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A new study says the Liberal government should rethink federal parental benefits and overhaul a system that is leaving out too many families and women.

The study released Wednesday by the Institute for Research on Public Policy says the federal government should consider taking parental benefits out of the employment insurance system and give it a new federal program to ensure that more parents can qualify for benefits.

As is, the study says, there is a cohort of those new parents, particularly mothers, who dont qualify for benefits, or cant qualify because they are self-employed or freelancers a problem likely to increase with the widening of the gig economy.

Related: Many Canadians too cash-strapped to raise children

Self-employed parents can voluntarily opt-in to the employment insurance system in order to qualify for parental benefits, but the study notes take up is low.

The study also finds that parents from lower and modest income homes those the federal government would consider as hoping to join the middle class dont take benefits for an entire year.

The studys author says it all leads to questions of how inclusive the parental leave system really is, and whether a change in rules would mean parents arent forced back to work sooner than they are meant to in order to make ends meet.

Access to paid benefits, job protected leave, and then child care means that woman can move back into the workforce after having kids, says Jennifer Robson, an assistant professor of political management at Carleton University.

But I think theres also this issue of, is the system right now working in a way that gives equitable coverage both on getting into the system but also being able to actually maximize the use of the benefits?

New parents account for one out of every five EI claims filed, a statistic that wasnt foreseen when the system was set up in 1971 and designed as a niche add-on to employment insurance, Robson said.

The federal parental leave program pays out benefits for up to 15 weeks for new mothers and allows parents to split an additional 35 weeks.

The Liberals want to extend federal parental leave to 18 months, but not include a similar increase in benefits.

The paper suggests there is some merit to extending benefits to 18 months, including allowing two-parent families to split the leave, but pushes the federal government to ensure changes dont leave out low-income parents as critics have warned.

As it is, Canadians receiving parental benefit earn on average of $427 a week for a year. Spread over 18 months, that works out to $305 per week, or a little over $1,200 per month.

Robson says the Liberals could look at boosting the family supplement, an extra $41 a week paid to the bottom 4.5 per cent of income earners on EI. The government could also find a way to better align the Canada child benefit, which is calculated off a parents last income tax return that could be higher or lower than their current earnings.

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Study urges Liberals to overhaul parental leave benefits - The Globe and Mail

Liberals need to stop obsessing over privilege or they'll never accomplish anything Quartz In the lead-up to International Women's Day, a debate emerged over whether the general women's strike planned might merely end up as a day of leisure for ladies who'd probably be lunching regardless. Some progressive critiquesSady Doyle in Elle, ...

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Liberals need to stop obsessing over privilege or they'll never accomplish anything - Quartz

House Democrats lost seats in the 2016 elections. They're looking to narrow their 24-seat deficit in 2018, when the president's party typically loses seats in his first midterm elections. David Goldman/AP hide caption

House Democrats lost seats in the 2016 elections. They're looking to narrow their 24-seat deficit in 2018, when the president's party typically loses seats in his first midterm elections.

National Democrats are investing more resources in an upcoming Georgia special election, hoping new research gained from focus groups could not only pull off an upset in the suburban Atlanta district, but also give them clues to how they can best put the House in play next year.

According to details first shared with NPR, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is sponsoring three focus groups in the district over the coming week aimed at better discovering how to target younger voters, African-American voters and swing voters many of whom have not been reliable in turning out in midterm elections.

"Understanding that people are more than numbers, we have made a strategic decision to invest in qualitative research that will not only help up us in Georgia's 6th District, but also inform our message to key groups of voters ahead of 2018," said DCCC spokesman Tyler Law. "In order to learn lessons from last cycle and maximize our gains on an expanded battlefield, we must listen to real people and see what drives them to vote, and these focus groups are an important early step towards achieving that goal."

Democrats believe they have a unique opportunity in the race to succeed now-Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price. The suburban Georgia district voted for Mitt Romney by 24 points four years ago; President Trump carried it by just over 1 point last November.

