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> wrong group is paying it. And its not necessarily employers. Its also employees. The right group to pay for paid leave is a group of 1: the parent itself.

gpm 8y ago
That's an argument I doubt we'll make useful progress on over the internet. I think there is useful societal value in having parents spend time with their kids, and I think that as a society we should absorb some of the costs to cause that to happen. I can understand believing otherwise though - it falls back to a difference in fairly fundamental opinions about how society should function (I expect). What I hope you can agree with is that if we are going to have paid parental leave, it should be paid for by a shared pool across companies (i.e. the government).
- conanbatt 8y ago
  > What I hope you can agree with is that if we are going to have paid maternity leave, it should be paid for by a shared pool across companies (i.e. the government). I think only if its mandatory this makes sense. But it's not (significantly) mandatory in the us. Company Benefits have 2 economic advantages: the first is that employees might care for the benefit more than its cost, thus having less salary for the benefit. (an example might be google's plethora of in-company benefits). The second is purely taxes: high incomes get high income taxes, which means that you get a 30%+ margin on any inefficient cost a company takes. Paid leave is a combination of distortions. In the non-salaried world, its not even a debate: people freely choose what to do and to what degree. Think about offering paid leave benefits to small businesses and see what happens to the government coffers!
  - gpm 8y ago
    My arguments basically assume mandatory anyways, so sure. > Think about offering paid leave benefits to small businesses and see what happens to the government coffers! Nothing if it's funded properly. If you have, say, 5% of people taking paid leave, you tax everyone 5% of their salary and give that to the people on leave (roughly speaking). This is just a question or redistributing income not creating money out of thin air.
    - conanbatt 8y ago
      If we wanted to just give money to people with kids there are better ways to do it than paid leave. A tax that gave everyone paid leave would be so high that it would probably be politically untenable: it is now not effectively a tax, and its not redistrbuted properly, so it can fly as it is.

gpm 8y ago

That's an argument I doubt we'll make useful progress on over the internet. I think there is useful societal value in having parents spend time with their kids, and I think that as a society we should absorb some of the costs to cause that to happen. I can understand believing otherwise though - it falls back to a difference in fairly fundamental opinions about how society should function (I expect). What I hope you can agree with is that if we are going to have paid parental leave, it should be paid for by a shared pool across companies (i.e. the government).

conanbatt 8y ago
> What I hope you can agree with is that if we are going to have paid maternity leave, it should be paid for by a shared pool across companies (i.e. the government). I think only if its mandatory this makes sense. But it's not (significantly) mandatory in the us. Company Benefits have 2 economic advantages: the first is that employees might care for the benefit more than its cost, thus having less salary for the benefit. (an example might be google's plethora of in-company benefits). The second is purely taxes: high incomes get high income taxes, which means that you get a 30%+ margin on any inefficient cost a company takes. Paid leave is a combination of distortions. In the non-salaried world, its not even a debate: people freely choose what to do and to what degree. Think about offering paid leave benefits to small businesses and see what happens to the government coffers!
- gpm 8y ago
  My arguments basically assume mandatory anyways, so sure. > Think about offering paid leave benefits to small businesses and see what happens to the government coffers! Nothing if it's funded properly. If you have, say, 5% of people taking paid leave, you tax everyone 5% of their salary and give that to the people on leave (roughly speaking). This is just a question or redistributing income not creating money out of thin air.
  - conanbatt 8y ago
    If we wanted to just give money to people with kids there are better ways to do it than paid leave. A tax that gave everyone paid leave would be so high that it would probably be politically untenable: it is now not effectively a tax, and its not redistrbuted properly, so it can fly as it is.