Should Stay At Home Moms Get Paid

Should Stay-at-Home Moms Get Basic Income? Experts Weigh In

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During the coronavirus pandemic, more than than 12 meg women lost jobs and over 2 one thousand thousand left the workforce altogether, CBS News reported. Many of those women left their jobs to accept intendance of children who were no longer able to nourish school or solar day intendance with facilities closed.

"We lost thirty years of progress," Reshma Saujani, the founder of the nonprofit Girls Who Code and a female parent of two, told the news aqueduct. "Think near that. The reality is, is we are in a moment of rage. Every mother I know has just had information technology."

Read: Why Some Believe Universal Basic Income Will Assistance Us
The Other Side: Why Some Believe Universal Basic Income Will Hurt Usa

Saujani has suggested a basic income for mothers equally part of what she is dubbing "The Marshall Program for Moms." The plan calls for a short-term monthly stipend for mothers who demand to leave the workforce to provide child care, along with paid family get out, affordable child care and pay equity.

But is a basic income for stay-at-home moms a adept thought? GOBankingRates asked career pros, executives and other financial experts to weigh in.

Why Stay-at-Home Moms Should Receive Universal Basic Income

Rachel Neill, the CEO and co-founder of two Hr talent acquisition firms — Carex Consulting Group and Talent Bandits — and a mother of seven, believes that basic income for stay-at-home mothers is a good idea.

"The fact that families with the available resource are paying for childcare is an indication that taking care of children is a skill and task worthy of receiving bounty for," she said. "I have been successful enough in my career that I am able to have a flexible work schedule and hire additional childcare help; however, many are not. The burden and responsibleness of raising a family is by and large automatically assigned to the women. If women are routinely pushed into domestic, familial roles, society and our government should exist held accountable for fairly compensating them."

Find Out: Here's How Much Economists Say Stay-calm Moms Should Become Paid

Neill said that a universal basic income for stay-at-home parents would exist benign for children, and would besides button employers to offer better parental exit policies to encourage mothers and fathers to stay in the workforce.

"In providing bones income for stay-at-domicile mothers, children are more probable to receive needed attending, love and necessary intendance from their immediate families and caretakers, a practice that has shown to positively touch a child's overall evolution and learning," she said. "On a larger calibration, providing stay-at-abode mothers (and fathers) with a basic income would help raise societal awareness about the value and importance of childrearing. In the U.Southward., it'south at the employer'due south discretion to make up one's mind the specifics of parental go out and many states don't have parental leave protections in identify. This leaves new parents in a tough position in terms of how to handle childcare at a point in a kid'due south life where attending and evolution are vital."

Go along Reading: Nearly 10 1000000 Working Moms Are Burned Out, Thanks to COVID-19

Although the pandemic shined a low-cal on why stay-at-home parents should be eligible for a basic income, Neill believes this type of back up should be available even when we are not in a time of crunch.

"I was fortunate enough to be able to work from habitation throughout the pandemic. Many women were not — they were forced to choose betwixt staying at their chore or staying home to take care of their children," she said. "Unfortunately, [due to] a situation for many that wasn't even a choice, they had to stay home and watch their children, merely simultaneously fearfulness they would not exist able to provide for their family. Women (and men) should never be put in a position where taking care of their children puts them in a situation where they do not accept the resources to provide for their children."

Helpful: 34 Savings and Money-Making Tips for Moms

Bridget Gainer, vice president of global public diplomacy at Aon, believes that universal basic income for parents is one of the many policies that should be in identify to ensure talented men and women don't permanently leave the workforce when they accept children.

"UBI builds resiliency because information technology provides stability should caregiving interfere with work," she said.

Gainer also believes that other potential solutions — some publicly funded, some employer-funded — for keeping parents in the workforce include expanded public child care options, an increased child tax credit (which has already been enacted), flexible work arrangements, private caregiver credits for employees and on-site kid intendance.

"The pandemic is forcing usa to confront certain bug that have been brewing for a long time," she said. "The lion's share of policies in place to support people with caregiving responsibilities simply don't work. Or don't piece of work enough."

Find Out: What The First Year of The Pandemic Looked Like for The Working Mom

Why Stay-at-Home Moms Shouldn't Receive Universal Basic Income

Stacy Caprio, founder of Her.CEO, believes that providing a universal basic income for stay-at-home moms would negatively bear on the U.S. economy.

"I don't think it's a good idea to give stay-at-home moms a basic income simply because it would put an undue strain on the financial organisation that would end up hurting everyone, including the stay-at-domicile moms themselves in the long-term," she said. "Anytime you start printing more money to finance income that isn't based on work or contribution, yous beginning having more than coin in circulation, which when used, contributes to inflation and debases the currency. This makes all the money you've saved worthless, and it makes the price of everything more expensive on a modest scale. When too much inflation happens, money can become worthless and the entire fiscal organisation tin can be reset with a huge standard of living decrease for everyone in the country, such equally has happened in places like Venezuela and Zimbabwe."

Read: 48% of Women Don't Want to Go Dorsum to Work in the Office Total Time

And although Neill supports basic income for parents, she too acknowledges there could exist some drawbacks: "The cons are like to whatsoever other government-funded programme: In that location will always be people who may not qualify just however need assistance, and there will be those who might accept advantage."

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Last updated: April 26, 2021

Gabrielle joined GOBankingRates in 2017 and brings with her a decade of experience in the journalism manufacture. Before joining the squad, she was a staff writer-reporter for People Mag and People.com. Her piece of work has also appeared on E! Online, Us Weekly, Patch, Sweety High and Discover Los Angeles, and she has been featured on "Good Morning America" as a glory news expert.