[Baby Laughing]
Paid family leave.
It’s what moments like these are all about.
Do you support a nationwide paid parental leave policy?
Absolutely and even more.
[Applause]
Politicians always want government to do more.
Now they want to force companies to give
every parent paid time off.
Every worker in America
should be guaranteed at least 12 weeks
Every worker should get at least 12 weeks.
Why 12 weeks?
That's a very arbitrary number.
Why not 14 weeks?
Why not 26 weeks?
Onwuka is a working mom.
Bonding time between a mom and a baby is important.
When she had her son, her employer,
the Independent Women’s Forum,
gave her 6 weeks paid leave.
But she wanted more time off.
I supplemented those six weeks with additional time off,
some vacation time.
This is my baby boy Jesse.
It was wonderful to have that time off,
but it's also important for me to be able to customize
the time off that I needed.
Government programs however are hard to customize,
but now both parties are pushing government solutions.
This is not a women’s issue.
It’s a family issue.
And America, say people like John Oliver,
is way behind the world.
We and Papua New Guinea are the only countries
in the world that do not provide any paid time off.
Just us and Papua New Guinea.
It's disingenuous to say, uh-oh,
we're the only nation along with Papa New Guinea.
Because most American workers already get paid leave.
17% get parental leave.
But you jumped to 60, 70, 80% when you consider
people have sick time off, overtime, or an
all-encompassing personal time.
So companies and workers are already kind
of working this out voluntarily
They are.
Paid leave is spreading.
[Walmart sounds]
And not just for high paid employees.
We are talking about Chipotle workers, CVS workers,
Walmart workers started to get paid leave.
Why would CVS and Walmart provide this voluntarily?
For an employer to attract good talent
or retain their talent, they need to offer benefits
that really resonate with workers.
Paid maternity and paternity leave
is one of those benefits.
It’ll be good for business.
Politicians are so arrogant that they say
they must tell business what’s good for business.
It’s good for business.
It’s good for this country.
In truth, it is bad for business
and not even good for most women.
If we look at how the rest of the world has provided
very generous, paid leave, mandated paid leave plans,
we see that it actually has a negative impact on women.
Why would that be?
Because mandatory leave
makes a young woman a hiring risk.
If an employer has a young woman in front of him
of child bearing age and he's thinking,
okay, I have to provide paid time off
for this young woman or I have a potential other
employee who's a male
The male becomes a safer bet.
And sure enough, in California,
the first state to mandate paid family leave,
a study found women of childbearing age
were more likely to be unemployed.
And in Europe, lots of women do work,
but in lower level jobs.
American women are more likely to be in
senior level positions, managerial positions,
than women in Europe.
Twice as likely?
Twice as likely.
And it's very much tied to these mandates
around paid leave and paid time off.
On top of all that
Our politicians understate the cost.
It’s such a small amount to of money.
It’s the cost of a cup of coffee a week.
About a dollar sixty-one cents a year.
But that’s not true.
In California, the cost is already $12 a week.
And government programs always grow.
There is a push to add a huge extension
to paid parental leave in California
Mission creep always happens
with government programs.
All of a sudden that $12 goes to $24, $36, $48
So can’t we just say, parental leave is something
best left to employers and employees?
Leave them free to make their own deals?
Probably not, I’m sad to report,
because now even politicians who call themselves
conservatives want government to do something.
As conservatives we’re pro-family.
He and some other Republicans support a bill
called The Cradle Act
The Cradle Act would allow new parents
to tap into their Social Security savings.
At least the Republican plan is not mandatory.
Anyone can choose whether or not
to participate in the program.
Here is Onwuka at the press conference
showing her support
Already Social Security is unsustainable,
now you're going to break it open for paid leave?
But It's not a growth of government.
What's interesting about this plan
Yes it is, you are tapping Social Security,
there'll be a new bureaucracy to monitor it.
It's not a new entitlement, it's not a new bureaucracy.
It is literally just allowing workers to tap
into Social Security benefits that they are
already paying for.
So when they're older there'll be less in their
Social Security fund and there won't be enough money
and we'll have to raise taxes again.
Older workers or retirees have more resources
when they retire.
Younger workers are the ones who
have lower incomes.
Give me a break, can’t we ever say there
is something that’s not government’s job?
We’re already $22 trillion in debt.
We don’t need another government program.