?
Why are we only worried about infant and maternal deaths and not all deaths?
Why are you crying about “picking up slack” when pregnant people are literally dying due to lack of access to prenatal appointments? I’m sorry but wake the fuck up. This is not a vacation. It’s not a visit to the dentist. If you think it’s more important to make sure everyone is treated the same than it is to address people and infants dying in childbirth then you have your head screwed on backwards.
People are literally dying of cancer and other diseases and don’t get paid time off, either. I never said it was a vacation. And people need more healthcare than just going to the dentist.
If you think it’s more important to make sure everyone is treated the same than it is to address people and infants dying in childbirth then you have your head screwed on backwards.
Why is it a choice? If everyone gets medical leave, does this not address the issue for women and children as well? Where is this false dichotomy coming from?
Sorry I think equal pay for equal work is such a good concept. Since I am expected to do more work, perhaps men and the childfree should be paid more.
Just say you’re fine with pregnant people and infants dying if you don’t get something out of it and go.
If you don’t understand why this is necessary even if it doesn’t personally benefit you there’s nothing I can do to explain it further. Goodbye.
What a strawman. I say to prevent the deaths of more people, you claim that means I want women and infants to die.
Turnabout is fair play: Just say you’re fine with everyone else dying so long as you get what you want.
For many people in North America (but admittedly not all), pregnancy is a choice. If I choose to get elective surgery, should I not also be entitled to time off for the medical appointments?
I never wanted kids but if I could get 40 hours off for having one I would have like 10. /s
Seriously, it’s just 40 hours that most women will use once or twice in their lives and they get it for doing something exhausting, very painful and pretty dangerous. On top of that as society you actually need at least some women to do it. Are people really jealous about 40 hours of leave sprinkled on top of the shit experience that pregnancy is? That’s some new levels of egoism…
There are a ton of exhausting, painful, and dangerous things requiring medical appointments that aren’t pregnancy. All of them should get paid leave. That’s all I mean 😅
Providing incentives to have children, if the society wants to encourage that goal, is another thing entirely. I hadn’t really considered that!
Actually most conditions that are as debilitating as pregnancy would qualify you for sick leave or (if prolongled) disability. At least where I live. I understand sick leave is another issue in USA but denying care to pregnant women doesn’t really solve anything here. In this case they are pretty much saying that even though pregnancy is not a sickness it shout still get people some limited protection.
Pregnancy is often not an intentional choice (nearly 50% of pregnancies in the US are unintended). It’s also something literally necessary for the continuation of society, unlike a tummy tuck.
Also, you don’t take 9 months to recover from elective surgery unless something went wrong. Pregnant people need more appointments for longer than people getting elective surgery, sometimes weekly if the pregnancy becomes high risk.
You’re also already entitled to time off from surgery under the FMLA. This bill EDIT: proposal is for paid time off to go to prenatal appointments. This is because prenatal care in the US is expensive AF, inaccessible to many, and is ultimately a large contributing factor in the US’ maternal and infant mortality rate being far above that of other industrialized nations.
Again, this is not paid time off to sit at home and play video games. This is going to the doctor to make sure you or the fetus don’t die. When people can’t go to these appointments they have miscarriages or die.
Not everything is about giving everyone exactly the same thing so that it feels fair. Sometimes some people need things you don’t.
I had no idea the number was still so high (36% according to this article)! That’ll teach me to comment without research.
So people will call in to the office “I’m pregnant today.” Wish people were more honest but the fakers will ruin it for everyone, and to keep them honest would destroy all patient privacy rights. I agree with the premise of the bill idea, but just sayin’.
That’s not how paid medical leave works. Companies can require you to provide evidence that you saw a doctor, in the form of a note. They can’t require anything more detailed than a doctor confirming they saw you on x date at x time, but you’re not going to be able to fake this without impersonating a doctor.
A lot of employers do exactly that.
Yes you are. Having a job doesn’t mean you have no existence outside of work. Congrats on somehow still sounding like a snark selfish person by JAQing
Sorry! I didn’t mean to come off as a jerk :(
I meant that parents getting paid leave for what I consider to be a choice while non-parents making a similar choice not getting time off seems unfair to me. I’m totally in favor of time off for medical stuff, elective or not!
