In this key ranking, the U.S. is dead last

[groundloop]

Source: CBS News

Americans are educated to view life in the U.S. as a road to opportunity, but when it comes to workplace benefits the country can be more like a dead-end street.

The U.S. ranks dead last behind European countries in providing workplace benefits and leave, according to a new study from employment site Glassdoor. The report, which was completed with Llewellyn Consulting, finds that the U.S. is the least generous country on nine out of 12 issues, including sick days and maternity leave, while ranking among the least generous countries for the three other benefits.

The question of workplace benefits has increasingly entered the public dialogue. Even some presidential candidates are including the issue as part of their platforms. Bernie Sanders, for instance, supports paid sick leave and family leave, which the U.S. currently doesn't guarantee (and where Glassdoor ranks America in last place). Sanders has held up Denmark as a model for working people, and the Glassdoor report backs that up: It found that country to be the most generous with employee benefits and leave policies.

"The social safety net is an integral part of today's labor market," said Andrew Chamberlain, chief economist at Glassdoor, in the report. "Unemployment benefits take the rough edges off the business cycle, and paid maternity leave has been shown to improve children's wellbeing for decades down the road."



Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/workplace-benefits-in-this-key-ranking-the-u-s-is-dead-last/

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[47of74]

1. Yeah and the teabaggers say love it or leave it when people mention things like this...

....my response to said teabaggers is to A) Fuck off and B) Yeah don't tempt me.

[n2doc]

3. My response is, I can't leave

At least, those countries won't take me because I am older, and not filthy rich.

[Atman]

8. My sister lives in Thailand. I'd go live there too, except...

...Thailand won't allow my wife to work. Ironically, as an old man artist, I'd be welcome. I could find work relatively easily, even set up my own shop. But my wife is a "professional," an APRN, and Thailand doesn't grant work visas for jobs that will take work away from Thai citizens. So, my wife would have to ditch her degrees and her training in order to move to Thailand. Curious that in the United States we grant work visas to damned near anybody.

[awoke_in_2003]

26. Yep, leaving isn't easy or cheap

If it were, I would be living in a Scandinavian country.

[PasadenaTrudy]

28. Same here..

I couldn't move to a hot humid Thailand, no matter how cheap it is.

[chervilant]

19. Not only teabaggers...

I know a lot of people in my community who say that unions are bad (I'm very near the "home" of Wallyworld), and that companies cannot afford to provide bennies (this just slays me).

I don't know if all of these people are Republicans, but many of them do not self-identify as teabaggers. Apparently, teabaggers have garnered a bad reputation, even among Republicans.

I do have one acquaintance from my knitting group who asserted that she's for Trump. I asked her to tell me which of Trump's policies she finds most worthy of her vote. She told me she "doesn't know specifics," she just "likes Trump for his honesty." She then trotted out this canard: "He says what people are thinking."

[Atman]

2. Say "workplace benefits" to most American workers and they'll say...

"Huh? What's that?"

[valerief]

5. Say, "Workplace," to many Americans and they'll say, "You mean China?" nt

[valerief]

4. I think our guy Bernie has been telling us this for decades! nt

[Cracklin Charlie]

6. If I had the time...

I would post something witty and thought-provoking about all the friends of a certain age (52-60) who have worked their asses off their whole lives for companies that told them said company would provide benefits to those employees when their time came to retire. I know at least 30 people who were "let go" for some lame reason or another, just a few years before their full retirement.

In some cases, after being "let go", the former employee has discovered that said company has helped themselves to a portion of the employees self-funded retirement account, using the rules and regulations they helped write into some congressional legislation.

It is heartbreaking.

[LittleGirl]

9. Yep,

happened to my brother. Has worked at Bayer for 33 yrs. He's 54 and was told recently that even though he had the required 30 yrs in service, they would not provide life long health care for him after he retired anymore. And then he was told that he could take a co-worker to lunch with him for his 30th anniversary and not his family which used to be provided for everyone else. His response to this? He's thankful he still has a job because he's too young to retire, too young for medicare and has had 7 stints in his heart and needs a transplant instead. Yeah, he's thrilled.
edit: word

[Lorien]

12. Yeah, that happens to most of the life long Disney employees I know

They work for the company for 40 years, but the company finds loopholes when they retire to get out of giving them anything they've earned. It's sickening.