Places like the 6th District, where Trump drastically underperformed past Republicans, are the key to Democrats taking back the House, where they already have limited options due to a gerrymandered map. They need 24 seats to win back control, and there are 23 districts that voted for Hillary Clinton that are currently held by Republicans. They'll be on defense in 12 districts with Democratic incumbents that were won by Trump.

The DCCC and other progressive groups have thrown their weight behind Democrat Jon Ossoff, a 30-year-old documentary filmmaker and former congressional staffer, ahead of the upcoming April 18 all-party "jungle" primary. There are 18 candidates running, and the top two finishers regardless of party will advance to a June 20 runoff if no one gets a majority.

Ossoff has already raised upwards of $2 million for his bid, and his campaign is also pitching in funds for two of the focus groups. The DCCC previously sent nine staffers to help with the race as well.

Special elections are not always accurate harbingers of future electoral success, but the Georgia contest gives Democrats a potential early bellwether of whether backlash to Trump can hurt Republicans at the ballot box. Ossoff's own ads have tried to paint himself as more of a centrist, but also have a clear anti-Trump message.

Democrats' first focus group, conducted Tuesday evening by Anzalone Liszt Grove (ALG) Research, was targeted at Romney voters between the ages of 55 and 74 who flipped to Clinton. Older voters typically turn out more reliably in presidential years, and Democrats will need to persuade more like them to vote for their candidates in November 2018. Among the questions Democrats were looking to answer is how they feel about Trump, whether those feelings about the president can trickle down to a GOP congressional nominee and whether they can persuade voters to elect a Democratic House to be a check and balance on a Trump White House.

The second focus group, set for Wednesday evening and also conducted by ALG, will survey younger voters between the ages of 18 and 45 on how Democrats can keep them engaged and motivated through the midterms.

The final focus group, this one targeting black voters, will be conducted next week by Cornell Belcher, a longtime Democratic pollster who worked on both of President Barack Obama's campaigns. The 6th District is about 12 percent African-American, but that number has nearly doubled in the past decade as the Atlanta suburbs have grown and diversified.

Democrats will need those reliably Democratic voters to turn out not just for Ossoff, but in November 2018, too, and they'll be looking to find how motivated they are to send a message to Trump with their vote and how they can be persuaded to get to the polls.

Many Democrats privately acknowledge that the district is still an uphill climb, though that could depend on which Republican advances to the June runoff. Top GOP hopefuls include former Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel, who has run twice before statewide and in some comments has looked to put some daylight between herself and the president. Johns Creek City Councilman Bob Gray just picked up the endorsement of the Club for Growth on Monday and has touted that he would be a "willing partner" to Trump.

National Republicans have dismissed the idea that running an anti-Trump strategy will work, saying Democrats tried and failed with that message last fall. But there are signs the party is taking Ossoff and his momentum seriously. The Congressional Leadership Fund, a superPAC aligned with GOP leadership, launched a $1.1 million buy against Ossoff. Its ad campaign began with an ad featuring footage of Ossoff dressed as Han Solo for a Star Wars-themed parody his college a cappella group did about drinking on campus.

The rest is here:
Democrats Eye Georgia Special Election To Test 2018 Messages - NPR

Brianna Wu Wants to Change the Democrats' Playbook New York Times Do you really think Democrats need to take pages from the Trump playbook? I would say we need to speak with our hearts more. The typical Democratic way of talking about, say, wealth inequality is to bring out Robert Reich, who will give a cute academic ...

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Brianna Wu Wants to Change the Democrats' Playbook - New York Times

In sports, spectators generally watch the ball. In politics, they generally watch the people who govern. Often, however, important dynamics occur offstage, as parties out of power remake themselves in exile.

Thats likely happening to the Democrats. Quietly, in the shadow of Trump, the party will move left. The Democrats will never nominate another presidential candidate as friendly as Hillary Clinton was to a mainstream group like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Some of the reasons have nothing to do with Donald Trump. Theyre simply demographic.