As someone who chose not to have kids, I still support special PTO and medical leave for people who decide to have kids.
The population is aging where I live, and I would like to incentivize people to make future tax payers and future people that I can pay to wipe my ass when I’m old.
The next generation is an investment in my future wellbeing even if I didn’t have kids.
Do you really think it is 40 hours of leave for prenatal appointments, or even long parental leave that is stopping people from having kids? No, it’s expensive childcare, unaffordable healthcare, low wages, low time off generally, as well as a garbage world that seems to be circling the drain due to climate change and pollution. My workplace actually does already offer 40 hours for prenatal care along with 12 weeks paid leave after birth, and I still have zero intention of having kids. I don’t make enough money anyway, and even then, I don’t want them to have to live in a climate change hellscape.
And I personally think we are overpopulated and declining population would be good. How cruel to think people should have kids just so those kids can wipe our ass in the future. In fact, when the times comes that I can’t wipe my ass, I hope we have options, because I would choose euthanasia.
Again, that is not to speak against paid parental leave. But everybody gets sick. Everybody gets burned out. Have time for everybody.
It’s not for encouraging people to have kids.
It’s for the people already pregnant to not fucking die or have a miscarriage due to being unable to go to necessary regular prenatal checkups.
I was responding to someone that said “I would like to incentivize people to make future tax payers” so yes, some people think this is to encourage people to have kids.
We make it unnecessarily difficult to have children, we don’t give them sufficient opportunity to survive and grow into their potential, but the long term population trend is looking grim.
Yes, let’s start removing the obstacles that block having children. Yes, let’s put some effort into helping them survive. Yes. Let’s give their parents a way to have them cared for while they earn a living. Yes, let’s give them a better education to grow into their potential. Yes, let’s set up the safety nets so a treatable Illness doesn’t make them fall out of society and splatter onto the rocks
OK.
In reality, this is to prevent pregnant people and infants from dying.
Ok, so I am not allowed to respond to other people?
And why can’t we help all people, including pregnant people and infants?
Sure, there are a lot of things that discourage people from having kids. This is only one factor but let’s start with one factor: I’ll also support the next.
I’ve already had my kids, not as many as I wanted due to starting late, but I love them like crazy. I also see the long term trend of population decline and am very concerned about society’s future. I’m all for giving future parents benefits that I never had, future children more chances to survive and grow into their potential
The point is, it won’t move the needle, and lots of us don’t think the merely should move up. Continued population grown is what concerns me, which is what is actually happening (no decline). We can’t just keep moving earth overshoot day up.
You need to take a closer look at the long term population data. Sure, some of places that can least afford it continue to grow unsustainably, but essentially all developed countries have a birth rate below replacement levels. We’re still growing because previous generations are still with us, but as the bubble passes, we’re all on track for serious declines, if nothing changes. I’m all for making changes now while they’re insignificant.
Note the US is also on this track for sudden population decline but is still growing due to immigration. For all you who want to restrict immigration more, this is our future, this is what will keep us from declining like most of Europe and Asia. Immigration also should be encouraged
Population decline is now a similar place that climate change was in the 1970’s. We know what’s going on and it’s not too serious yet, but some of us are sounding an alarm. do we have the foresight to address it while it’s easy or are we going to wait until it’s critical/irreversible?
We literally had half the number of people on this planet 50 years ago. We had one quarter less than 100 years ago. The problem is overshoot, not too few people now. Serious decline is what we need.
malthusianism is next to eugenics
Agreed, they always have to carve out this stuff for deserving people, and it’s just making things more complicated and divisive.
This mindset of absolutely making sure nobody could possibly abuse something is really terrible policy.
I vote every one gets 200 hours of paid leave a year, with no questions asked unless it’s sudden. (Then some brief vague questions about why.)
Perhaps those 40 hours should be available to anyone who needs doctors’ appointments during the workday. Which is when doctors’ offices are open, after all. You could go get a mammogram or prostate exam instead of an ultrasound. You could pee in a cup for entirely different reasons than testing for preeclampsia.You could get an IUD or a vasectomy or abortion (*not available in all states) so you won’t need the prenatal care. You could get swabbed for strep throat and get antibiotics, or get vaccinated to prevent spreading viruses.
