Countries that require paid sick days are shown in green. Click for a full-size interactive map from Slate.

New Jersey is one of just a handful of U.S. states that offers paid family leave, allowing workers up to six weeks of paid time off to bond with a new baby or care for a seriously ill family member. Now, New Jersey State Assemblymembers are set to consider another pro-worker/family bill that would allow all workers in the Garden State to earn paid sick days.

Over 1.2 million workers in New Jersey – or 38% of the state’s private sector workforce – cannot take one paid sick day. When faced with the impossible choice between keeping up on the rent and work sick, many workers have no choice but to go to work sick.

Assemblywoman Pamela R. Lampitt introduced the bill on Monday following the expected passage of a paid sick days bill in New York City. Other cities and that have passed paid sick days laws include Seattle, WA; Portland, OR; Washington, D.C; San Francisco, CA; and Connecticut.

Phyllis Salowe-Kaye, Executive Director of NJ Citizen Action and Co-chain for NJ Time to Care said of the bill:

Providing earned sick days would ensure that no one has to choose between a paycheck and caring for their own health or that of a sick family member. The Legislature should move quickly to pass the bill so families across the state can take time to care when they need it without fear of losing critical income – or even their job.”

The workers most likely to lack paid sick days are lower-wage earners employed in restaurants, hotels, child care centers, retail stores and nursing homes. The proposed legislation would allow people working 30 hours/week to earn about 8 paid sick days in a year, and could be used to recover from an illness, care for a close family member,  obtain preventative or diagnostic treatment or deal with fallout from domestic violence.

UPDATE 12:00 PM: 30 donations so far totaling $11,000 – thank you! We’re in awe of all the support so far, but we still have a ways to go to reach our goal of 150 donations. Any amount makes a difference – please tell your friends (on Facebook, Twitter and email) that today is the day to GiveBIG to EOI. Thank you!

Today in Seattle is GiveBIG – our community’s biggest day of giving. Organized through the Seattle Foundation, GiveBIG takes place ALL DAY today and we at the Economic Opportunity Institute are hoping to get 150 donations and raise at least $15,000 to take full advantage of a match from a generous EOI Board member. You can learn more about the event on the EOI GiveBIG web page.

As you know, EOI is an active think tank for rejuvenating the middle class. We promote economic security and educational opportunity – from Social Security to paid sick days to family leave insurance to early learning, health coverage, and affordable higher education. And we can chalk up many actual victories on this road to social justice and progress.

The first $15,000 donated to EOI will be matched, thanks to the generous support of an EOI Board Member in honor of our 15th anniversary. Also, your gift will be “stretched” by a share of the Seattle Foundation’s $800,000+ “stretch pool.” So basically, the more GiveBIG donations we receive, the bigger the stretch.

You can find the link to donate via credit card here and through the icon below. This is a huge opportunity for EOI – please help us make our match and meet our goal!

John Burbank, EOI Executive Director

This spring the University of Washington announced with great fanfare its newest bachelor’s degree program. Joining in the chorus of support for early learning, UW has developed an on-line degree in early childhood education. This will prepare “individuals to work in early learning and child care…”

It seems like a good thing, and one in line with the current promotion of early learning among opinion-leaders, business leaders, and elected officials. We have a state government that espouses the value of high quality early learning, businesses that have gotten together to form the Business Partnership for Early Learning, study tours of early learning practices in other countries, legislators who continually promote early learning, foundations which fund early learning initiatives, and our own state Department of Early Learning. UW’s new degree program fits right in.

And yet, there is something fishy about the entire promotion. First of all, it is almost entirely on-line. That means not much personal professor/student interaction.  Is that the sort of practice we want the graduates of this program to emulate when they are teaching and caring for young children? Do we want young kids immersed in the real world, with real people, real frustrations, real problems with working out whose turn it is, and real triumphs when you build a sand castle, or do we want these kids to be participants in the virtual world…. Because that is where this pedagogy is going – away from actual teachers and professors and into video screens. If we don’t want that to happen, then why are we using virtual teaching for an undergraduate degree? Shouldn’t we practice what we preach?

