Need a Mortgage? Don’t Get Pregnant

From the New York Times:

Expectant parents shopping for a home are not the only ones concerned about the date of the baby’s arrival.

Mortgage lenders are taking a harder look at prospective borrowers whose income has temporarily fallen while they are on leave, including new parents at home taking care of a baby. Even if a parent plans on returning to work within weeks, some lenders are balking at approving the loans.

“If you are not back at work, it’s a huge problem,” said Rick Cason, owner of Integrity Mortgage, a mortgage firm in Orlando, Fla. “Banks only deal in guaranteed income these days. It makes sense, but the guidelines are sometimes actually harsher than they need to be.” Continue reading “Need a Mortgage? Don’t Get Pregnant”

Flexibility and the Reluctant Supervisor

Via the Work and Family Blog:

Clearly one of the barriers when it comes to workplace flexibility is the reluctant supervisor. It’s hard enough, they say, to keep track of employees when you can see them! Who wants people coming and going at all hours of the day and “working” from home where you can never see them (and who knows what they’re really doing?)

For many, flexibility represents the unknown, and change. And we’ve known for years that the only people who like change are wet babies.

So it’s always helpful to crawl into their heads and find out what’s really going on, especially if you’re determined to reap the benefits of more flexibility, as is the University of Kentucky. So that University’s “Workplace Flexibility Supervisor Study” was designed to find out what was going on, both in the workplace and in supervisors’ heads. Continue reading “Flexibility and the Reluctant Supervisor”

CDC study shows need for paid sick days

The CDC has just released a study on the effects of a week-long H1N1-related elementary school closing on a community in semi-rural Pennsylvania.  The aim of the study was to assess the disruption to households resulting from the school closing; households with students at the school were asked about childcare arrangements and activities for each of the 5 days the school was closed.  The study illustrates the connection between a public health crisis and lost work days.  The direct link to the study is here.

The study found that:

  • As the result of a 1-week (5 day) school closure, 22% of households reported that an adult in the household missed at least 1 day of work.
  • Among the one-fifth of households that reported an adult missing work due to the school closure, 40% reported that an adult missed all 5 days of work.
  • Households with two working parents had a statistically significant higher likelihood than other households to report that an adult missed work to care for a child during the school closure.
  • The study authors conclude, “Households that reported missed work incurred costs, even if those costs were only in terms of lost vacation or sick time.”

Our takeaway is that a significant minority of working parents had to miss work–up to a week of work–because of this public health crisis and, although we do not know how many lacked paid sick days, those who did would have lost wages and possibly risked job loss.