As anyone who was ever raised by a mother who stayed at home and could legitimately recall the work their mother did to keep things in order and to raise them, they should be able to come to the conclusion that what their mother did could very well fit into the category of “labor”.
Ever hear the term Labor of love? If you haven't learn it. It's an important concept.
If one agrees that a stay at home mom, or even a dad, is in fact a “laborer” should it then logically follow that they should be offered the same rights as people who are employed? The difference here is that one is employed (being paid) and the other is laboring, but not being paid. Should a stay at home parent have SS benefits diminished? As it stand now those benefits are diminished if a parent decides to stay at home and raise a child.
How can something be diminished if they didn't work at all.. 0 of 0 put in is still 0. So I don't understand how you say something is diminished? They aren't paying into the system. Nor are they paying any taxes.
But you are absolutely wrong! To receive Social Security you only need 40 credits and you can earn 4 per year. So you only need 10 years of work over your life. So by the time your kids are 15 years old, you start working you can easily get the 40 credit hours before retirement (hell, you could reach 80 credit hours). Let me show you how by using my wife and I as example.
My wife prior to marrying her and having our first child together at 28 (her age).. worked 5 full years. That's 20 credits. When our youngest is 18 my wife will be 47. Now if she doesn't work for another 17 years, she will have a total of 14 years to collect another 20 credits for the 62 retirement age (earliest you retire, the longer you wait they better payout you get).
But beyond that, if you are a homemaker you are entitled to 50% of your spouses payment if it's greater then yours and even from your ex (if married for 10 years). So if you just work 10 years and your spouse works for 30 years, you get 15 years worth of Social Security credit instead of the 10 you actually worked. Homemakers also qualify for Survivor benefits as well starting at 60.
Should a parent receive some kind of unemployment benefits for deciding to stay at home and labor? As it stand now their future earnings and employable skills are diminished if they decide to labor at home and raise kids. Could this be a reason why more women are working professionals early in life, and foregoing motherhood?
UE benefits? Again to get those benefits you have had to work. Future earnings are always diminished for some reason, you get sick, you die, and so on. But a homemaker's is not diminished because they never worked in the first place. If they get a job later in life they actually increase their returns.
The main reasons:
1) is a culture change that came about from the Feminist movement (women in the workforce) from the 1950s -1970s (mid). This was part of the house wives wanted to work ("pink collar" jobs), and the came the "quiet revolution) of the 1970s (late)- today where the idea of working changed from necessity (to supplement household income) to let's have a career. But during all those culture changes, US birth rates started dropping in the 1960s and have flatten out to it's current levels by the 1970s.
2) Another by product of these changes, number of Female teachers started to drop, but women in business grew. It's why liberals call for more equal opportunity in these fields and expect women to gain promotion to certain positions. It's how Sandra Day O'Connor came to the supreme court (with the help of Sen. Goldwater), how you might find a female in charge of the Fed soon and so on.
3) Birth Control become widely available.
Those 3 things make a bigger difference then paying a man or women a few hundred dollars a month to stay home.
Now we aren't gonna get rid of any of these things. They are here to stay but they are a byproduct of liberalism (in classical sense) and I absolutely agree with all 3 of them. But in no way is it a better idea to pay to get people to stay home to counter act "progress". Paying people to stay unemployed.. I think you lost your marbles.
Right now our employable population is measured by something called the Labor Participation Rate (LPR), which measures the amount of people able to work. This number leaves out those who stay at home to raise children. As it stands now the LPR is at 63.4%, and I am positive that this number would drastically increase if being a child raiser was included as participating in the labor force.
Of course it would be higher. But not as much as you think. But this is getting insane. So insane I have to ask..Can I reclassify my homestead as a business and treat her as an employee? Oh wait, I can't fire my wife without her taking half of my estate.
With all this being said I think it is due time to consider and discuss how we monetarily ignore the most important job of all, motherhood and raising children.
Ignore? Dude, are you married? Have kids? Think about this. I pay $22,000 less in taxes because I am married and have 2 kids then I did before I was married and had kids. Why? Because Uncle Sam gives me deductions for it and puts me in a lower tax bracket. That's almost minimum wage worth of deductions and less taxes.
No, thanks.. if I put that $22,000 in my wife's IRA she'd be better off then a few hundred dollars a month from Guberment.