Maybe we could stretch it to eye exams and dental work, even though they are otherwise excluded from “medical” care.
While we’re at it, nonsmokers should have a place to go (on the opposite side of the building from the smoke-break area) for 10 minutes of deeply breathing fresh air.
In Spain, which is way way more progressive than US, women get unlimited paid leave during pregnancy (as in you can go to as many medical appointments as you want, there’s no cap) and normal appointments are still not covered. My guess is that covering all of the appointments would mean quite a big hit for the economy while the amount of times a woman will get pregnant is very limited and will not cause such issues.
Also, if you need to get out to breath the air quality at your workplace doesn’t meet the legal requirements and should be fixed.
On that second item, my point was about smokers getting smoke breaks, and how for fairness nonsmokers should get equal breaks. It wasn’t about any lack of clean air in the office. But if the nonsmokers had to go where the smokers are smoking it would be deleterious to their health. If you think about it, part of the pleasure of smoking is those long slow draughts, but so much better if it’s draughts of fresh air. Very zen.
That makes sense. I actually don’t know what the law says about smoke breaks. I know I can have 5 minute brake every hour and one 15 minute break per day on top of lunch break. Of course my workplace is not that strict but that’s what the law says. I don’t know if smokers get more according to the law or they’re supposed to use the 5 minute breaks.
I think this is viable if we do it with taxes.
It’s non-viable if you expect all businesses to provide it for their employees because most businesses literally cannot afford it.
If those businesses can’t afford it, they only exist because of exploitation. Maybe those businesses should fail.
they only exist because of exploitation.
Not true. I can tell you’ve never run a business.
Not true. I can tell you weren’t paying attention in your economics or history studies.
How are food trucks supposed to stay in business while paying employees who aren’t even working?
I made that exact point in another post. Most countries have paid family leave and some sick leave as a government benefit, which both allows broader benefits, and can even allow businesses to hire temporary help. They also mandate lots of leave generally, so the remaining employees are not burnt out with extra work and little time off.
The US, the last western country lacking maternity leave. Compare that to what other countries do, providing months of maternity leave.
It’s a shame the entire country doesn’t have it, but many states including New York do already. One advantage of a federal system I guess.
Here’s a summary of parental leave by state if curious.
https://www.paycor.com/resource-center/articles/maternity-leave-laws-by-state/
There really should be a national requirement though.
Except it’s unpaid.
The Federal FMLA is unpaid yes. Many individual states have their own paid leave policies though. The link I posted shows you the policies in each state.
If I counted correctly, there are 4 states that require paid leave. Another 6 where nothing is mentioned pertaining to paid/unpaid. And 22 states that don’t mandate any leave at all…might be 23 since Kansas is just left blank.
In other states, you may or may not get leave (unpaid) depending how many employees there are at your job.
We really do suck in the US.
I don’t disagree, just getting that info out there so if you’re in one of the 10 states or the district of columbia that does have it, you know to access it. I’ve heard from people in states that have it that just assume they didn’t since there’s no national program.
This one’s a map which makes it easier: https://onpay.com/hr/basics/paid-family-leave-by-state
The map is also nice because it shows which states have passed laws that will be taking effect in the future. Looks like 6 more on the way.
Don’t be harsh. They have to give all their money to Israel. There is very little left for US citizens.
Regardless of the implications of what happens with the aid that’s given to Israel, it’s a tiny slice of the federal budget. It has absolutely zero to do with why we don’t prioritize taking care of our citizens’ health.
Don’t forget Ukraine. And we have military bases everywhere. All on the backs of the common folk.
The difference is that defending Ukraine actually has value for the Western world.
Israel is an albatross around the neck of everyone supporting it.
Amazing how people don’t understand the dynamics of a proxy war with Russia, but let me explain it. Russia wants to invade our allies, and if they attack a NATO country (which they absolutely want to, Ukraine was geographically in their way) it would cost us so much more money and lives. Fighting this proxy war, and defeating Russia, is the the absolutely cheapest and best possible outcome for US interests (i.e. the US is not doing the fighting, it’s supply a fraction of what the US was absolutely going to have to spend if Russia was successful).
