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The value of a mother's work has decreased since Jenna Kagan homeschooled her then 6-year-old son Hunter. Taking care of house and family would cost roughly $59,000 to have someone else do, a research group found using government data.

If moms earned wages for the work they do around the house and with the kids, they’d be getting a pay cut this year.

The take-home pay that a mother would earn for everything from cooking to handling the family finances would total at $59,862 if she were paid on the open market, according to Insure.com’s analysis of government data on hourly wages.

That’s down from $60,182 in 2012 and $61,436 in 2011, Insure.com’s annual Mother’s Day Index shows.

The drop is because typical wages for some domestic jobs have fallen, said Amy Danise, a spokeswoman for Insure.com.

The Mother’s Day Index tallies 14 jobs that moms might perform, including cooking, driving, cleaning and taking care of the kids, and then looks at Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data for those tasks. Danise said the website compiled its list by brainstorming about typical mothers’ tasks, and coming up with a typical number of hours she might spend on them.

By Insure.com’s tally, a mom’s average work week would be significantly longer than 40 hours - although most moms would probably also agree that parenting requires far longer hours than your average desk job.

The total does not include the wages that moms earn for paid work they do outside the home. 

The Insure.com data is not meant to be a rigorous analysis of the value of domestic work.

“It’s more like a fun way of looking at serious topic,” Danise said.

But some economists have taken a more serious look at the value of housework. A report released last year by the government’s Bureau of Economic Analysis found that adding “nonmarket household production” to the nation’s gross domestic product would have raised nominal GDP by 39 percent in 1965 and 26 percent in 2010.

That figure would include jobs such as cooking, cleaning and child care that both men and women do around the house.

The decline in the contribution to GDP is because the hours women spent on housework fell from 40 hours per week in 1965 to 26 hours per week in 2010, and more women entered the paid workforce. That more than offset the increase, from 14 hours in 1965 to 17 hours per week in 2010, that men spent on domestic tasks.

This story was originally published on Mon May 6, 2013 7:41 PM EDT

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A good boss can help your career. A bad boss? Not so much.

A good boss can make your career, but a bad boss can make your life miserable – and a new survey finds that plenty of Americans have learned that lesson the hard way.

The survey of about 2,000 adults, conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of the careers website Glassdoor, found that two-thirds of people said their boss had had some kind of impact on their career.

For about half of those people, the impact had been positive and their bosses had helped their careers. For about 20 percent, it had been negative and their bosses had hurt their careers. The remainder said the impact had been neither positive nor negative.

Experts say the results make sense, since other research has shown that being happy with a boss directly influences job satisfaction.

“Immediate bosses have a tremendous impact on both people’s job satisfaction and their careers, for good or bad,” said E. Allan Lind, a professor of leadership at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.

Your relationship with your boss also is often a good predictor of how well you do at your job.

“People may join an organization because of pay or benefits or a charismatic leader,” said David Grossman, chief executive of the communications and leadership consultancy The Grossman Group. “How long they stay, how productive they are, how content they are, is all about their boss.”

Unfortunately, not all bosses are good at managing people, just as not all workers are good at managing their relationship with their boss.

The most common gripes among those who reported a boss had hurt their career were that their boss had slowed or held back pay raises, promotions and exposure to top management.

Lind, the Duke professor, said one of the strongest predictors of leadership talent is whether bosses share credit for success.

 “Some people, when they’re relatively insecure, think, ‘I have to grab all the credit for myself.’ They don’t understand that when your people perform well, you’ll perform well,” Lind said.

That can lead to another big boss mistake: Micromanaging.

Among the people who reported that their boss had helped their career, almost half said their boss had supported collaborative teamwork. That was an even more popular response than things like supporting work/life balance or helping the employee get a promotion.

Lind said it can be really difficult for bosses to delegate tasks to others. Many bosses also have a hard time making sure they are giving serious consideration to other people’s opinions and ideas.

“The challenge for a boss is to not dominate the conversation. That kills the purpose of the team,” Lind said.

Of course, a boss/employee relationship cuts two ways, and there are plenty of things employees can do to make a bad boss relationship better.

One tactic is to think about what is keeping your boss up at night and how you can solve that problem, Lind said. 

Grossman said that rather than blaming the boss, workers should spend their energy trying to turn things around. If you want a raise or promotion, tell your boss - but frame it in a way that will help your boss, too.

