Political Nanny

In an effort to keep the campaign's thighs cute and chubby, Political Nanny is stirring some more substance into the election formula.

Today's supplement: Paid Family Leave

All three candidates support the Family Medical Leave Act. For John McCain, the law that allows workers up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for family medical emergencies, is working out just fine, as is. He also supports flex-time.

Democrats, on the other hand, appear to want more.

Hillary Clinton has set a goal for all 50 states to have a paid family leave plan by 2016. According to her website, she would propose spending $1 billion every year in grants to encourage states to develop their plans. She wants to expand FMLA to include 13 million more workers. And she would also like to see every American worker guaranteed seven paid sick days annually. She wants to start with federal employees, who now must use sick days and vacation days for paid maternity leave (they can have the 12 weeks of the FMLA, but it's unpaid for them too).  Clinton also said she wants to promote businesses that have family-friendly work environments, including flex-time and tele-commuting.

Barack Obama matches Clinton with proposing all workers have at least seven paid sick days per year. He wants to expand FMLA by covering employees of businesses with as few as 25 workers (currently, the act covers businesses with more than 50 workers). He also wants the act to cover workers taking care of old parents or sick members of their household. He wants the act to guarantee qualifying employees 24 hours of leave each year to attend kids' activities. He also wants leave guaranteed for employees to take care of matters involving sexual assault or domestic violence. Obama, too, wants the federal government to encourage states to adopt paid leave for all workers. He proposes $1.5 billion to help the states get started. He wants to see better enforcement of the law guaranteeing people with families will not be discriminated against in the workplace. Obama proposes doubling the spending on afterschool programs and reform the Child Care Tax Credit so that low-income families get as much as 50 percent of their childcare expenses credited. He wants to promote flextime and telecommuting and proposes the federal government act as a model for how other employers can make this work.

Which of these plans would be the best for your family? Remember, only the U.S., Papua New Guinea and Swaziland don't guarantee some type of maternity leave for all working women.

Supplemental reading on issues:

Candidates on Education

John McCain

Barack Obama