shithole country: americans have to crowdfund maternity leave and sick days…

Funny that the President who calls other nations “shitholes” is in charge of one in which cancer-fighting teachers and expectant parents have to crowdfund sick days and maternity leave.

Not only is America the country where whole families go bankrupt treating a single person’s illness and where crowdfunding medical care isn’t shocking in the least, America is too cheap to give folks the day off to recover.

According to the United States Department of Labor, only about 13% of American employees have (are “eligible” for) maternity leave. Meaning if roughly 50% of the population is capable of giving birth, only a fraction of them can both be in the workforce and have a baby at the same time. And since people both need to make money and procreate and capitalism is unrelenting, American women and nonbinary parents are crowdfunding maternity leave. In the U.S., we’re the only advanced industrialized nation not to offer paid parental leave and as a result our citizens cannot afford to take time off to have families.

Sound stressful enough? This phenomenon affects more than expectant parents, but many hardworking Americans who need to take medical leave. Such is the case for Florida teacher Robert Goodman, 56, who ran out of paid sick days while undergoing surgery and chemotherapy for colon cancer after using up 38 days. With no additional days, Goodman was forced to crowdfund the 20 additional days needed to complete his next round of treatment from volunteer teachers around the district. Effectively making it the reasonability of local teachers to sacrifice their own wellbeing in the longterm.

And while nearly 60 local teachers rushed to the aid of the 23-year-old Palm Beach Gardens High School veteran teacher, allowing him to take the first semester of this school year off, the point is none of them should have had to.