 “Do it in a way that they can see how they will benefit from what (you’re) talking about,” Grossman said.

Of course, some boss relationships just can’t be salvaged. In the last few years, many employees have been asked to do more work with fewer people, and not every boss has done a good job keeping their remaining workers happy.  

Many of the people in the survey who said their manager had hurt their career complained that their boss had reduced or eliminated support for maintaining work/life balance.

Even in a tight job market, Grossman said that may be why only 20 percent of the people surveyed said their boss had hurt their career.

“When you work for a bad boss, you don’t work for them very long,” Grossman said.

Love it or hate it, many of us will rely on Social Security. And that’s making a lot of us very nervous.

This week in Life Inc., we wrote about how the latest plan to tweak Social Security is unpopular with both liberal and conservative thinkers. The story prompted tens of thousands of readers to weigh in on their hopes, fears and frustrations about the retirement safety net.

Many readers said they would like to see Congress take steps now to address the funding shortfalls that are projected in years to come.

“Fix the program now - while it's still ‘easy.’ Later changes will cost much more. We can lessen the impact to the less-wealthy recipients,” one reader wrote.

That’s not surprising, given how many readers said they will need those monthly checks in old age.

More than half of the nearly 36,000 readers who took our survey said they plan to rely on Social Security for day-to-day expenses.

Many Americans simply haven’t saved enough money to fund their retirement, especially now that the burden of saving has started shifting toward self-directed 401(k) plans and away from company pensions.

“I have my own retirement account, but it's not going to pay my total expenses. I'll need the Social Security benefits I've earned,” one reader wrote.

For others, Social Security has become a lifeline after losing other savings during the Great Recession and weak recovery.

“I lost all my money on a business that was too small to save in 2009. (unlike Wall st and GM) I only have SS to live on now,” another wrote.

For many Americans – including about 37 percent of those who took our survey – Social Security will be a key supplement to other savings.

“I'm not relying on it but it is a big share of my retirement plan. I worked and earned it! I should get the fair share my parents did!” one reader wrote.

About 10 percent of our readers were more cynical about the future of Social Security. They said they weren’t planning on getting that monthly check once they retired.

“If I get SS, great - but I'm planning and saving as if I'll never get anything from it,” one wrote.

It turns out, rich people are happier than poor people.

A new Brookings Institution paper finds that people who live in rich countries are more satisfied with their lives than those in poor countries, and rich people within individual countries are happier than their poor neighbors.

That old “money can’t buy happiness” chestnut, formally called Easternlin’s paradox by economists after an influential 1974 study that concluded rich nations are no happier than poor ones, is such an enduring myth because it holds a lot of appeal, said Justin Wolfers, one of the paper’s authors, a nonresident fellow at Brookings and professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan.

“I think it’s incredibly comforting to believe in it,” he said. “You can believe that people who live in grinding poverty… are just as happy as you are.”

Previously, some economists predicted that even if greater wealth meant greater happiness, it was only true up to a point. Once you reached a set point of satiation, extra money wouldn’t matter.

“People are good at making the best of what they have. The way we deal with our emotions is quite adaptive,” said Hal Hershfield, an assistant professor of marketing at New York University's Stern School of Business. Even the rich, he pointed out, “are going to have to deal with everyday pleasures and displeasures.”

Last year, Skandia International’s Wealth Sentiment Monitor surveyed 13 countries (not including the United States) and found that the average income people need to feel happy is around $161,000. Research published in 2010 based on surveys of 450,000 Americans said that well-being increased along with income up to $75,000, then day-to-day happiness leveled off, although feelings of success and well-being continued to rise.

But the Brookings researchers found no cutoff point. “There is literally no evidence of satiation in any data set anywhere,” Wolfers said.

In a survey of more than 1,000 Americans conducted by Gallup and analyzed by Wolfers and his co-author Betsey Stevenson, only 1 percent who made more than $75,000 said they were “very dissatisfied” with their lives, and only 4 percent ranked their happiness in the lowest category.

The effect appeared even more pronounced further up the income spectrum. The handful of respondents who earned more than half a million dollars a year all ranked their happiness and satisfaction at the highest levels.

“We still found that the really privileged were happier than the merely privileged,” Wolfers said.