The main reason I can figure out why the focus is on-line education is because it is cheaper. Note, not better, not more rigorous, not more creative, nor more demanding. Just cheaper. How cheap? $7,000 a year and geared to track upward each year. Think about that. $7,000 was what tuition was for all students just four years ago. So what is being trumpeted now for early learning degrees is more expensive than tuition students paid for any degree in 2007-08.

Now compare that $7,000 a year to the typical early learning teacher’s salary of less than $23,000. This is a two-year program, so that’s a bill for $14,000. All at once, tuition (not including fees, or room and board), is close to two-thirds of a teachers’ annual compensation.

What’s more, no public funds are being used to support this program, unlike other undergraduate majors. So corporations cheer for early learning, but they don’t want to sacrifice their tax loopholes to fund it. We have a state government that has set up a superstructure for early learning, through the Department of Early Learning. But the state isn’t contributing one penny to fund these BA’s for early learning. What early learning teachers and caregivers, and the kids for whom they care, and the families of these kids, what all these people get is a rhetorical pat-on-the-back for high quality early learning, as if you can achieve it by charging high and increasing tuition to students who will become early learning teachers, who will earn their way into poverty.

No public funding, lousy wages, high tuition, no career ladder, falling compensation, no future. That’s the back story to the new degree at the UW for early learning. Don’t be fooled.

Senator Mark Begich (D-Alaska)

Sitka News reports Senator Mark Begich (D-Alaska) is prepared to introduce legislation to protect and preserve Social Security benefits for future generations, while shoring up the system’s long-term solvency.

Senator Begich introduced his plan in response to President Obama’s proposal to switch to the Chained CPI, which would cut annual cost-of-living increases for seniors and veterans on Social Security. The Senator’s plan to shore up Social Security is based on two key elements:

• Scrap the cap on taxable income: ”Current law sets a cap on contributions for higher income earners; this year they quit paying when their wages hit $113,700. By phasing out this cap, which has essentially become a tax loophole, more people would pay into Social Security all year long.  As a result, the solvency of the trust fund would be extended for about 75 years.”

• Change to the CPI-Elderly, instead of the Chained CPI: “Replace the current system for calculating cost-of-living adjustments to more accurately reflect the cost-of-living for seniors.  This would replace the consumer price index (CPI) for workers with a CPI-E, which reflects costs for seniors and would increase their benefits.”

Scrapping the cap on taxable income would all-but guarantee Social Security’s long-term financial solvency by ensuring all Americans contribute equally to Social Security. Currently, people earning over $113,700 don’t pay into Social Security on that income – and capital gains income is not subject to Social Security taxes. For example, in 2012 Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke paid a Social Security tax rate of 0.5% on $1.3 million in wages, while Wal-Mart retail employees paid the full rate of 6.2% on their average wages of $22,100. Scrapping the cap would ensure workers and CEOs alike pay the same rate into Social Security.

Switching to the CPI-Elderly (CPI-E) is a technical fix that will ensure cost-of-living adjustments more accurately reflect costs seniors face. While the current CPI measure assumes seniors are buying iPads and new cars, the CPI-E would give greater weight to health care costs and prescription drug prices on which seniors spend more than the average consumer.

Read Sen. Begich’s bill will likely be introduced this week.

Marilyn (right) and her mother

I’ve been a mom for 28 years now – and a daughter for a lot longer. At this point, I’d rather have time with my sons for Mother’s Day than the little handmade gifts they used to give me when they were little. And I know my own mom would appreciate the same from me.

I also know, both as a giver and receiver of maternal love, how strong the instinct for self-sacrifice is. My mom scrimped and saved, never spending on herself, so her 5 kids could all enjoy music lessons and daily swimming in the hot Indiana summers, even on a modest family income. Now she faces serious health challenges, but still expresses appreciation for calls or visits from her on-the-go family – rather than complaining we don’t spend enough time with her.

