this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2026
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A Boring Dystopia
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What are "donated sick days" don't you have maternity leave in the USA?
It's where they make you beg your coworkers for their own sick leave to be transferred to you, or have HR send out an email blast begging employees to donate their own meager PTO to you, instead of the employer granting an appropriate amount of sick or maternity leave to begin with.
How does that even work? How can you transfer sick days? It’s not like you have a fixed amount of days you are allowed to be sick, right.. right?
You generally have a fixed amount of paid sick days per year. Those are what's being transferred.
That’s fucking insane.
Here, if you’re sick you get sick leave. There is no real limit other than after 2 years of illness you basically go on disability instead of sick leave.
You are told after a certain amount of time, if you do not return to work full time, you are laid off/fired and lose your health insurance. By law, they have to offer COBRA health insurance coverage to you but that is like 3X the cost of your insurance while employed. At that point, you apply for state funded health insurance (Medicaid) and are still given a work requirement... 80 hrs a month now unless you can prove disability and it takes at least 2 years to qualify for SSD (Social Security Disability). There are some carve outs... like if you have really bad cancer, there is a Medicaid spend down for treatment, or if you are in kidney failure and need regular hemodialysis.
That's kinda sick (in the sense of being twisted and cruel)
Americans have maternity leave under the Family Medical Leave Act but it's a paltry 12 weeks and unpaid.
So for many people, including these teachers, they have the choice of paying your bills or taking care of your kid or begging your coworkers to please give up their vacation days so you can continue to live while having a baby
Like every other third world country.
what
Like you get two hours to recover and they shove you back to work.
That is complicated. First, women who have given birth are eligible for Disability Pay for the first 6 -8 weeks. This is a fraction of their pay and generally does not actually arrive until a month or two later. Some states have paid maternity leave, providing certain conditions. NY state, where I live, provides for paid maternity leave on top of the temporary disability for up to 67% of pay... there is a cap on the income. For 2026, the NYSAWW is $1,833.63, which means the maximum weekly benefit is $1,228.53-- but this is at scale for the employee's regular pay. This is $51.21 more than the maximum weekly benefit for 2025. There, however, are many states that do not offer anything other than the temporary disability. Some workplaces/employers offer some paid maternity leave as an employee benefit. Many do not but if you work for an employer that has over a certain number of employees, you may be able to get family leave (FMLA) which is generally unpaid but provides job security in name... but At-Will Employment states are free to just fire anyone under specious reasons. States that have banned abortion or severely restricted it offer the least amount of maternity leave benefits, ironically.
Sounds like a beautiful place to start a family in.