Overall perceptions of satisfaction and happiness might not tell the whole story, though. “What also matters is how people actually *feel* on a day-to-day basis,” Elizabeth Dunn, associate professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia, said via email.

“If you make $250k rather than $90K, you're likely to rate your life as a whole more positively,” she said. “But you're not likely to feel any more enjoyment or happiness on a typical day. You're no more likely to laugh or smile on a typical day.”

That’s because wealth really is a proxy for autonomy. Richer people have greater freedom to decide where they want to live, what jobs they hold and how they want to live their lives. People who live in wealthier countries also don’t bear the stress and fear of threats like starvation or losing a child to a preventable illness. 

“It’s not that it’s literally the greenbacks in your wallet that make you happy, but rather... being able to make choices about your life and making choices that give your life meaning,” Wolfers said.

Today’s teenagers are more materialistic and less interested in working hard than the baby boomers were in their teens, according to a new study. But sorry, boomers, the researchers say it’s probably your fault for creating a culture that breeds narcissism and entitlement.

“You’re taught what’s important and how to act by your parents, the media and those around you,” said Jean Twenge, a co-author of the study and professor of psychology at San Diego State University. “It’s the cultural changes that are really bringing these changes.”

It’s not just millennials who are materialistic, according to the study published Wednesday in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. The money-hungriness actually peaked with Generation X and has declined somewhat since then.

Among high school seniors, the need for money was highest around the end of the 1980s. For a cultural reference point, think 1987’s “Wall Street,” which put the phrase “greed is good” into pop culture.

And while GenY is less money-focused than the Gen Xers (but more so than the boomers) they are also the least willing to work hard, according to the research.

In the “don’t want to work hard” category, high schoolers in the mid-1970s agreed 25 percent of the time; in the late-80s that climbed to 30 percent; and by the mid-2000s it was up to 39 percent.

While the teens are now more likely than boomers to want a vacation home, there is a “growing disconnect between their willingness to do the work to pay for these things,” said Twenge, who is also the author of “Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled -- and More Miserable Than Ever Before.”

The study makes a case for the high schoolers’ attitudes being a product of the times they grew up in. (This is where the blame gets passed to the older generations.) Growing up, the teens' values are influenced by the dominant social ideologies, family structures, economic situations, media, political and business messages, the researchers argue.

The research analyzed by Twenge and psychology professor Tim Kasser has been collected in Monitoring the Future surveys with U.S. high school 12th graders every year since 1976. For this study, the researchers did not examine data past 2007, though data are collected annually.

The study defines baby boomers as those born roughly 1946 to 1964; Generation X as those born 1965 to 1981; and Gen Y (known as the Millennials) as those born 1982 to 1999.

Brian Snyder/Reuters file

Harvard Business School students cheer during their graduation ceremonies in Boston, Mass., in June 2009.

The tap that once led from the nation’s top MBA programs to the skyscrapers on Wall Street isn’t flowing as freely as it used to. That’s leaving many young MBA graduates looking for careers beyond the nation’s Fortune 500 companies.

“They want to be on their own path,” said Kristen Fitzpatrick, senior director of MBA career and professional development at Harvard Business School.

The change is driven largely by necessity, but partly by choice.

The financial crisis of 2008, and the weak economy that followed, has left fewer major investment banks and big corporations offering lavish compensation packages to large crops of young MBA graduates, recruitment officials say.

Meanwhile, many new MBA graduates also aren’t as enamored with the prospect of that path, and are more interested in working for a small startup or going into business for themselves.

 “If the compensation isn’t there anymore like it used to be, students look at that and say, ‘If I’m going to work that hard I’d rather do it for myself than for a big bank,’” said Maryellen Reilly Lamb, director of MBA career management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

A decade ago, Lamb said perhaps 70 percent of Wharton graduate students were landing jobs at big corporations, consultancies and investment banks

These days, around 50 percent of students are getting those types of jobs, and the big companies that do hire on campus may pick just one student, instead of a large group.

A similar shift is going on at Harvard. Fitzpatrick said a decade ago about 60 percent of the students graduating from the MBA program landed a job at a Fortune 500 company, often months before graduation.

These days, perhaps 30 to 40 percent of students are landing those kinds of jobs in that predictable way. Some will even be graduating without a job, something she said used to be much less common.