The right to some time off with income is in fact the best ways we as a nation could honor moms this Mother’s Day.

Without legal requirements in place, only 12% of American workers have access to paid family leave and 4 in 10 get no paid sick leave. The lack of paid leave has real consequences when  60% of preschoolers and 70% of school-age children here in Washington have all their parents in the workforce.

The United States is one of the few countries in the world without guaranteed paid maternity leave, sick leave, and vacation time. Our children suffer the consequences.  According to the CIA Factbook, the US has higher rates of infant mortality than 50 other countries. Cuba, Greece, Slovenia, and French Polynesia are among those 50 countries doing better than us.  A 2013 United Nations report on the health and wellbeing of children ranked the United States 26th out of 29 wealthy countries. And 22% of American children live in poverty.

How can we do better by our children – and our mothers?

We have practical policy models right here in the U.S. Seattle along with 4 other cities and the state of Connecticut have adopted paid sick days laws. Moms in these places can stay home with a sick child or take an ailing parent to the doctor and still put groceries on the table that week. They can also stay home when sick themselves, keeping the workplace healthier, safer, and more productive.

Five states have established family and/or medical leave insurance pools that provide workers with income when a serious illness or injury or new baby require longer periods off work. Not surprisingly, women in these states take longer maternity leaves. They breastfeed longer and take their babies in for more immunizations. And those moms are more likely to be in the workforce and earning more a year after giving birth. Moreover, new fathers also take longer leaves, keeping them more involved with their kids long term both emotionally and financially.

These paid leave policies are a good starting point to recreate the opportunity that we Americans pride ourselves on, but seems to have slipped away in the last generation.

We have lots of studies documenting that paid leave improves the health and wellbeing of mothers and babies, children and seniors, workers and employers. Unfortunately, data and common sense are not what drive policy change. To make paid sick days and family and medical leave insurance a reality, American mothers– and the sons, daughters, parents, and partners who love them –  have to break through the instinct for self-sacrifice and demand new rights from state legislators and Congress.

If the people who represent us now continue to deny us equal opportunity for paid time off for health and family needs, then it’s time to vote them out and vote in people who will pay attention.

That’s what I’d really like for Mother’s Day this year.

In 2008, Oregon chose to expand Medicaid, but had to limit enrollment because of budget constraints. As a result, the state set up a lottery system to select just 10,000 new enrollees from among 90,000 eligible residents. This allowed researchers to study health outcomes between those who won a slot vs. those who did not.

The study tracked thousands of people in both groups over two years, measuring important health indicators, including blood pressure and cholesterol, as well as whether patients were diagnosed with and receiving treatment for specific health conditions.

Researchers found no improvements in the diagnosis of hypertension and high cholesterol. However, for the Medicaid population there were marked improvements in diagnosis of diabetes and use of medication among those diagnosed. Further, those receiving care under Medicaid were less likely to be depressed and more likely to seek preventive care. They also spent less on “catastrophic out-of-pocket medical expenditures.”

While researchers concluded there were no significant differences in physical health outcomes, it’s hard to imagine a clinician that wouldn’t agree preventive care and early diagnosis lead to better health outcomes. Further, there’s something to be said for reducing the financial burden of those seeking catastrophic care. Even among the insured, those with paltry plans are more likely to delay care because of financial concerns, underscoring the importance of adequate coverage.

For Washington state, these latest results likely won’t change the state’s commitment to Medicaid, as lawmakers are already poised to take up the expansion. However, they might prompt policymakers to think more about the importance of comprehensive care as health reform moves forward. A top priority for policymakers will be how expanded access to health care can also lead to better health care and outcomes for everyone.

Coverage for more Washingtonians would surely be a positive change, but what will be especially important for patients is the quality and scope of care they receive. Coverage itself makes a difference for those that have gone without, but inadequate coverage only goes so far in improving long-term health outcomes.  Washington’s true measure of success in current healthcare reform efforts should lie in reducing rates of underinsurance, in addition to physical and mental health outcomes.