[kairos12]

15. Mickey Louse.

[passiveporcupine]

31. Or the companies folded

I worked for GTE for thirty years and should have been able to retire with a nice pension...but they started shutting down all their manufacturing facilities. I had two big ones close (Lenkurt in San Carlos, and New Mexico) after left them for a third smaller facility in Colorado. The smaller facility did well and was bought out by the management, which successfully ended all pensions. Then when it was still dong great, they sold it to a company back east and everyone lost their jobs.

[Bubzer]

7. Not surprising given how employees have been bludgeoned with the whole "global competition" BS.

It's just cover to pay employees less in benefits and salary.

[pampango]

10. If Europeans, Canadians, Australians, etc. can do it, so can we.

Workplace benefits were not handed to them. They had to defeat the right. We have to do the same.

European countries are far more generous to workers than the U.S., although variations exist within the region. Denmark, France and Spain rank at the top, while Ireland, Switzerland and the U.K. are the region's least generous, the study found.

Every country in the European Union offers at least 14 weeks of paid maternity leave, for example, but some offer more than others. The U.K. and Ireland offer the longest periods, at 52 weeks and 42 weeks, respectively. Germany and Sweden, on the other hand, offer the minimum of 14 weeks.

"The U.S., in sharp contrast, has no general provision for paid maternity leave," the report noted. "However employed mothers may take advantage of short-term disability benefits offered at the state/federal level and many employers are instituting their own generous programs to attract and retain employees."

[JudyM]

23. But, but, "unicorns!"... Country too big to fix. Banks too big to fail.

[pampango]

30. Agreed. Large, strong countries are helpless. Smaller, weaker countries can do whatever

they want for their workers and middle class.

If only the US could have a population of 35 million (Canada) or 23 million (Australia) rather than 320 million (US) we would be able to stand up to the pressure from our rich and the foreign poor. If only we were not cursed with a big population and a large economy, we could solve our problems. We are doomed!

[Lorien]

11. Almost everyone I know is either freelance or part time

I haven't had a paid vacation or sick leave in 25 years.

[catrose]

13. yes indeed

I was thinking that we're dead last in workplace benefits for full-time employees--how far below that are all of us contractors, freelance, part-timers and other folks who never count as employees?

[hunter]

14. Same here.

And we're supposed to resent the people who still have good union jobs and/or decent employers.

Hell, there are even DU members who have fallen for the bullshit that good jobs and comfortable retirement are impossible. Because of China or something.

The U.S.A. is not a first world nation. It never was for many groups of people, especially anyone not white and male, but now instead of pulling everyone up, the uber-wealthy who run the U.S.A. as their personal playground decided to tear everybody else down.

[chervilant]

20. OMG!!!

Your post just gave me an "AHA!!!" moment! I can say almost the same thing: it's been since 1983 for me.

33 years... I hadn't thought of it that way.

[dorkzilla]

16. The only thing that keeps me from soul-crushing despair

Is the fact that I have dual citizenship with Ireland. And now that I'm ill, their socialized medicine is looking pretty good too.

[Warpy]

17. Land of good greed, home of the slave

They've managed to make this once great country pure hell for working people.

[NoMoreRepugs]

18. why would anyone expect anything less?

the dismantling of unions and rise of the corporation and 1% ruling class here in the US
require a subservient labor pool.

[Wounded Bear]

21. Biggest problem in fixing this...

is that the conserves, Repubs, and Libertarians think this is some kind of victory, a shining example of American Exceptionalism.

"Look at us! We fuck our people over better than any country in the world!"

[awoke_in_2003]

27. And far too many democrats playing along. nt

[longship]

22. From CBS, no less.

Happy to R&

[Raster]

24. The United States seemingly abolished slavery based upon the color of one's skin years ago...

...however, forced servitude based upon one's financial status (or lack of it) is alive and doing exceedingly well.

[groundloop]

25. Sadly true. Also sad are the union people I know who are supporting T-rump.

I just can't fathom someone who has a decent retirement thanks to a union job who aligns himself with tea-baggers... but I know several. They've gotten theirs, screw everyone else. They've bought into the right wing lies and short sighted arguments that treating workers decently (healthcare etc.) will deplete their standard of living through higher taxes. They just can't get it through their puny little brains that private insurance is costing them far more than if we paid for healthcare through our tax dollars.

[99th_Monkey]

29. USA! USA! ...Where "workplace benefits" is an oxymoron.

Of course USA is dead last. We "sold our soul to the company store" long ago.

[bvar22]

32. You just have to frame it right.

USA! USA!!!
We're Number 1, at being last!!!

Thank gawd we aren't like those "Socialist" countries!!!