The fact that more students are taking longer to land jobs, and doing so at smaller companies, has meant big changes at Harvard’s recruitment office, and in the classroom. But Fitzpatrick said the Harvard students themselves seem more willing to hold out for the job they really want.

“Students are way more comfortable waiting for that right opportunity versus just jumping on the (first job offer),” Fitzpatrick said.

Nationally, about 17 percent of students who graduated from full-time U.S. MBA programs in 2012 intended to go into finance or accounting, according to an annual survey done by the Graduate Management Admission Council. That’s down from 28 percent in 2008,

About 60 percent of students who graduated from full-time U.S. MBA program in 2012 had a job offer at the time of graduation, according to GMAC’s survey data. That’s a sharp increase from 2010, when just 37 percent of those students had a job offer at graduation, and about the same level as in 2008.

At UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, Lisa Feldman, the executive director of MBA Career Management, said she’s also seeing a lot more interest in finding jobs with startups or other small companies. She thinks that’s partly because millennials are more focused on finding a job where they feel like they can have a big impact.

Even though many of these graduates have come of age amid a difficult economy, Feldman said there’s plenty of appetite for taking a chance on a less established company.

“You would think that after everything they’ve seen perhaps they’d be risk-avoidant, but it may be that they’ve seen that large institutions are not necessarily reliable,” she said.

The Garmin Nuvi 40LM comes with free lifetime map updates.

When you’re driving unfamiliar streets or seeking a nearby spot to fill up your tank and your belly, it helps to have that patient, all-knowing GPS voice directing you to “exit to the right,” or, if you’ve ventured off-course, “make a legal U-turn when possible.”

Increasingly that voice comes from a smartphone, rather than a stand-alone device. With the right app, a windshield or dashboard mount, and a car charger (so you don’t drain the battery), you’ve got yourself an inexpensive navigation system. If you don’t own a smartphone, you can find a reliable, easy-to-use GPS starting at less than $100.

Below are the top budget picks from Cheapism.com.

• The Garmin Nuvi 40LM (starting at $90) has earned the approval of hundreds of online reviewers with fast, accurate directions and attractive features. It lets you know which lane you should be in, identifies streets by name when telling you where to turn, warns you if you exceed the speed limit, and comes preloaded with more than 5 million points of interest. The purchase price includes free map updates for the life of the device. (Where to buy)
• The Garmin Nuvi 50 (starting at $80), like the 40LM, has impressed users and experts with its pinpoint accuracy and user-friendly interface. But it differs from that model on two fronts: It has a larger screen that measures 5 inches diagonally, compared with 4.3 inches, and it requires users to pay a fee for map updates. To get a lifetime subscription, consumers must upgrade to the 50LM, which costs about $50 more on Amazon. (Where to buy)
• The TomTom Via 1405TM (starting at $114) incorporates not only free map updates but also lifetime traffic alerts to help users avoid delays in real time. Reviews note that this 4.3-inch model may take a minute to come up with directions, but users can generally count on efficient routes that factor in real travel times and even fuel efficiency. (Where to buy)

The maps on these devices cover the continental U.S., Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. The TomTom model also includes Alaska, Canada, and developing coverage of Mexico, whereas Garmin charges extra for full coverage of the U.S. and Canada. Users can download additional points of interest to supplement the millions of hotels, gas stations, and other so-called POIs that are already installed on the three units. All Things Nav is affiliated with Garmin’s maps provider but explains how to customize any GPS with POIs ranging from historic sites to red-light-camera locations.

These devices are portable, but their rechargeable lithium-ion batteries last only a couple of hours. For consumers who venture far from their vehicles, Cheapism highlights a different take on a GPS: the handheld Bushnell BackTrack D-Tour (starting at $80). This model homes in on your location and keeps track of where you’ve been, so you can find your way back to a trailhead or campsite -- or, if you’re less outdoorsy, to your car in a megamall parking lot. Users who bring it on runs, hikes, and road trips get a kick out of seeing their routes rendered on a mapping app when they return.

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Courtesy Nicolette Pizzitola

Career strategist and Compass Point Associates CEO Nicolette Pizzitola joined TODAY readers in a live online chat to help them move their jobs forward.

Stuck in a career rut?

