Those are rookie maternity numbers.
-Canada
Infinite sick time seems amazing. No longer working through an illness? And not having to cancel vacations to make time for it (or flex if your company even allows that)?
If only…
Italy:
Paid maternity leave: 5 months (plus two hours per day for breast feeding for the rest of the first year).
Paid paternity leave: 10 days
The parents also get an additional 6 months of “parental leave” between them where they can take off and get paid 30% of their normal salary.
Paid sick leave: Capped at 180 days per year
Now hold on
America should get the silver medal here
Nope, other countries took silver and bronze by having significantly more than 0 in all of those categories.
Can’t win if you don’t compete
Our dataset only indicates that two countries participated
That’s the American media for you.
You posted this though?
Are you “American media”?
It was a joke. About how the American media makes the Olympics all about the U.S.
You’re calling yourself the American media?
It was a joke.
I work in IT at a university. There is a state parental leave program, but above that the union bargained for additional parental leave.
The US has a significant separation between the federal and state levels. For a policy like this, you usually would find some of the more progressive states trying out different programs. Some more backward states will take a long time to come round. It really is more like a bunch of small to medium sized countries in that respect.
Russia is also working under very different demographics, which is probably driving at least the maternity leave. Birth rates are low and net migration, while positive, is not enough to keep up. The US has a birth rate that is closer to replacement and much higher net migration. That would mean lagging states would have less pressure to reform.
That’s France not Russia
A lot of private professional trades in the US get all of these. They’re “economically viable” for a certain class of (supposedly very productive and important) staff but completely untenable for another larger, lower class of (supposedly lazy and easily replaceable) staff.
Even within the same firm.
If you work in McDs Corporate or occupy a management position at The Dollar Tree, somehow there’s money for leave that doesn’t exist for everyone else.
You might also notice a certain gender, religion, and race component to this, but I would try very hard not to think hard about it either.
We got a whole generation full of lead paint chips to thank for this
my job has “paid sick time” but you cant use it if youre out of PTO and if you have PTO it takes off your PTO. how dumb is that. my coworker lost all his PTO by getting super sick for 2 weeks at the start of the year
Is it also at double rate, or you don’t even have 28 days of vacation?
Speedway and parent conpany 7 Eleven just did this this year everywhere it isn’t illegal. Made it so you only have PTO time and sick time takes it out of your pto. Thankfully that’s illegal in Michigan for hourly employees.
Which also has the fun situation of if you get promoted to general manager you loose your sick time because of going to salary vs hourly.
Sounds to me like you don’t get any sick time.
What a strange policy. So that just reduces sick leave to, what, an “unscheduled vacation”?
What’s weirder is that this eliminates some incentive to schedule a vacation in advance, provided you can lie about being sick.
But you also get half the salary, compared to the US. Taxes are probably on a similar level, but you get more for your taxes in France.
It’s not all good. As a single, somewhat ambitious guy living in Europe, I’m planning to move to the US, because building wealth in most of Europe is much harder, so you are effectively a slave of the system. You get a barely livable salary, you pay half of it to the taxman, and half of the remaining net salary in rent (or mortgage). If you are a single guy like me, you get barely anything in return. And since the European economy is struggling, and European governments are going all in on austerity, the situation regarding taxes and social benefits will only deteriorate.
PTO is nice, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. At the end of the day, I feel better having the freedom in the shape of $$$ in my pocket, compared to being at the mercy of a government, which I don’t fully trust, to treat me well.
I feel you’re discarding the free education and Healthcare system you were able to enjoy (because it’s available for everyone) until you’ve decided you could do better for yourself by yourself.
As a single straight healthy educated white dude, yes you could probably do better for yourself in the US, it just takes forsaking the meaning of solidarity. As long you don’t do the usual thing of coming back to Europe whenever you’re sick / having children because “it’s just so expensive in the US and it’s harder to have a family life there”
Healthcare is not free. I pay 250€/month here in Germany, and I literally cannot even access it at all. I go to the doctor and get turned away. They have this shitty two tiered system where unless you have the private insurance or are a pensioner, you have to fight against a thousand bureaucratic dragons to get any service out of it.
