full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Jessica Shortall: The US needs paid family leave -- for the sake of its future

Unscramble the Blue Letters

There's a little club of countries in the world that offer no national paid leave to new mothers. Care to guess who they are? The first eight make up eight million in total pulooptain. They are Papua New Guinea, Suriname and the tiny island nations of Micronesia, mslrhaal Islands, Nauru, Niue, paalu and Tonga. Number nine is the uitend States of America, with 320 million people. Oh, that's it. That's the end of the list. Every other economy on the plneat has found a way to make some level of national paid levae work for the poelpe doing the work of the future of those countries, but we say, "We couldn't possibly do that." We say that the market will slove this problem, and then we cheer when corporations offer even more paid leave to the women who are already the highest-educated and highest-paid among us. Remember that 88 percent? Those middle- and low-income women are not going to participate in that. We know that there are staggering eocmonic, fcnianail, physical and emotional costs to this approach. We have decided — deicedd, not an accident, to pass these costs directly on to working mothers and their babies. We know the price tag is hhiger for low-income women, therefore disproportionately for women of color. We pass them on anyway.

Open Cloze

There's a little club of countries in the world that offer no national paid leave to new mothers. Care to guess who they are? The first eight make up eight million in total __________. They are Papua New Guinea, Suriname and the tiny island nations of Micronesia, ________ Islands, Nauru, Niue, _____ and Tonga. Number nine is the ______ States of America, with 320 million people. Oh, that's it. That's the end of the list. Every other economy on the ______ has found a way to make some level of national paid _____ work for the ______ doing the work of the future of those countries, but we say, "We couldn't possibly do that." We say that the market will _____ this problem, and then we cheer when corporations offer even more paid leave to the women who are already the highest-educated and highest-paid among us. Remember that 88 percent? Those middle- and low-income women are not going to participate in that. We know that there are staggering ________, _________, physical and emotional costs to this approach. We have decided — _______, not an accident, to pass these costs directly on to working mothers and their babies. We know the price tag is ______ for low-income women, therefore disproportionately for women of color. We pass them on anyway.

Solution

  1. higher
  2. solve
  3. palau
  4. economic
  5. united
  6. population
  7. people
  8. leave
  9. financial
  10. marshall
  11. decided
  12. planet

Original Text

There's a little club of countries in the world that offer no national paid leave to new mothers. Care to guess who they are? The first eight make up eight million in total population. They are Papua New Guinea, Suriname and the tiny island nations of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau and Tonga. Number nine is the United States of America, with 320 million people. Oh, that's it. That's the end of the list. Every other economy on the planet has found a way to make some level of national paid leave work for the people doing the work of the future of those countries, but we say, "We couldn't possibly do that." We say that the market will solve this problem, and then we cheer when corporations offer even more paid leave to the women who are already the highest-educated and highest-paid among us. Remember that 88 percent? Those middle- and low-income women are not going to participate in that. We know that there are staggering economic, financial, physical and emotional costs to this approach. We have decided — decided, not an accident, to pass these costs directly on to working mothers and their babies. We know the price tag is higher for low-income women, therefore disproportionately for women of color. We pass them on anyway.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
working mothers 6
paid leave 5
working mother 3
working women 3
national paid 3
stock photos 2
breast milk 2
unpaid weeks 2
paid work 2
national scale 2
unpaid leave 2
office door 2
woman told 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
national paid leave 3

Important Words

  1. accident
  2. america
  3. approach
  4. babies
  5. care
  6. cheer
  7. club
  8. color
  9. corporations
  10. costs
  11. countries
  12. decided
  13. disproportionately
  14. economic
  15. economy
  16. emotional
  17. financial
  18. future
  19. guess
  20. guinea
  21. higher
  22. island
  23. islands
  24. leave
  25. level
  26. list
  27. market
  28. marshall
  29. micronesia
  30. million
  31. mothers
  32. national
  33. nations
  34. nauru
  35. niue
  36. number
  37. offer
  38. paid
  39. palau
  40. papua
  41. participate
  42. pass
  43. people
  44. percent
  45. physical
  46. planet
  47. population
  48. possibly
  49. price
  50. problem
  51. remember
  52. solve
  53. staggering
  54. states
  55. suriname
  56. tag
  57. tiny
  58. tonga
  59. total
  60. united
  61. women
  62. work
  63. working
  64. world