John Burbank, EOI Executive Director

My daughter is really good with little kids. She can really get them to open up. She engages with them – about who they are, what they want to do, what they could do. These are some of the qualities of a good early childhood teacher.

Child-care teaching is one of the most important professions, yet I’m glad my daughter teaches college students, not three- and four-year olds. Why? Because as an early childhood teacher, you progressively earn your way into poverty. Early childhood teachers are paid less than parking attendants. That’s not much for someone providing love, learning, and support for our greatest assets – our children.

Many of the advocates and designers of our early learning system believe we can improve the quality of early learning with a new curriculum, new facilities, new training for teachers, and a rating system for child care centers. But, they miss the one most important ingredient: Teacher salaries.

When it comes to K-12 education, we can all agree that the most important catalyst for learning is the teacher. But K-12 teachers are underpaid, starting at $33,000 and topping out with a PhD and 16 plus years of teaching at $63,000. Now apply that same equation to early learning. Believe it or not, the typical child-care teacher earns $11 an hour. Assistants earn $9.50. That is just 31 cents above the minimum wage. Why would a college counselor responsibly encourage any student to pursue early learning as a career? A full-time assistant, working 52 weeks a year, can expect an annual income of less than $20,000. A child care teacher can expect less than $23,000! And she can forget about health insurance, paid sick days, or any retirement savings plan.

Over the past decade, even as early learning has become the focus of business elites and policy makers, this compensation has gotten worse. Just since 2010, compensation has fallen over $1,000 for child care assistants, over $250 for teachers, and over $200 for supervisors. Is it any wonder that two out of every five assistants quit every year, as do 20 percent of teachers?

By the time a child starts kindergarten, she will have experienced an entire staffing change in the teachers who have taught and cared for her. Turnover, poor compensation, and no career pathways all but ensure the vast majority of kids in child care are missing out on learning, developing self-confidence, and being ready for kindergarten.

The good news is that we have a remedy for this in state law, right now! In 2005 the Legislature approved the child-care career and wage ladder. The legislation, sponsored by Reps. Ruth Kagi (D-Shoreline), Mary Helen Roberts (D- Edmonds), and now Sen. Maralyn Chase (D-Shoreline), created a wage ladder with increments for experience, responsibility, and education. The child-care centers paid the wage increments for experience and responsibility, and the state paid for the wage increments for education. The Legislature then funded the wage ladder at $1.5 million a year, which enabled about 1,000 child care teachers to receive slightly better compensation for their education. The results were terrific — everything an early learning advocate or parent would want. Teachers went back to community college, their self-esteem went up, as did their morale at work. As teachers gained educational credits, their wages went up by 25 cents to 50 cents an hour. The quality of their care and teaching improved and the children in their care thrived. A win all around.

But the funding only covered 10 percent of child care centers that wanted to participate. So rather than finding the funding for a successful program, they killed it during the recession, and has not yet brought it back. Instead we have a lot of rhetoric in support of early learning and even more legislatively-mandated studies and reports. All the time the workers come last, as do the kids in their care.

And yet, these workers are the people who can either lead our children in high quality child care and early learning, or can be demoralized, patronized, worked cheap, and leave their poverty-producing job in child care to the next temporary employee.

The choice is pretty stark. Luckily, the Legislature gets the chance to do what it didn’t do in the regular session, starting over again in the special session next week. Let’s hope they keep in mind the guardians of high quality child care — our youngest children’s teachers and caregivers — and re-fund the child care wage and career ladder.

PHOTO: Heidi Söyrinki

Being a mother isn’t an easy job, no matter where you’re doing it. But in Finland, which ensures a high quality of life for mothers and their newborns, it’s easier than most everywhere else.

Finland was recently ranked number one on Save The Children’s 14th Annual Mothers Index, which is a part of their broader 2013 State of the World’s Mothers report. The index rates countries on five key indicators of motherhood: maternal health, children’s well-being, educational status, economic status, and political status. While Finland didn’t place first in any of the individual metrics, it was the only of the top ten countries (besides the Netherlands) that placed among the top 12 in each list.

