TIME OFF, WITH PAY?

摘要

Every new parent knows that having a baby means weeks without sleep. Should it also mean weeks without a paycheck? That's the stark choice confronting Shannon Thomas, 21, a preschool teacher in southeastern Massachusetts, Her employer, the Boys and Girls Club of Taunton, agreed to hold her job for about six weeks after her June 18 due date but didn't offer any paid maternity leave. "My rent, food, the hospital—those costs aren't going away," Thomas says. So she quit her $500-a-week job three weeks ago and applied for state welfare assistance. "I'd rather work," she says. "But I had to get whatever help I could."