Ivanka's paid leave plan is worse than no plan at all

By Emily Peck

Rubanka, Just No.

Let's talk about the high price women pay for having babies and raising children.

I don't simply mean the cost of raising kids -- each estimated to come with a $233,610 price tag, not including college. I'm talking about the financial penalty women pay for having the audacity to reproduce.

Unlike pretty much every other country in the world, the U.S. doesn't provide mothers with any paid time off to recover from childbirth and parent a child. Instead, women are forced to make some really horrendous choices -- stop working or take a lower paying job or work fewer hours, etc. Mothers also face a wage penalty, women's pay declines when they have kids; men's does not.

Not only are they earning less when they work but women are also working less. They are typically the ones to take time out of the labor force to raise children, and thus have less money saved for retirement and lower social security benefits in their old age. Oh, and we live longer, too. So we have less and have to make it last longer.

It's a problem. And somehow First Daughter Ivanka Trump and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) have come up with a plan that would actually make the whole terrible situation ... worse!

Rubanka, as I've dubbed the pair, propose "letting" new parents take money out of social security to fund short maternity and paternity leaves. You get a few paid weeks off -- in return for a lifetime of lower social security benefits. What could go wrong?