Editorial There's family value in paid parental leave
For a country that so often extols family values, the United States makes it awfully hard for Americans to care for their children. In Britain, Sweden and Norway, parents are granted about a year of paid parental leave to tend to their newborns during that particularly crucial and difficult period. In the U.S., on the other hand, federal law guarantees workers a mere 12 weeks of parental leave without pay.
In fact, the U.S. is the last remaining industrialized nation to offer only unpaid parental leave to workers. And even this overstates its generosity. The federal government deems workers eligible for unpaid parental leave only if they have been with their employer for at least 12 months, if their employer has at least 50 employees, and if they worked at least 1,250 hours during that yearlong period. Given these and other restrictions, only about 60% of private sector workers are covered. Things are even worse for low-income and minority parents, who are far more likely to be denied coverage because of the restrictions.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-paternity-20140707-story.html