Finland’s Nordic neighbors stood beside it at the top of the rankings, with Sweden and Norway taking second and third, respectively, and the Netherlands and Denmark at fifth and sixth. The United States ranked 30th on the list of 176 countries – behind all of Western Europe. The Democratic Republic of the Congo came in last place.

Finland earned its high rank thanks to across-the-board government support for mothers. Mothers and their kids are largely healthy: the lifetime risk of maternal death is 1 in 12,200, and only 1 in 344 children will die before their fifth birthday. By contrast, in the U.S. maternal death risk is 1 in 2,400, and 1 in 133 children will die before their fifth birthday.

But it doesn’t stop there. The strong Finnish education system (which we have outlined before) ensures mothers are well-educated, and both per-capita income and political involvement of women in Finland are high compared to many other nations. While the U.S. federal government is only 18% female, Finland has 42.5% female participation, and the two nations’ average incomes are basically the same. Finnish parent also benefit from universal paid family leave. This year, a new dad in Finland can take nearly 8 weeks of paid paternity leave, while new moms have than 15 weeks. The U.S. is one of just two countries that does not guarantee paid parental leave.

While Finland certainly has policies that benefit parents, it should be no surprise that children, too, benefit from happy and healthy moms. Finland’s education system is consistently ranked among the best in the world, and its students come out well-prepared to take on the world. While instruction and education funding are obviously important, Finland is clearly doing a lot more than classroom reforms in order to make their system the best in the world.

By EOI Intern Bill Dow

Star Lake Elementary School in Kent, WA

If you think only new parents and preschool teachers care about early education think again. A few weeks ago, a group of Washington state superintendents, principals, kindergarten teachers and parents called for bigger investments in preschool. You might think they are worried about getting enough money for their K-12 schools this year, given the state’s lean budget. But, they understand preschool’s importance better than most because they see what happens when at-risk students don’t go.

These students start kindergarten behind and often never catch up.

To help all students start school strong, superintendents, school administrators and public officials gathered at Star Lake Elementary School and urged state legislators to invest in the Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program (ECEAP), which is the state’s preschool system. Two days later, Governor Jay Inslee agreed, proposing 3,000 new spots in ECEAP classrooms over the next two years.

“All of us as adults, both in and out of education, are hypocrites if we say we are committed to equity, access, and closing the gap but don’t fight to ensure that we are funding pre-k and full-day kindergarten for every child in the state of Washington,” Highline School District Superintendent Susan Enfield said last week. “And so we have to impress upon our legislators, our communities, that this is the very best place that we can put our dollars.”

Enfield sees the problem every day in her own district, where only 20 percent of eligible children attend high-quality pre-kindergarten. Overall, ECEAP reaches a woeful 37 percent of all eligible families.

This is an issue that bridges the political divide. In the state legislature, leaders from both sides of the aisle are lining up to support better preschools and early education. Yesterday, the bipartisan coalition leading the state Senate proposed adding 860 new ECEAP slots over the next two years, at a cost of $22.4 million.

Why? High-quality preschool is a good education and fiscal policy. When students attend strong preschools they are set up to succeed throughout elementary, middle and high school. And a tall and growing stack of studies shows this type of early education saves the K-12 system money by reducing costly special education and remedial interventions.

The Bremerton School District, for example, saves $4,000 per child in kindergarten because it spends fewer dollars on special education and other services thanks to its model early education system that closely connects pre-k and K-3.

Preschool is also a key to solving one of public education’s most stubborn problems: low high school graduation rates. Children who don’t receive high-quality early learning are 25 percent more likely to drop out, according to research cited by the Washington State Association of Head Start & ECEAP, which organized the event.

“We are as a state, investing tons of money in ‘dropout prevention,’ investing tons of money in incarcerating our youth, when really we know the answer comes in early childhood,” Erin Jones, Federal Way School District’s Director of Achievement and Inclusion, said at the Kent, Wa., school. “Drop out is not a secondary issue. It’s not a middle school and high school issue. It’s a preschool and kindergarten issue.”

