Ivanka Trump’s Paid Parental Leave Plan Isn’t Exactly What You’d Think

Of all the White House staffers, advisor and First Daughter Ivanka Trump has been the most vocal about helping women within the sphere of the GOP. While she hasn’t always hit the right note, the Trump daughter’s women-focused initiatives seem to encompass the most progressive that the party has to offer.

Since taking her position as an advisor in the White House, Trump has championed parental leave for families, and now, she’s partnering with Florida Senator Marco Rubio to make that happen — sort of.

According to POLITICO, the pair has teamed up to create a plan that will be enticing to voters while keeping GOP members on board. No new designated taxes will be involved in funding it, which means the money will have to come from somewhere else — namely, your own future retirement savings.

The plan will be based on an idea that many conservatives have been picking up on lately: offsetting any parental leave income by taking away some of the money in your individual Social Security retirement fund. The way it would work is that if a person took five weeks of paid family leave, upon their retirement, they would have to wait five weeks before their Social Security payments would begin.

“We still have to work on members of my own party,” Rubio told POLITICO about the plan. “I think there will be significant initial resistance to it, because it’s just not an issue that’s been identified with the Republican Party.”

“That’s a new idea for Republicans who still identify it as something that comes out of the left,” Rubio said. “Forcing companies to provide it is perhaps an idea that finds its genesis on the left, but the notion that pregnancy should not be a bankruptcy-eliciting event is one that I think all Americans should be supportive of.”

Of course, the plan isn’t even really anything other than an open conversation right now, but it may gain traction with tax-averse Republicans.

What do you think of the Trump/Rubio parental leave idea? Let us know @BritandCo!

(Photos via Alex Wong/Getty +Getty Images)


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