Family Values Mean Paying Workers Enough to Support Their Families

[Omaha Steve]

Full article: http://blog.aflcio.org/2006/08/15/family-values-means-paying-workers-enough-to-support-their-families/

Corporate Greed, Economy

Aug 15

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Family Values Mean Paying Workers Enough to Support Their Families

Help Wanted: Parent of young children to work long hours, nights and weekends for low wages. Must be willing to give up pay every time you take a sick day, vacation day or personal day off. Must be able to sacrifice time with children, sick elderly relatives and spouses. Send applications to the 24-hour global economy.

Although no employer would print such a classified, it’s a job description that’s a reality for many U.S. workers trying to balance work and home. Most often, work is winning out, pushing up productivity while making our families pay the price.

Consider these disturbing stats culled by the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) in a new study, Getting Punched: The Job and Family Clock.

* A study for the Gates Foundation this year found one in five (22 percent) of school dropouts said they left school because their parents were working and they had to take care of younger siblings or other tasks at home.
* A Harvard University study shows for each hour their parents work between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m., children are 16 percent more likely to score at the bottom on standardized math tests.
* The same Harvard study says children are three times more likely to be suspended from school if their parents work at night.

The U.S. Census Bureau reports some two-thirds (65 percent) of families with children are headed by two employed parents or by a single working parent. In the 1960s, 70 percent of families with children had at least one parent at home full-time.

Among the comments we received, an anonymous respondent writes:

Most people assume that because I am a woman, there is someone (husband, parents, etc.) who will take care of me or help me. This is not true. I wish my job provided me with more time off, more flexible hours, the ability to work from home and a better salary.

From Worthington, Minn., Louise writes:

Trying to balance my career and family life is next to impossible, with good jobs being a 70-mile commute….My own family spends $400 per month on gasoline so I can work a job just to get health care.

[librechik]

1. If "Christians" in Congress can't support that, what do you call them?

FACT: You can't call them Christians. Jesus wouldn't.