That’s because in a well-designed preschool, children lay the foundation of critical skills, such as self-control and persistence, they need for a strong start and finish in school.

“I don’t know that I’ve ever had to refer any of my ECEAP children for special services, or even had any that have truly struggled. Because they didn’t need it – they’re my leaders,” Marla Claffey, a kindergarten teacher at Mark Twain Elementary, said. “They’re the ones I count on. They can run things. they can do things. They’re ready.”

The next step is clear. Washington state needs to invest in ECEAP and early education. It will help students and save money now and later.

(Paul Nyhan works with the Washington State Association of Head Start & ECEAP on efforts to increase investments in high-quality early education. He also writes the early education blog, Birth to Thrive Online, for Thrive by Five Washington.)

Article from Philly.com: Praise for N.J.’s family leave insurance

As the director of Working Families program at Rutgers University’s Center for Women and Work, Karen White has been an unabashed supporter of New Jersey’s Family Leave Insurance program in both philosophical and policy-wonkish ways.

But it was White’s mother who let her understand what the state’s policy really meant.

“My mother was diagnosed with kidney cancer,” White said, “and didn’t want to tell any of her children. She was scared that her children would lose their jobs” and their income taking care of her.

Five years ago, on May 2, 2008, New Jersey became one of three states to enact legislation providing short-term paid leave for employees bonding with a new child or caring for an ailing parent, spouse, or child.

“I think it is one of the most affordable insurance programs that is on the market,” White said.

Entirely employee-financed, employees contribute one-tenth of 1 percent of their pay, up to $31.20 a year, through payroll deduction. In return, if necessary, an employee can take up to six weeks of paid time off from work at two-thirds pay, for a maximum of $584 a week.

The program is related to the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and the New Jersey Family Leave Act, both 20 years old this year. But there are important differences.

The FMLA and New Jersey Family Leave Act provide job protection – meaning that people who qualify for leaves cannot lose their jobs while they are taking care of their families. But those acts do not provide income, and they only apply to companies with more than 50 employees.

The family leave insurance program provides benefits to employees at all companies, but does not protect the jobs of employees at small businesses.

The family leave insurance program extended New Jersey’s existing Temporary Disability insurance program – another payroll deduction program, charged to employers and employees, that provides wages for an employee recovering from an illness or pregnancy. New Jersey is one of five states, not including Pennsylvania or Delaware, to have a temporary disability insurance program.

“The difficulty is coordinating it all,” said Stefanie Riehl, assistant vice president of employment labor policy for the New Jersey Business and Industry Association.

She said there are different qualifications and forms for each program. Even if they chafe at the laws themselves, she said, New Jersey employers would at least like them to be easier to implement.

“There needs to be some streamlining where employers can get information, where they can see what documents are received,” she said. “A centralized website – that’s where we are focusing our efforts, because the likelihood of this law being repealed is slim to none.”

The association opposed the law as unnecessary and an administrative burden for employers.

Since family leave insurance went into effect in July 2009, $281.2 million has been paid out for 95,537 claims as of the end of April. The majority, 74,965, have been filed to allow parents time to bond with a new baby or a newly adopted child.

“Usage was what was expected, but the amount of time taken was shorter than expected,” said Philip Kirschner, president of the Business and Industry Association.

“I think that has to do with the economy,” he said. “People need the money and they can’t stay out for as long as they wish to.”

California was the first state to pass a family leave insurance program, followed by Washington state and New Jersey. But Washington never implemented its program.

In January, the Rutgers Center for Women and Work released an evaluation of the program.

“What we found is that a majority of people – about six in 10 – had not seen or heard anything about the program,” said White, a coauthor of the report. “Of those who did know, 20 percent did not know they could use it to care for a sick family member. They thought it was only to bond with a new child.”

As it turned out, White never had to use the leave or insurance to care for her mother. Her job provided enough flexibility without her going on leave, and her mother recovered.

“That I never had to take the leave was great,” White said, “but that I had the ability was a great comfort to me and my mother.”