University is not free either. I paid 500€/semester and had to source my own food and accommodation. And although I got a degree, you cannot really compare, even the top of the top of German universities with places like MIT or Stanford where you get so much prestige and networking opportunities. One has to compare apples to apples.
I am for both universal healthcare and education, but Americans need to understand that you aren’t going to get the American service for the European price point.
Stop lying. The majority of doctors here take public insurance and they dont turn you away when you have public insurance. You can even call your insurance and they help you get an appointment at a Facharzt.
I pay more than double that for my insurance, and they still deny care and determine which doctors I can see. I have to wait months to see specialists, and I have to spend $5,000 a year cash before insurance pays a dime.
And education at a public university can cost 10 grand a semester just for tuition. 500 euros wouldn’t cover a parking tag.
You do realise a lot of places in Europe would lrefer you have a european uni degree over any american one. The systems are not the same.
I went to the cheapest public university I got into here in the US. An extremely standard university. I paid $10,000 per semester in tuition, not including books and fees. Do you really think American education is twenty times better?
USA here. I like in one of the areas with the lowest cost to living in the USA (Kentucky). I just paid my daughter’s fall tuition to the University of Kentucky yesterday. It’s a state school which accepts 95% of those who apply. Average SAT ~1100. (My point, by no means is it a selective school.) Her tuition for one semester was $6851 or 6275 €. This does not include housing, food, or living expenses.
I don’t want to get into USA vs anyone else, as everyplace is different, with their own areas that make them stand out or not. However when it comes to post-secondary education and healthcare in terms of COST (not quality) the USA quantitatively lags well behind Western Europe.
This is becoming a fruitless discussion without getting into the specifics.
Here’s the thing, with my talent and experience, I could easily be earning 4x as much as I do here in Germany. I work in AI, it’s super hot right now. But here in Germany the only job for me is in the public sector, where I get paid like a lowly government employee. It’s completely ridiculous when compared to what my fellows in the US are earning. I earn around $45,000 of which I net $25,000 after taxes, of which $12,000 I pay in rent per year. And my benefits? A fixed two year contract. It’s not even a permanent position.
I have colleagues who decided to pay out of pocket some $120k to do an MSc. in California so they could access the tech network there and secure a job, and all of them are financially better off than I am.
Wow, cool that they had $120,000 just sitting around to pay for things. Almost sounds like they were already financially better off than you.
And rich enough already.
Thus will be such a fun fuck around find out for you my guy. Really enjoy it.
AI companies in the USA are located is super expensive areas, I always wonder if the quality of life is actually better for these types of jobs. There is also meta in Paris, Google in London, etc. have you considered that ?
Bud, you’re in for a haaaaaaaaaaaarsh awakening if you think all of those negatives in your second paragraph isn’t exactly what the states are, magnified.
I work in a big tech company, and there are probably interns in NY/Cali that get paid better than I do as an experienced engineer in the UK.
Most of the people I work with in NYC live like students, despite having a yearly salary that could probably cover a sizable chunk of a UK pension. I own a house and have enough saved to not need to work for several months, yet there are people that vastly outearn me in the US and still get fucked by healthcare costs, rent, house prices, etc.
I do understand that building wealth is tricky, but I think you’ll be extremely shocked at how high the costs are in some places, and how many people that do build wealth are rolling the dice on health insurance and not taking sick days/vacation. I’m considering a move to LA this year, and despite a high-band salary my life will likely be considerably worse, purely looking at the rent prices in/near Santa Monica…
You know NYC and California are outliers, right?
Income scales with cost of living. They’re only outliers by scale. They’re right in line with the marginal living conditions of Americans (living poor because costs outpace wages).
They’re right in line with the marginal living conditions of Americans (living poor because costs outpace wages).
Except wages are half of US wages(nationwide), with relatively similar cost of living in Europe.
relatively similar cost of living in Europe.
If you discount health care, transit, and education, ignore paid time off benefits, and try not to think about how much lead is in our drinking water? I guess.
