Are Working Mothers Cash Cows For The Federal Government?

I’ve been thinking about this post for a long time and trying to gather enough time to devote to in because this one action encompasses so many aspects of cultural change that has completely reshaped how we look at the role of mothering.

Paid family leave.

For decades our culture has been socially engineered to believe that women have more value outside the home as employees, than inside the home as full time mothers. I think the women’s movement has been largely responsible for that change in mindset, but I also think the federal government has jumped on the golden opportunity to put more people into the workforce, which in turn generates more tax revenue for state and federal coffers.

Not long after Donald Trump became a candidate for president in 2016 the paid family leave issue came to the forefront via his daughter Ivanka.

Only 15% of American workers have access to Paid Family Leave, and of those, only 6% are low-income workers. This must change. #PFL

— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) July 9, 2018

Disturbing, since her big government stance on PFL is traditionally a 180 degree swing from what most conservatives believe to be constitutional.

If Ivanka has her way she’ll influence policy to tap into the already overworked and underfunded coffers of the social security system to find the funds to pay for government subsidized PFL.

In August The CATO Institute provided some interesting and relevant arguments in descent of the “facts” tweeted by Ivanka in July.

According to CATO, American companies are quite tuned-in to the desires of working mothers to have PFL.

“For example, the Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation and the National Survey of Working Mothers found more than 60 percent of employed mothers have access to paid leave following the birth of a child. These figures are about four-fold the amount of paid leave Ivanka claimed parents are receiving today.

SIPP data show that access to paid leave use has grown substantially between 1961 and 2008, without government intervention. The share of first-time mothers that report using paid leave and/or disability grew from 16 to 61 percent over 50 years.”

While companies have been stepping up to do what government should not, they may not be able to continue to do so if government continues to throw a wrench into the works and ties their hands.

As government that overstepped its boundaries has shown us in history, it messes up everything it touches that is not originally designed to to do. And CATO points out that may we may see this too, with government funded PFL.

Government bureaucrats may believe that if they can generate a PFL windfall for working families, the numbers of mothers returning to work will increase, adding to workforce utopia, (and lots of extra payroll tax).

“In the simplest case, it’s likely government-supported leave will rearrange worker compensation without necessarily making workers better off. For example, the average worker currently is provided about 70 percent of his or her compensation in wages and an additional 30 percent in benefits (including paid leave and legally required benefits like Social Security), according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“Under paid leave laws, including the Democrats’ FAMILY Act, which funds a federal benefit via new employee and employer payroll taxes, a higher proportion of employee compensation would go toward employee benefits, and a smaller proportion of employee compensation would be wages. This would likely make some groups, such as higher-income working mothers, better off, while leaving other demographic groups slightly worse off,” reports CATO.

And because bloated government is so far removed from capitalistic principles, efforts to fund government PFL might just eventually derail its own agenda to get more women in the workforce.

“But employers may not be able to fully offset the cost of government-supported leave simply by rearranging employee compensation. In this case, businesses may respond by reducing their dependency on workers who could potentially be more costly. This would mean hiring fewer (likely) leave-takers, promoting fewer leave-takers to important management roles, or further reducing leave-takers’ wages to cover the costs of their absences. The vast majority of leave-takers are female, even when leave is available to men and women, so wage and employment effects are likely to affect them,” according to CATO.

While the fiscal aspects of PFL certainly affect the culture it is not the reason I wanted to bring attention to it.

I question the effects of the cultural shift and social engineering that come with government intervention of enticements/entitlements, for women to leave their homes and mothering roles will be detrimental to the family foundation.

In 2013 Unorthodox Union published findings on how children fare in working mother households.

• Full-time maternal employment begun before the child was three months old was associated with significantly more behavior problems reported by caregivers at age 4½ years and by teachers at first grade;

• Children whose mothers worked part-time before their child was one year old had fewer disruptive behavioral problems than the children of mothers who worked full-time before their child’s first birthday. This increased risk for behavioral difficulties was apparent at age three, and during first grade;

• The pathway through which those protective effects of part-time work operated was through increases in the quality of the home environment and in the mother’s sensitivity.

With regard to cognitive difference in the middle and upper middle class sample, the study found that:

• Children of mothers who worked full-time in the first year of that child’s life received modestly lower child cognitive scores relative to children of mothers who do not work on all eight cognitive outcomes examined. Associations at 4½ years and first grade were roughly similar in size to those at age three;

• Mothers who worked full-time were more likely to have symptoms of depression;

• Lower cognitive scores were not found in children of mothers who worked part-time during the first year of their child’s life.

So, why do you think the federal government is so hot to promote mothers working outside the home?

As I mentioned previously, it may be that government views the female contribution to the work force and the proverbial cash cow. Therefore it might be in its best interest create an atmosphere where employment is preferred over staying at home and making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Apparently the U.S. isn’t the only one realizing that women in the workforce increases chances for vastly improved economic growth.

In March U.S News & World Report published findings on how the world wide realization that women can boost national economic wealth might just be worth cultural change.

By removing such restrictions, the country’s leaders said they aimed to increase women’s participation in the workforce from 22 percent to 30 percent in the next 12 years, a component of the Vision 2030 Plan government blueprint for economic growth. With oil prices down, the country is seeking to diversify its economy by turning, in part, to women.”

Equal rights and liberation are thrown under the bus in favor of growing economic wealth on the backs of women.

And U.S. News goes on to say: “Greater gender equality can play a role in boosting economic growth, say analysts, prompting a number of countries to launch efforts to increase the number of women in their labor forces. In fact, higher labor force participation by women can offset a shrinking workforce, according to the International Monetary Fund.”

The essence of paid family leave surfaces, and it’s fair to wonder if government funded child care isn’t far behind.

“Changes are afoot in Japan, too. Bringing more women into the workforce is considered a pillar of “Abenomics,” the economic plan of Prime Minister Shinzō Abe. Japan’s economy has been hampered by its shrinking and aging population, and research by Goldman Sachs found eliminating the gender gap in employment could increase the country’s gross domestic product by up to 13 percent.

“The country has expanded child care services and removed a tax deduction for dependent spouses, among other measures. Abe’s reforms coincide with a long-term increase in women’s workforce participation, which rose from 67 percent in 2000 to 76 percent in 2016, according to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.