Millennials are less sympathetic to Israel than their elders. African Americans and Latinos are less sympathetic than whites. The religiously unaffiliated are less sympathetic than are regular churchgoers. And the young, the secular and racial minorities are all growing as a share of the American population and, especially, of the Democratic electorate. This past January, for the first time since the Pew Research Center began asking the question in 2000, Democrats were as likely to identify with the Palestinians as with Israel.

But while this shift left would likely have happened anyway, Trump will accelerate it. First, hell accelerate it by giving Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a freer hand to do things that alienate American progressives, like building settlements, silencing dissent and perhaps even annexing parts of the West Bank.

If Israel and Hamas again go to war, Trump will place fewer restraints on Netanyahus military campaign than Hillary Clinton would have, and that will alienate progressives, too. Jewish Voice for Peace, which represents the left edge of the American Israel debate, saw dramatic membership growth during Israels 2014 war with Gaza. Another Gaza war which Trumps election makes more likely will boost it further.

Even more important, Trump will become the prism through which Democrats see Netanyahu. Because most Americans know little about foreign leaders, they often see them as analogues to the American politicians they know well. Why did American progressives develop such a passionate hostility toward South Africas apartheid leaders? Because those leaders resembled the politicians of the segregated South. Why has Vladimir Putins popularity dipped among Democrats and risen dramatically among Republicans since 2016? Because some Americans now see Putin as a Russian version of Trump.

Thats especially true for Netanyahu. His English is so good, and hes so intimately involved in American politics, that to many Americans he simply sounds like another Republican.

Netanyahu is a big part of the reason Democrats grew more critical of Israel during the Obama years. His fear-mongering, bellicose rhetoric about Iran reminded them of the Bush administrations fear-mongering, bellicose rhetoric in the run-up to the war in Iraq. When he spoke, they heard Dick Cheney.

Now, when Netanyahu speaks, Democrats hear Donald Trump. When Democrats read about Israel not allowing critics into the country, theyll think of Trumps travel ban. When they hear about Netanyahus threats to freedom of the press, theyll think of Trumps attacks on journalists. When Netanyahu claims his wall stopped illegal immigration, theyll think of Trumps proposed wall along the border with Mexico.

Many Democrats already saw Israel as another red state. Now unless Israel undergoes some unexpected political shift theyll view Netanyahus Israel as authoritarian, hyper-nationalist, nativist and anti-Muslim, everything they fear Trump will make the United States. Netanyahus failure to publicly press Trump to speak out against rising American anti-Semitism will only compound that view.

If you squint, you can already see evidence of the Democrats move left. Although Keith Ellison, one of the most vocal proponents of Palestinian rights in Congress, lost his bid to chair the Democratic National Committee in February, he came closer than he would have a few years ago. Despite a fierce attack from the Jewish right, he won the endorsementsof the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren and the Senate Minority leader,Charles Schumer, and received the deputy chairman as a consolation prize. Nine of the 10 Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee including New Jerseys Cory Booker, a darling of the American Jewish establishment voted against David Friedman, Trumps pro-settlements nominee to be ambassador to Israel.

And in February, at the J Street Conference, Bernie Sanders went further in his criticism of Israel than he had during the presidential campaign even hinting that if the two-state solution dies, he might embrace one equal state for [both Palestinians and Jews.

In the conclusion to his speech, Sanders explicitly linked the struggle against Netanyahu to the struggle against Trump. To my Israeli friends here with us today, he declared, we share many of the same challenges. In both our countries we see the rise of a politics of bigotry and intolerance and resentment. We must meet these challenges together.

When Sanders finished, the crowd roared. It was a sign of things to come.

Peter Beinart is a Forward senior columnist and contributing editor. Dont miss the latest episodes of Fault Lines, his new podcast with Daniel Gordis.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward.

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Donald Netanyahu: Many Democrats See The Two Leaders As One - Forward