Ending Hunger in America, 2014 Hunger Report Full Report | Page 78
Balancing Work and Family
The Great Depression of the 1930s led to the New Deal, a set of economic initiatives that
embodied a new social contract between the government and the public. As part of the New
Deal, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Secretary of Labor, Francis Perkins, drafted
the seminal Fair Labor Standards Act, which Congress passed in 1938. The law benefits
families in many ways—particularly those in the lowest-paying jobs. The Fair Labor Standards Act set a federal minimum
wage, established the 40-hour
Figure 2.5 Mothers’ Labor Force Participation Rate, 1980-2010
workweek, and required employers
to pay employees overtime for any
80%
%
71
hours over 40 per week. In 1938,
With children under 18 years old
40 hours was considered a short
70
workweek and the country was
61%
With children under 3 years old
still reeling from the effects of
57%
60
the Great Depression. Reducing
unemployment was the president’s
59%
top priority, and the new law made
50
42%
With children under 1 year old
it possible to put more people back
to work.48
40
The Fair Labor Standards Act
sets the “floor” for the fair treat34%
30
ment of workers and it remains
a vital piece of legislation, but it
20
does not address the dual role of
1980 1983 1986 1989 1992 1995 1998 2001 2004 2007 2010
workers who are also caregivers.
In the 1930s, most women with
Source: Demos (2011), The State of Young America. Demos analysis of Current Population
Survey data.
children at home were not part
of the paid workforce. President
Roosevelt and Secretary Perkins, the first female Cabinet secretary, could not foresee the
transformation of the American workplace as women entered the workforce in large numbers and more mothers added “breadwinner” to their responsibilities.49 This made the care
of children and elders a much more complicated undertaking. This transformation is still
under way: between 1980 and 2010, mothers in the workforce with children under age 18
increased by 14 percent; mothers with children under age 6 by 19 percent; and mothers
with infants by 25 percent.50 See Figure 2.5. In survey after survey,51 parents, regardless of
their income level, report that they are exhausted and under stress from managing work and
family commitments.
The Fair Labor Standards Act is silent on whether workers have a right to adapt their
schedules to meet family needs. In the United States, workers who are allowed flexible scheduling and family leave tend to be those earning the most, while low-wage workers, arguably
those most in need of these benefits, are the least likely to receive them.52 In the late 1990s,
the U.K. government enacted a law that gives parents the right to request flexible schedules. Employers must provide this flexibility unless they can prove it will have an adverse
68? Chapter 2
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