My back of napkin figures gave me about $20-40b. I'm curious how you got to the $2 billion number?

How do you even estimate that, human productivity is non linear to worktime and often, employees, when given good benefits are likely to be more productive.

also there's the fact of this having a ROI since people generate economic value in the longer run, and hence, more taxes

I'm curious about your napkin math, care to share?

I got mine from a paper published by the University of Chicago: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/735565.

So far….

Considering the push for reproduction from this admin and his technocrats, I'm curious if they would consider something like this.

One would think, but the flip-side is that this supports more women in the workforce. Traditional roles of men working and women caring for kids seems like a bigger priority of this admin.

I do think it is a policy point that Democrats should absolutely be hammering them on. This is pro-worker and pro-family at very low cost.

Most of republican’s decisions become much more logically consistent once you realize they just want to control people, primarily women and minorities. It isn’t and has never been about “family values” or “religious freedom” or “small government”. If it was about those things, they would look far more like democrats.

They don't want all Americans to reproduce. Making a law they want still needs a couple of Supreme Court decisions overturned.

The cost of not having this war could have been 8 trillion and countless lives, or some arbitrarily huge number. Many of the actions taken this year are directly intended to curb the possible events that could lead to World War 3. Iran is directly connected to all of that.

Seems like money well spent.

> the possible events that could lead to World War 3. Iran is directly connected to all of that.

If any event has pushed us closer to WW3 it is the US's decision to preemptively attack Iran.

> Seems like money well spent.

Based on what outcome? The regime is still intact, if not stronger. They are likely more resolute in wanting a nuclear weapon, as we almost certainly wouldn't have attacked them if they had one. They have validated their control over the Straight of Hormuz and it's impact on our economy.

> If any event has pushed us closer to WW3 it is the US's decision to preemptively attack Iran.

The US is reacting to Iran's attacks in the region. Iran has been attacking first.

> Based on what outcome? The regime is still intact, if not stronger.

> They are likely more resolute in wanting a nuclear weapon, as we almost certainly wouldn't have attacked them if they had one.

Russia has nukes and yet Ukraine is happily able to attack deep into Russia. Russia hasn't nuked Ukraine yet. I suspect if we had to, we still would've attacked them. Countries like Iran and North Korea lose their entire country if they launch a nuke.

> They have validated their control over the Straight of Hormuz and it's impact on our economy.

What was validated is that they have limited control over the strait, and we also have validated control over the strait as well as economic impact on Iran.

The more they harass the strait, the weaker that card becomes as more investment goes into alternatives.

This also pressures Chinese oil supply chain.

Hundreds of billions spent on a war you lost and best case scenario is going back to the deal Obama made. Money well spent indeed.

That's a propaganda line. Iran has lost most of its capacity to make war, but it can still harass.

The money is also not as relevant as people think. The amount of money is largely political fluff, not much in the way of serious economic impact in a $32 trillion economy.

There were WMDs in Iraq too right?

Iraq was never really about WMDs. WMDs were a surface political mechanism to achieve the aims, which were different. If you look at all the individual events that transpired before then it was clear something had to be done, but it wasn't a neat one liner that's easy to rally people around like WMDs.

Wow. It's like you're trying not to get it.

California already more or less provides 8 weeks of paid parental leave (PFL program).

That is great, unfortunately almost 90% of the country lives in a state other than California.

88.5%, to be precise.

Here in Norway it's 49 weeks with 100% pay.

Mom gets 3 weeks before birth, both gets 15 weeks each, and 16 weeks can be distributed as parents see fit.

So if mom gets the full 16 weeks, she gets 34 weeks total, and partner gets 15 weeks.

Parents can decide to get 80% pay, in which case they get 61 weeks total.

Some weeks around birth is fixed, apart from that parents can decide how to use it. One could work two days a week and have three days off, for example.

The pay is capped, but many employers will compensate the difference for high earners.