If you discount health care,
Your employer usually pays your healthcare in both cases, US does have deductibles, and a very stupid system if you’re self-employed. But personally, being under 26, I’ve had a far better experience with US healthcare. I’ve been able to be treated, and my family members haven’t been neglected(not saying it doesn’t happen though). My partner was told he’d have to wait 6+ months to see a specialist for ear infection treatment when it didn’t go away after 1 round of anti-biotics in Europe. A relative of mine has to travel to the US for treatment that was deemed a waste in her home country, in the hospital she was staying in her whole wing was so neglected that their chamber pots were overflowing and they weren’t being properly fed. This was in a European capital city(Prague).
transit
Depends on the city, but a cheap 90s or 00s sedan generally won’t cost enough to make up for that extra 40-60%
education
I know a fair number of people who went to private highschools because they couldn’t even get into public ones. But its true uni is cheaper in Europe if you can get in- but its nowhere near a necessity.
and try not to think about how much lead is in our drinking water?
If you think you have lead in your drinking water, call your water company, they’ll probably send you a free test kit.
Your employer usually pays your healthcare
In the United States? That’s not true at all. Roughly half of American workers don’t get health insurance from the employer. And that’s before you consider folks who lose their jobs after suffering a medical emergency.
They’re also the highest pay band for most companies, which is why many people want to go to NYC or the Bay area to work.
looking at the rent prices in/near Santa Monica…
You are thinking of walking to work? You’re going to be commuting like everyone else. That’s why everyone in LA is stuck in traffic. Or just work from home.
you also get half the salary, compared to the US
Twice the salary for twice the work load isn’t more money.
I had a friend who got a NY white shoe law job. He was earning $250k walking in the door. But he slept under his desk pulling 100 hour work weeks and was always terrified of being let go for underperforming.
That’s not a better salary. That’s just 2.5 jobs earning $80k (which you can easily get with a JD pretty much anywhere).
Once he realized that, he quit and landed a job with normal hours earning twice as much per hour worked.
Found out this year my country offers father’s (up to a combined) 52 weeks paternity leave with pay (~60% full time earnings)
Couldn’t imagine just dropping this little guy on my wife and heading to work the next day
I’ve always found it dumb that fathers get less paid leave. but i guess it’s better than… checks notes… zero.
You could make the argument that they don’t have massive body trauma to heal from…
But I think the time is more important to form that first bond more than anything
That’s the problem, what we have is reasonable for physical recovery after giving birth. However we need a political party to champion “family values” or something to help parents take care of the kid after they are born
Bonding time is important but it’s also important to get into the habit of looking after the children as a father. Otherwise odds on you won’t manage to bond very well with either your child or the mother 😅
True story - the time I almost got direct immediate benefit from a feminist organization …… when my kids were born, there was no leave so the best I could do was one week vacation. However a good friend of mine thought it was unfair so got together with her feminist group and petitioned the company for paternity leave!
They didn’t go for it, at least in time to help me, but they did do it before FMLA made them do something
This short just absolutely got me at “threaten to shit in the river.”
In Massachusetts where I’m lucky enough to live, everyone is given at least 12 weeks paid bonding time for birth of a child that can be taken as needed for up to one year after birth of their child. The birthing parents also gets 6-8 weeks of additional paid time. I think some other New England states also have a similar benefits. It’s an awesome program that should be modeled around the rest of the nation. Really IMO it should be a full 52 weeks, but I’ll take it as a solid starting point
Isn’t that due to Mitt Romney of all people? Part of “Romneycare?” I don’t want to give him credit, but that’s what I seem to remember.
Actually “Romneycare” is what we call masshealth and it’s the ACA before the ACA was national. Essentially mandated but state subsidized health insurance on a sliding scale. The Paid Family Medical Leave with inclusion if bonding time is a different program and only came into effect in the past year or two with an additional payroll tax paid by every employee and employer in MA (it’s a pretty tiny surcharge though, and to be transparent you only get 60% of your wages up to a certain amount, I think 1100/wk, while your taking the time). Here’s to hoping the federal govt will someday follow.
Thanks for the explanation.
im in Virginia and one time i had a really bad norovirus infection and my employer told me i would terminated if i didn’t show up and that he couldnt do anything about it (this was my 6th sick day in the past 11 months)
i showed up and had an accident on myself, very messy. Norovirus messy.