Now funding Israel’s land grab n’ genocide is a whole other thing, just as us funding the house of Saud (the guys who have spare billions laying around to bride presidents…).
Israel has great importance to US imperial interests. If you’re making a moral argument, there’s no comparison between Ukraine and Israel, but from a strategic/imperial perspective, well, still different, but there’s solid justification in both cases.
Please go into detail what these interests are. I want sources too and not general statements like “we need a strong ally on the middle east”
Four off the top of my head would be the Suez Canal, Intel fabs, Gulf Arab oil, and Iran’s aspirations for regional power & nuclear tech. I’m sure you could come up with hypotheticals about why Israel, specifically, is not the ideal ally, but it’s what we’ve got.
Defensive vs offensive wars, not comparable
From a moral perspective…
Chiming in from Canada, wife and I are about to go on parental leave for our first child. I’m taking 3 months, she’s taking 18.
I work with a lot of American vendors from Canada and we recently all said congrats and goodbye to a project manager on the vendor side who was taking her mat leave. When I came back from vacation I was surprised to see her in the weekly meeting… she had less mat leave than I have vacation.
My wife and I (Canadian & American Ex-Pat) did the same thing, but she took 9 and I took 3. It was one of the best and most meaningful times of my life. It allowed me to bond with my daughter in a way I hadn’t gotten to.
Do companies have to pay employees for months while they’re not doing any work?
Or is it the government who allocates taxes to fund maternity leave?
As a business owner, a woman would have to provide enough value to the company to make up for potentially missing months of work while being paid in order to get hired over a man with no such risk.
I see you’re operating under the misunderstanding that only women have to take time off of work to care for children. Or maybe you just think that somehow women are having babies all by themselves without men at all.
WOMEN DON’T HAVE BABIES, FAMILIES HAVE BABIES. EVERY PERSON DESERVES THE HUMAN DIGNITY OF BEING ALLOWED TO CARE FOR THEIR CHILDREN.
I’m sorry for yelling, but it’s a fucking important. You’re backwards thinking is a key failure of capitalism and a shining example of toxic masculinity.
We have national maternity leave here, but I recently worked at a company that gave the father 4 months off to be used however they wanted over the next year after their child was born. Was really heartwarming to see them give that extra benefit to help him spend time with the new family.
So you’re saying everyone should be hired with the expectation that they will receive months of paid leave for having a child?
Nothing about this is ‘toxic masculinity.’ It’s how the working world works, lol. You’ll understand that when you’re older.
We’re saying that entire societies benefit from having parents spend early months/years with their young children. Because society as a whole profits from that activity, that activity should be subsidized by the government.
And I promise I’m at least as old as you
I think it’s fine raising taxes on the wealthy so working folks can stay at home with their families.
My issue is that requiring employers to do that means that it’s impossible to start a business if you don’t already have a lot of excess capital and an established customer base.
Can Google do it? Absolutely.
Can an average food truck do it? Absolutely not.
If your employer can’t afford to give new parents leave, then one way or another you are being exploited for somebody else’s profit.
What exactly is your point? That every business who can’t afford to pay employees who aren’t working shouldn’t get to operate? Just go ahead and say it, unless you’re afraid it’s a stupid idea and you’re purposefully avoiding admitting it for this reason.
That’s how you’re literally only left with big name companies like Google and Amazon.
impossible to start a business if you don’t already have a lot of excess capital and an established customer base.
If your business cannot support the basic operating costs of the humans it employs, it has no value to society. It’s a parasite that feeds off the welfare spending of the state to enrich it’s owner.
True, but businesses have proven that humans don’t need months off with pay for having children.
The solution of course is having a payroll type tax that funds parental leave. Everyone pays in, and the government pays out so companies, large and small, don’t have to deal with the issue you’re talking about. I’d like my employer to have zero say in things like this, unless they want to go above and beyond. Same for healthcare. Let companies be companies, and let’s use taxes to find societal needs
Pretty much every regulation like this has a minimum busi ness size it applies to, for exactly this reason
If the government is paying for it I am all in.
