Voters want paid leave, paid sick days, poll shows. Obama, too. Will Congress oblige?
The United States is the only advanced economy with no paid parental leave policy, no paid sick days. The cost of child care outstrips tuition for public universities in many states. Women still earn less than men, in many cases, for doing equal work. The minimum wage traps families in the lowest rungs of the socio-economic ladder. In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Barack Obama said it was time to change all that.
“Really,” he said. “It’s 2015. It’s time.”
And a poll of likely 2016 voters being released on Wednesday by the Make It Work campaign, an advocacy organization pushing to make these working family issues central to the 2016 campaign, found that Democratic, Independent and even Republican voters overwhelmingly agree.
Large majorities of voters of all persuasions said they are in favor of paid sick days, equal pay for equal work and affordable child and elder care, and 73 percent say the government has a responsibility to ensure employers treat employees fairly by providing them with such policies. About 70 percent said that workplace laws and policies are out of synch with the changing realities of modern families, and with the changing roles of men and women at work and at home.
Click here for the full article, featuring TakeAction Minnesota member, Jesske Eiklenborg.