I walked into his office, reeking like hell, and i asked him if he had any mints or febreeze
He tried to send me home to change and i declined.
I think we’re all hoping you successfully infected your boss.
no clue, i had spent the last 48 hours losing all the moisture in my body so i was pretty dehydrated and had a fever
that entire week was like a weird dream
i really should not have driven a car in the physical state i was in, tbh
And some people say it’s a toxic work culture in Japan. I mean, it’s far from perfect, but still not like the example here.
The toxic culture in Japan stems from the unspoken expectations.
You have a 40 hour schedule, but you’re expected to be in the office for +60. You get vacation time, but it’s shameful to use it. Women (particularly young women) aren’t given promotions or professional advancement because it’s assumed they’ll quit to become housewives as soon as they find a husband of a higher station.
All that shit you hear about microaggression, implicit bias, and structural racism run rampant in the Japanese corporate world.
There’s some hope though. Younger people are starting to call bullshit on all this. Perhaps the fact that there’s an abudance of overworked old people everywhere is helping drive different thinking for everyone else: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQs4NERVZxc
When Japan capped overtime to 45 hours per month
It became shameful to log your overtime
Also to get time in a half you need to work over 60 hours but you don’t get that if you aren’t logging
Yikes, that’s lawsuit territory in the US. Like, my uncle was a lawyer on a lawsuit with similar facts.
Historically Japanese lawsuits around overtime had been companies suing employees for claiming wages
Median income US: $48,625
Median income France: $29,131
You could take 1/3rd of the year off and still earn more.
Stuff like this gets baked into wages…
Cool, can I take a third of the year off here in America and still keep my job?
Otherwise, I think I’ll take the lower pay plus all the days off and the free healthcare.
Depends on the job, that’s what a teacher does, and the average teacher salary is double the median french salary
Teachers in the US definitely do NOT “take the summer off”, as someone who has an SIL that’s a teacher. That time winds up getting filled with lesson planning, adapting to new curricula, meetings with administration to discuss new curricula or books, and usually working a second job because your school is, most of the time, not paying you to do any of that.
It definitely depends on the type of teacher. My mom is a teacher but for her current job doesn’t need to do much planning so does get it off. Also like I said the average teacher is paid double what the average french worker is with similar cost of living
Teachers do not get free healthcare. I have no idea why you’re even suggesting it.
What’re you talking about? I didn’t say anything about healthcare or health insurance. But I will say now, full time public school teachers do get health insurance usually
I said it. You responded to it. I guess you responded without reading.
And as someone with the same insurance they give to the local teachers and is thousands of dollars in medical debt over just two years, comparing that to the French healthcare system is laughable.
I said it. You responded to it. I guess you responded without reading.
What? Again. I did not say teachers get free healthcare before. Why are you so hostile? I get the impression that you either want to view anyone who disagrees with you as dumb or a villain.
Anyways, you said:
Cool, can I take a third of the year off here in America and still keep my job?
Otherwise, I think I’ll take the lower pay plus all the days off and the free healthcare.
To which I responded:
Depends on the job, that’s what a teacher does, and the average teacher salary is double the median french salary
Because yes, a teacher does get a third of the year off.
And as someone with the same insurance they give to the local teachers and is thousands of dollars in medical debt over just two years, comparing that to the French healthcare system is laughable.
$30,000 of debt? If not you still would’ve made more money than in France.
See that “free healthcare” line you literally pasted from my post? That’s the part you didn’t respond to.
$30,000 of debt?
How are you not aware that there are things health insurance either doesn’t cover or doesn’t cover 100%?
There’s also this thing you’ve apparently never heard of called a deductible.
Where I live in Canada, we used to have 0 paid sick days, then we got 3 days shortly before an election, and they lost and the replacement party removed those 3 paid sick days.
They also chopped down the unpaid sick days from 10 to 3, probably hoping nobody would notice.
Nobody noticed. They got re-elected with a majority vote (done by about 1/3 of the voting population)
Yeah. Ontario voters and smooth brains. Name a better combination.