Having businesses pay for it will just result in less women getting good jobs.
Alternatively we can go for mandated parental leave for both parents (not at the same time), which evens out the playing field between genders, men get to spend more time with their infants, and hiring women has no inherent disadvantage for businesses. There are countries in europe going for that - every other solution i can think of leads to a disadvantage for women.
Agreed.
I’m older. I have kids. I saw the value of getting time off as a father and wished it could have been more. I actually had better time off benefits than my wife though which is pretty disgraceful. No it shouldn’t be on a business to fund families but it is on society as a whole to policy each other up. Like many, many other things, other countries have figured this out and America is WAY behind.
When my kids were born, I was able to take one week. It came out of my vacation time and I got very little time with my kid, due to the effing mother-in-law who apparently had priority over the Dad. I wish for everyone to meet their kids better than that, both in regards to time off and less toxic maternity
Okay. My point is that expecting and requiring every business to be able to pay employees who aren’t working for months at a time is asinine.
Typical fertility rate is a bit under 2, people work about 40 years. This would thus work out to 80 hours of paid sick time over a career . With two weeks standard vacation time, 40 hours a week means 80k hours over a career. If you can’t afford to have an employee subtract 0.1% from their working time over 4 decades you really need to sit down and reevaluate your business. Since you evidently are not capable of staying in business with an employee that is “only” productive 99.9% of the time vs 100%.
Sure you can come up with situations. A very very small company and it is the busy season where it will suck. But even then no one should be that close to the margin.
The U.S. infant mortality rate […] is worse than other high-income countries, which experts have attributed to poverty, …
the wealth gap gets bigger every day.
Not dying to preventable medical complications? Sounds like fucken’ communism to me.
I appreciate the effort, but the nationwide infant mortality rate is lead by Republican states.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_infant_mortality_rates
Wooo hooo, MASSACHUSETTS!
… omg, there are ten states that are more than double?
Should be closer to 6 or 7 days to meet prenatal visit recommendations, but not bad. Prenatal care disparities is thought to be a major contributing factor in just why so many black women die in childbirth.
Breaking news - New York to upgrade human rights to 20th century lol
The proposal above isn’t about paid parental leave which New York already has (and it’s even more flexible than that actually and can be applied to other situations besides a new child), it’s about adding additional paid time off while pregnant to help with prenatal care appointments and things.
Here’s more info on New York’s current paid leave laws if curious: https://paidfamilyleave.ny.gov/
They’re already more flexible than just parental leave, but glad they’re adding some time while pregnant as another situation of guaranteed paid leave.
It’s still pretty sad that the max I see in that table is 12 weeks, and even that is only in a few states.
It’s certainly better than nothing, but even the most generous US states are pretty barbaric compared to most European countries (at least the ones I’m familiar with)
Good first step
Indeed. But whenever I read about first-step initiatives like this, it’s becomes glaringly clear how endlessly far behind the US is on social services compared to most of the rest of the developed world.
Cool.
40 hours? Like as in 1 working week? Is that a joke?
In real world you get 14-52 weeks
It’s for when you’re still pregnant, to allow you to go to doctors visits and such, it’s not maternity leave that’s a whole different thing
Why would you get 12 months off for the duration of your 9 month pregnancy? Do babies take longer to make in other parts of the world?
This law is about when you have a fetus on the inside, not a baby on the outside. Maternity leave in New York is only 12 weeks however, which sucks.
Oh, I misunderstood that then.
Anyways, in Finland you can get preggomoney for 40 days, and parental allowance for 320 days though it’s not 100% of your salary but some decent percentage
You can start taking out parental leave after the baby is born. Parental allowance is paid by Kela for a total of 320 working days. If a child has two parents, the days are divided equally between both parents. If you wish, you can give up some of your parental allowance days for the benefit of someone else. You and another person participating in the care of the child can get daily allowances for parents at the same time for a maximum of 18 days.
NYS guarantees 12 weeks of paid postnatal parental leave, paid at 66% of your salary.
Which isn’t great, but is better than most states in the US.