Career strategist and Compass Point Associates CEO Nicolette Pizzitola joined TODAY readers in a live online chat to help them move their jobs forward.

Her advice is to get off the computer, stop sending out the 100's of resumes, and start connecting with other real people. If you can do that, and start well in advance of when you'll need it, you're golden. Nicolette reminded viewers to take time for their futures every day and in every interaction, because if you do, your spirit, and paycheck, will give you a big thanks.

TODAY: One of the things you seem to talk about a lot is the importance of authentic networking. Why is that so powerful and key to getting where you want to go with your career?

PIZZITOLA: Most people think networking is handing out business cards and looking for a job. In reality, authentic networking is built on relationships established before you need them.

TODAY: So it's kinda like, just be a human, and be authentically curious about people outside your silo?

PIZZITOLA: Exactly! People need to to know you and it's not all about work.

Does raising kids always have to be so hard on the wallet? Not necessarily, as I learned after moving to Japan with my husband and young children. Here’s a smorgasbord of 10 frugal parenting insights from Japan and other cultures. Although they can help us save a few pennies, their greatest value lies in what they teach us (and our kids) about being content with less.

1. Tone down the birthday parties. I almost couldn’t believe it when I realized that the kids we knew weren’t making lists of things they wanted for their birthday or at holiday time. In Japan, gift-giving isn’t a focus of these events. Instead of holding a big birthday bash and getting lots of presents, Japanese kids celebrate with a family dinner and one gift at most. In France, holidays like Christmas (another occasion for gift-giving in the U.S.) are traditionally celebrated with a family dinner. And while Christmas dinner is followed by a few carefully chosen presents, enjoying a meal together is the focal point. In Germany, birthday parties are simple, at-home affairs, which keeps costs to a minimum. In the U.S., informal surveys indicate that in some regions parents spend at least $200 on their child’s birthday party; that’s $400 for two kids. Assuming two children each bring a $10 present to 10 birthday parties, that’s a yearly outlay of $200. Go light on the parties and the gifts and save several hundred dollars.

2. Play outside. Consider doing away with toys completely and just have the kids play outside, as many parents do in Brazil. Brazilian parents aren’t in the habit of buying many toys for their kids because they expect them to play with friends or cousins, on their own -- and you don’t need much for that.

3.  Two wheels beat four. People commute to work or school by bicycle in places such as China, Denmark, and especially the Netherlands, a famously bike-friendly nation. In Japan, bicycles can be fitted with two child seats -- one in front, one in back -- for the ride to and from preschool or the grocery store. Once a child is in elementary school he walks to school on his own or takes public transportation. It is almost never the case that a child commutes to school by car -- if his family even has a car. (Two cars per family is a true rarity.) The average American family spent $4,416 on gasoline for the car in 2011, according to CNN Money. Think of the savings if you eliminate the twice-daily back and forth to school. 

4. Borrow your toys. Parents in New Zealand are lucky -- instead of buying new toys, they can borrow them from the widely available “toy libraries” that lend out toys and DVDs for the price of a yearly membership that costs about $100. Not only do parents stave off boredom/clutter syndrome (i.e., a new toy gathers dust after an initial wave of interest), borrowing toys reinforces the message that kids don’t have to own everything. According to the NPD Group, parents in the U.S. spent an average of $284 a child on toys in 2010, or $568 for a family with two kids. Reach out to a couple of friends and see if they’d like to start a toy rotation. The potential savings are significant.

5. Share your toys. Due to small living spaces and the lack of a heavy toy-buying tradition, children in South Korea claim title to just a few toys. Any toys a family owns are always meant for sharing among siblings. Sharing of toys and clothes extends beyond the family in South Korea, as well -- many neighborhoods hold a swap event twice a month for families to exchange clothes and toys for free. Here in the States, this is another opportunity to cut costs by joining forces with friends. 

6. Eat meals together. In countries with robust food traditions such as France, Italy, Spain, and South Korea, there’s simply no such thing as a separate kids’ meal. Kids eat and enjoy the same food as parents do, which saves money and time (no separate ingredients to buy and prepare or separate dishes to wash) and has the added bonus of teaching kids to eat widely and well. My friends in the U.S. report spending between $20 and $40 a week on an assortment of kiddie food items, such as frozen kids’ meals, chicken nuggets, pasta and sauce, macaroni and cheese, and apple juice. Potential savings are ample when everyone at the table feasts on the same menu.

