Question from Boushey's "Finding Time" 1. In Finding Time Chapter 2, one strategy middle class families have been using to maintain their living standard is to go into debt. Provide your understanding of why this strategy is dangerous. How does past history suggest this will not end well? 2. When considering the impact that paid sick leave could have on employees, what are some of the benefits you would include? Is this policy good or bad for business? Is this the wrong question to address? Why or why not? 3. What is meant by the statement "American business has lost its Silent Partner who could be home and provide care?" Why is this idea even more salient given the current state of the labor market and employers' difficulty in finding employees to hire?The New Deal left us with no national family and medical leave insuran| Ellen\" program. Current federal law requires an employer to held a person's job only until she or he comes back and only if the employee and his rm meet the lawis eligibility criteria. At the federal level, we should build on what we've learned from the states and the Family and Medical Leave Act. Legislation like the Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act, introduced in the House of Representatives by Rosa Dclauro {DCounecticut} and in the Senate by Kristin Gillibraud [DNew York}, does just that, providing near-universal coverage, including for young and . . 43 intermittent workers. American business has lost the Silent Partner who could be home all the time and provide care. As a result, there are times when workers need to be at home to take care of a loved one. While employers might wish that they didn't have to cope with absences, they need to adjust to the reality that they are no longer getting a hidden subsidy from their - Partner. This isn't a new cost; it's a shift in how families are nding the time to care. Looking at paid family and medical leave and paid sick time from all four quadrants of the economic cycle makes clear that the advantages vastly outweigh the disadvantages. Once we look at the full economic cycle, we can see that what happens at home when workers aren't at work is not just a private family concern. As we learned in Chapter 5, the time workers spend caring for themselves and their family members is part of the economic cycle. when a worker isn't at work, he's at home, and the care he provides is not only about love and compassion; it's economically important. The care that a child receives from her parents in the rst few months of life can make all the difference in what kind of adult she'll eventually grow up to be. Having time at home allows us to recover from an illness faster. What's better for productivity than healthy workers and families? Thinking through the other pieces of the economic cycle, we can see that the ability to earn paid sick time may make it possible for workers to sell time and, thus, buy goods and servicesparticularly in an economy where the typical American Worker also has to be a caregiver at times. Some employers offer paid sick leave, presumably because they think it's good for business, but when they do, they tend to give it only to the higher-paid employees, as shown in Figure 6.2. Low-wage workers, like everyone, occasionally get sick, as do their children. These workers may not only be out a day's pay {and depending on how close to the hone their family budget is, a few days lost pay may constrain their spending on goods and services) but also face penalties at work. For some, this even includes losing their job. Further, while opponents of paid sick time argue that workers who have paid vacation or other personal leave are covered for sick time, many workers cannot take this kind of leave without giving their employer advance notice, making it unusable when a child wakes up with a high fever or other urgent-care needs arise. Paid sick days solve that problem, making it easier for caregivers to sell time.F Fig. 6.2 Percentage of workers with employer-presided by average wage, 2014. Relatively few low-wage workers have access to paid sick days, while nearly all high-wage workers have access. Note: Includes workers in the private nonfarm economy except those in private households, and workers in the public sector except the federal government. To be sure, not all borrowing by families went to pay for better houses ii \"at\" school districts, cars, education, health care, child care, and elder care. Lots o families used their added borrowing to go on spending sprees and take vacations they couldn't really afford. Even so, the actual distribution of spending shows that frivolity was a minor cause of family debt. Taking on debt isn't necessarily a bad thing. It can be an excellent short-term solution to a cash-ow problem. So long as you will have the money to pay back the loan, it can be an ideal strategy. Borrowing for long-term investments or to smooth spending over a lifetime can help families acquire things they need when they're young and pay them off gradually. A college degree, a home, or a car may all be necessary for getting a good job or raising a family. It's good that families don't have to save up rstvery few of us would ever be able to afford those things when we actually need them. But too much debt or debt that patches over falling incomes that don't go back up can lead to real problems. when families get into nancial trouble, it's more often than not because of an unanticipated health-care crisis. According to an analysis of goo}r data published in the American Journal of Medicine, which is consistent with a more recent study by the online nancial rm NerdWallet, approximately three in ve bankruptcies follow a major health crisis, not a spending binge. And, if we've learned anything from the past decade, it's that an economy built on debt is inherently unstable.32 Debt is not a long-term solution for lack of income. As wages failed to keep pace with productivity, families had a few options for how to cope. They could pare back their spending, work more, or borrow more. They did all three but now, especially in the wake of the nancial crisis of 2008, the options for borrowing more are increasingly limited. In 2ooS, the collapse of the housing market and the ensuing economic crisis led to a sharp fall in borrowing as lenders pared back and home prices plummeted. While debt remains highas of the end of 2o14, total household debt in the United States amounted to $11.83 trillion, a mere 6.7 percent below the peak in the third quarter of aoGBthe ability of families to use this as a coping strategy may be near its end.33