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“PublicSq is setting an example for other businesses to follow. Not only is their new policy encouraging and supporting families good for society, but it also establishes a healthy work environment, portraying to employees that the company does actually care about them and their ability to thrive.”
–REAGAN ESCUDÉ SCOTT
If you’re an avid follower of conservative commentators, podcasters, and writers, you may have heard of PublicSq. It’s an app and website that provides a searchable list of pro-American, pro-freedom, and pro-family American businesses so conservative consumers can more easily decide where to shop their values.
Not surprisingly, as mainstream corporations have increasingly gone woke, PublicSq has exploded in popularity, even as it accumulates more and more local and online businesses into its database.
Now, the company is proving that it’s all in on its mission. Michael Seifert, CEO and founder of PublicSq, has announced a new pro-life policy that it hopes will combat abortion and encourage growing families. As part of the policy, the company will provide a “baby-bonus” awarding employees who have a baby or adopt a child.
The amount of the bonus? $5,000.
“We did see the world going in this direction that we believe is really anti-family,” Seifert said recently. “We think that ultimately a company is only as strong as the families that built it, and then for us, we’re a pro-family company. We’re unashamed about that. And we’re actually the largest marketplace in the country of pro-family businesses.”
He continued, “So, we thought, what better way to express this value that’s core to our beliefs than actually putting some money behind it, putting our money where our mouth is.”
This move by PublicSq is a stark contrast to companies like Amazon, Airbnb, Target, and Patagonia who, in response to the overturn of Roe v. Wade last year, offered to pay travel costs for their employees who go out of state for an abortion. Amazon, for example, has offered up to $4,000 in costs to cover the expenses of employees who opt to terminate their pregnancy. Patagonia, meanwhile, has not only offered to cover the cost of an employee’s abortion but also “training and bail for those who peacefully protest for reproductive justice.”
Seigert explained,
“We wanted to sing an opposite tune and say, ‘Let’s actually put $5,000 behind any of our employees that were to have a baby, their spouses to have a baby, or they were to adopt.’ And this would be $5,000 after tax. They can use it as they please. Just as an awesome ‘thank you’ for being a great team member and to empower their family to continue to grow.”
In a tweet announcing the new policy, Seifert said, “strong families make a strong nation.”
For Seifert and his employees, strong families will be incentivized to kick parenthood off with fewer financial burdens, and they can put the $5,000 towards anything they want, including adoption fees, diapers, or a babymoon.
“There’s no restrictions on it,” he explained. “And it’s also not limited to one child. So, if you have multiple kids as an employee of our company, its $5,000 for the child, so if you have twins, you get 10 grand. So, yeah, we want to make sure that we are supporting families and then giving them the agency to utilize these resources as they see fit.”
Over 40,000 businesses have partnered with PublicSq, including various coffee shops, clothing stores, and orthodontists. The company is proud to connect “patriotic Americans to high-quality businesses that share their values, both online and in their local communities.” PublicSq. can be downloaded in the App Store or found online.
In a sane, civilized society, all companies would be encouraging families rather than discouraging them. A sane, civilized society would ooh and ahh at babies rather than scoff at them with utter disdain. A sane, civilized society would celebrate pregnancy, rather than warn of all the challenges of motherhood. A sane, civilized society would elevate parenthood to the utmost degree of importance, protect preborn babies in the womb, and look at children as “arrows” in the bows of their parents (Psalm 127:4).
But, sadly, we do not live in a sane or civilized society, which is why PublicSq’s new policy is so amazing and — let’s face it — so shocking.
PublicSq is doing everything one would expect a business in a sane, civilized society to do. It’s incentivizing growing families, supporting new moms and their children, and sending a message to pro-abortionists that conservatives DO, in fact, care about babies outside of the womb.
Progressive companies like Starbucks, on the other hand, would rather pay their employees to murder their babies in the womb because it would be less expensive than giving them maternity leave. These companies care only about profit, whether or not their production quotas are met, and virtue signaling their “compassion,” when they are anything but. They don’t care about their employees or their family situation or whether or not they desire to have children. These companies function only on greed while propping themselves up as progressive and feminist as they fund the murder of preborn babies.
Alternatively, PublicSq is setting an example for other businesses to follow. Not only is their new policy of encouraging the growth of families good for society, but it also establishes a healthy work environment, portraying to employees that the company does actually care about them and their ability to thrive.
Let’s hope that more conservative companies follow their lead.
Follow Reagan on Twitter! @thereaganscott
Ready to dive deeper into the intersection of faith and policy? Head over to our Theology of Politics series page where we’ve published several long-form pieces that will help Christians navigate where their faith should direct them on political issues.