7. Make your own toys. The first time I saw my friend’s 4-year-old daughter come home proudly from preschool lugging a used grocery bag full of what looked like trash, I didn’t get it. But once my own kids started school, I understood. It’s common for Japanese preschools to use recyclables -- bottles, caps, milk cartons, egg cartons, cardboard boxes, newspapers -- extensively and regularly for crafts instead of buying new supplies. Not only does this give kids a chance to exercise their creativity, it teaches them about the value of recycling in a concrete way. Kids also see their parents reuse everything, including paper and shopping bags. Based on prices posted at Walmart.com, a rough estimate of the cost of new craft supplies, including paper, sequins, markers, glue, paints, etc. in the U.S. comes to about $100 dollars a year. Repurpose what you might have thrown away and you’ll save a hefty portion of that sum.

8. Forage for your food. In Finland, an extremely modest and frugal mindset prevails. The high cost of new items means parents often go to one of the country’s many flea markets or secondhand stores to buy clothing. And it’s a tradition for families to forage for berries and mushrooms together in the summer, gathering enough to stock the freezer with a winter’s supply for the entire family. Consider joining a community garden to cut down on produce costs during harvest season.

9. Get out those handkerchiefs. I hadn’t seen anyone use a handkerchief since I was a little girl. I didn’t even know they still existed. But in Japan, everyone carries one -- from preschoolers to old men and women. Hankies are used to wipe hands after washing, to mop off a sweaty brow or clean a smudge of dirt. Little children learn early on how important this is: They’re required to bring a hankie to preschool, and elementary school teachers sometimes hold “handkerchief checks” to make sure the habit is ingrained. If a family of four in the U.S. uses two boxes of tissues a month, each priced at $3.69, the annual cost approaches $90. Use handkerchiefs instead and save $90 (minus the initial investment and the ongoing cost of cleaning them).

10. Buy fewer back-to-school supplies. In Japan, the list of back-to-school supplies a first-grader needs is daunting: a set of colored pencils, regular pencils, scissors, erasers, glue, pencil box, gym clothes, and a few notebooks, all to be stored in a special backpack that is meant to last throughout elementary school. (The same tradition prevails in Germany.) That sounds like it could be costly, but think about it: there’s no buying new backpacks every year or two. And while there’s a large initial purchase of school supplies, each pencil and every last eraser is labeled with the child’s name so he’ll take care of them and use them until there’s nothing left. Assuming a backpack costs about $40 in the U.S. and school supplies run about $48 a year, according to a survey by Parenting.com and Women & Co., a Citibank personal finance service, you can save at least $50 a child by reusing last year’s backpack and cutting down on supplies. 

A parenting expert with a Ph.D. from Harvard University, Christine Gross-Loh raised her own children in Japan for five years. Her writing has appeared in Mothering magazine, Parenting magazine, Shape magazine and on Mothering.com. Christine’s new book, Parenting Without Borders: Surprising Lessons Parents Around the World Can Teach Us, will be published on May 2 by Avery/Penguin. For more information visit www.christinegrossloh.com.

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How far would you go for a raise?

Inking a deal with Rapid Realty has a more permanent feel now that the New York City-based brokerage is giving a 15 percent raise to its workers who get a tattoo of the company’s logo.

So far, 40 agents are inked and more are lining up, Anthony Lolli, the CEO of Rapid Realty told NBC News.

One new agent got the tattoo after only a week working for Rapid Realty.

But isn’t that crazy?

“I don’t think so,” Lolli said. “Some people fall in love with the opportunity. They fall in love with the brand.”

It’s actually pretty conservative compared to other people who have tattooed company logos on their person, such as the man who tattooed the web address of a porn site on his face or the woman who auctioned the space on her forehead for $10,000.

Rapid Realty

Agents of Rapid Realty in New York City are eligible for a 15 percent increase in commission if they get a tattoo of the company logo.

But at Rapid Realty, there are no regrets yet and all 40 inked employees are still with the company, Lolli said. Some early adopters are even making plans to touch up their colors. 

The tattoos can be any size anywhere on the agent’s body to qualify for the bonus. They’re getting the tattoos anywhere they like: on their thighs, biceps, ankles, wrist, behind the ear and elsewhere, