The percentage of American mothers who breastfeed their babies has risen over the past decade, but it remains far below the rate public health officials would like to see. Newly published research provides one possible reason why.

It turns out all that healthy, nutritious milk comes at a surprisingly high cost.

A study of 1,313 American women who gave birth between 1980 and 1993 finds those who breastfed for six months or more suffered “more severe and more prolonged earnings losses” than mothers who breastfed for a shorter amount of time, or not at all.

“Our results suggest that breastfeeding, at least for six months or longer, is not free in an economic sense,” write sociologists Phyllis Rippeyoung and Mary Noonan. Their findings are published in the American Sociological Review.

According to the most recent government statistics, 74.6 percent of mothers report they breastfed their babies. But only 44.3 percent were still breastfeeding at six months, and 23.8 percent at one year, the minimum cutoff age recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

In an attempt to find out why, Rippeyoung and Noonan studied data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, an annual survey of a large group of Americans born between 1957 and 1964. They specifically looked at how childbirth and subsequent breast feeding impacted a woman’s earnings over the following years.

“We found that after childbirth, short-duration breastfeeders (those who stopped before the baby was 6 months old) and formula-feeders experienced similar earnings penalties,” the researchers write. “By contrast, women who breastfed for long durations experienced a much steeper decline in earned income over the first five years of their children’s lives.”

The cause of this gap is clear enough: “Long-duration breastfeeders are more likely to be non-employed in the years following childbirth, and they work fewer hours when they are employed.”

Learn why – and what can be done – in Miller-McCune »

Report: Women, Work, and Washington's Economy: How Budget Cuts Hurt All Three

The Great Recession and ensuing state budget cuts have severely impacted women’s employment, economic security, health, and safety, according to a recent brief from the Washington Budget and Policy Center. A few of the highlights lowlights:

• Of the $10 billion in state spending cuts already made, 93 percent have targeted education, health, and human services – areas that disproportionally employ and serve women;

• Budget cuts are undermining women’s employment and our overall recovery as government jobs in education, health, and social services – where women make up nearly three-quarters (72 percent) of the workforce – are declining;

• Time limits have cut 23,000 Washingtonians off from resources that support work and keep them engaged with the economy and over 27,000 fewer families are receiving assistance to help them afford child care so they can work; and

• Proposed cuts threaten services for domestic violence and sexual assault as the need is rising and more women are requesting help with finding shelter, feeding their children, and other economic hardships.

Read the full report here »

It comes as little surprise that paid sick days have received overwhelming public support in Seattle. But until now, it’s been difficult to say with precision just how strong that support really is.

Released today, a poll conducted in late August shows more than two-thirds of likely Seattle voters favor the Paid Sick Days ordinance that passed out of the Seattle City Council Health Committee on August 10th.

The poll reports 69% of voters support the current ordinance, while just 22% oppose the measure.

The poll also asked how a candidate’s support of the paid sick days ordinance would affect voter’s decisions on election day, to which more than four in ten respondents said they would be more inclined to support a mayoral (48% more likely) or city council (44% more likely) candidate who was in favor of the sick leave proposal. Only 20% were turned off by the stance.

“In tough economic times, workers are vulnerable and cannot afford to lose income or risk being disciplined simply because they have the flu or a child needs medical care. So many go to work sick because they do not have paid sick days,” said Marilyn Watkins, spokesperson for the Seattle Coalition for a Healthy Workforce. “Rebuilding the middle class, strengthening families’ economic security, and giving all children the opportunity to thrive requires common-sense protections like paid sick days.”

The ordinance passed by the Health Committee was modeled on the common-ground proposal crafted by Seattle workers, local small businesses, faith, labor and community groups. The proposal is set to come to the full Seattle City Council for a vote on September 12th.

Seattle City Council Member Nick Licata announces the official introduction of a paid sick days ordinance.

Via the Seattle Coalition for a Healthy Workforce:

Thanks to months of collaboration between local businesses and community organizations, and thousands of emails, postcards and phone calls from paid sick days supporters, the Seattle City Council will officially consider a paid sick days ordinance this summer!

This is a major step forward – we now have a chance to make paid sick days as basic as the 40-hour work week and the minimum wage here in Seattle.  But it’s important we keep up the pressure for action.

Please take a moment now to urge the Seattle City Council to vote on paid sick days this August.

The proposed paid sick days ordinance is backed by 75+ local organizations in the Seattle Coalition for a Healthy Workforce, and a growing list of local small business owners – many of whom helped write the ordinance.

But the City Council is already hearing from deep-pocketed interests lobbying against paid sick days. That’s why your message to the Council matters so much.

Tell the Seattle City Council why paid sick days matter to you and your family – and urge them to take action on paid sick days this August.

With paid sick days, you don’t have to choose between leaving a sick child at home alone or losing a day’s pay…or even your job. But 190,000 people working in Seattle don’t have that option – that’s 40% of the private-sector workforce!

You can help ensure everyone working in Seattle has paid sick days – please urge the Seattle City Council to vote on paid sick days this August.

Thank you for your support!

Evaluating Paid Sick Leave: Social, economic and health implications for Seattle

From the report Evaluating Paid Sick Leave
Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |10

“Stay home when you’re sick” was the key public health message during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, raising public awareness of the responsibility we all share in preventing the spread of contagious disease. The outbreak also highlighted how difficult it is for individuals without paid sick leave to meet competing obligations to their families, employers, their own well-being, and public health.

Paid time off from work to recover from illness, tend to a sick child, or see a doctor is a prerequisite for healthy workers and businesses, public health, family economic security, and even children’s success in school.

Yet four in ten workers get no paid sick leave – including many restaurant, grocery, and health care workers who are on the front lines of food safety and public health.

Seattle is home to about half a million jobs. An estimated 190,000 of those jobs do not offer paid sick leave, including nearly 30,000 in accommodation and food service, 20,000 in retail, and close to 20,000 in health services.

Minimum standards of paid sick days have been passed in three U.S. cities and are under consideration across the country. San Francisco’s paid sick leave ordinance has been in place the longest, since February 2007. The research there shows the new standards are supported by two-thirds of employers and have produced real benefits for half of all workers.

Since it was enacted, San Francisco’s job market has been stronger than in the state of California as a whole, and compares favorably with the surrounding counties. Adopting such a standard in the city of Seattle would protect public and community health, both in the city and throughout the region where Seattle’s workforce lives.

The U.S. health care system is possibly the most inefficient in the world: We spend twice as much per person on health care as other advanced countries, but we have worse health outcomes, including a lower life expectancy. The government, through programs like Medicare and Medicaid, pays for approximately half of the country’s health care, almost all of which is actually provided by the private sector. Thus, the bulk of our projected rising budget deficits are due to skyrocketing health care costs.

Click to use the interactive chart

The CEPR Health Care Budget Deficit Calculator shows that if the U.S. can get health care costs under control, our budget deficits will not rise uncontrollably in the future. But if we fail to contain health care costs, then it will be almost impossible to prevent exploding future budget deficits.

The Calculator lets you see what projected U.S. budget deficits would be if we had the same per person health care costs as any of the countries listed below, all of which enjoy longer life expectancies than the U.S. (Life expectancies are listed in parentheses.)

The yellow line shows projected deficits based on baseline projections from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The blue line shows where the deficits would be if health care costs in the U.S. were to rise only due to the aging of the population and stay even with per capita GDP growth (based on CBO’s “Low Health Care Cost” projection).

Use the CEPR calculator »

It’s easy to do, anonymous (if you want) and will only take a couple of minutes — click here to learn more and get started.

Since the late 1980′s, Washington’s Family Care Act (FCA) has helped ensure workers can use their paid sick days or other paid time off to care for a sick family member. For the most part, it’s worked well — but the FCA doesn’t give state agencies authority to stop employers from retaliating against workers who use the FCA.

Lawmakers are now considering two bills to create modest enforcement provisions for the FCA. We need your help to get this legislation passed and delivered to the Governor’s desk!

It’s easy: just call the state legislative hotline at 1-800-562-6000 and say you’d like to leave a message for your state Representatives and state Senator. (You’ll need to give your street address for your message to get to the right office.) If you prefer, you can also look up your legislators here and send each of them an email.

The best message is in your own words – but here are a few talking points you can use:

• I urge your support for (“House Bill 1828” if speaking with your Representative; “Substitute Senate Bill 5263“, if speaking with your Senator).

• For most employees and employers in the state, the Family Care Act has been working well. Unfortunately, in some cases follow up and enforcement is necessary.

• When people can care for their families, we all benefit from reduced health care costs, and employers benefit from better productivity and higher morale.

• Children and adults get better more quickly when a family member is present. Follow up care is improved when family members are able to hear doctor’s instructions.

Declining Fortunes of Children in MIddle Class Families

Continued state budget cuts are lowering future prospects for the children of middle class families, according to a new report issued by The Foundation for Child Development (FDC), aptly titled “The Declining Fortunes of Children in Middle Class Families“.

According to the FDC, over the past 25 years, public education and health programs have stepped in to provide essential services for middle-class children that their parents cannot afford or take for granted. In particular, researchers have identified access to health insurance and enrollment in early learning programs as particularly critical for children’s long-term well-being and success.

Given those findings, it is ironic to see our state seriously considering proposals to end the Basic Health Plan, stop childcare subsidies for working parents, and carve billions out of K-12 education, while leaving millions in corporate tax exemptions on the books.

As the middle class erodes, we’ve seen the income gap between the richest and poorest families widen, and prospects for job security and retirement security lost. I’ve often heard this generational reversal of fortune blithely referred to as “the new normal”. But I think  Stan Sorscher (also an EOI Board Member) got it right when he called that phrase “some goofy hypnotic code for giving up on opportunities for our children and accepting diminished futures.”

The FDC report is a stark reminder that the choices we make today will define the “normal” for future generations. We have the power to create the future we want for our children and grandchildren by creating a foundation of strong educational, health and social support systems that make it possible for everyone to prosper.

Which public investment will pay off in a better future for our state?

A $23 million cut in King County health programs approved by the Legislature last month means layoffs in Maternity Support Services, a program that improves infant survival and health by providing a range of services to 30,000 women and babies.

Meanwhile a sales tax exemption for out-of-state coal worth…you guessed it, $23.7 million…is still on the books.

Voters’ voices make budget choices – you can contact your legislators here.