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Making the Economy Work for the Many, Not the Few. Step 2: Make Work Family Friendly

Politicians talk a lot about the importance of family, but must do a better job delivering. Here’s how.

No one should have to choose between providing for your family and being a good parent. Yet “family-friendly” work is still a pipedream.

Today most parents are also wage earners, whether in a two-parent or single-parent household. Politicians talk a lot about the importance of family, but must do a better job delivering.

Specifically:

  • Require that women receive equal pay for equal work.
  • Require employers provide predictable hours so workers can plan to be home when their family needs them.
  • Provide universal childcare – pre-school and after-school – financed by employers and taxpayers.
  • Require that employers offer paid family and medical leave.

The richest nation in the world should enable its workers to be good parents. Family-friendly work isn’t a luxury. People who work hard deserve to make more than a decent living. They and their families deserve a decent life.

This post originally appeared at robertreich.org

By Robert Reich

ROBERT B. REICH, Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies, was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Time magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. He has written fourteen books, including the best sellers Aftershock, The Work of Nations and Beyond Outrage and, his most recent, Saving Capitalism. He is also a founding editor of The American Prospect magazine, chairman of Common Cause, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of the award-winning documentary, Inequality for All.