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
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- palau
- economic
- united
- population
- people
- leave
- financial
- marshall
- decided
- 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
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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
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frequency |
national paid leave |
3 |
Important Words
- accident
- america
- approach
- babies
- care
- cheer
- club
- color
- corporations
- costs
- countries
- decided
- disproportionately
- economic
- economy
- emotional
- financial
- future
- guess
- guinea
- higher
- island
- islands
- leave
- level
- list
- market
- marshall
- micronesia
- million
- mothers
- national
- nations
- nauru
- niue
- number
- offer
- paid
- palau
- papua
- participate
- pass
- people
- percent
- physical
- planet
- population
- possibly
- price
- problem
- remember
- solve
- staggering
- states
- suriname
- tag
- tiny
- tonga
- total
- united
- women
- work
- working
- world