“What this country needs is a really good five cent cigar”  – Thomas Riley Marshall, US Vice President (1913–21)

Millions of rules, regulations and laws exist on the books in the US. Sometimes however it feels like common sense is lacking in the most basic things of human life. One such thing is the issue of paid leave for parents of new-born babies at the national level. At the state-level, some states have sensible rules supporting paid leave to mothers of new-borns. In an earlier I wrote about parental leave across OECD countries.

The chart below shows paid parental-leave (i.e. leave for both fathers and mothers) across OECD countries:

Click to enlarge

Source: Which countries are most generous to new parents?, The Economist

The Economist article noted:

Politicians in the United States, the world’s largest economy, like to preach the doctrine of “American exceptionalism”, which holds that their country is completely unique. When it comes to supporting new families, at least, this claim stands up: the United States is the only OECD country that offers no national-level paid leave at all.

One can only hope that some common sense prevails in Washington soon….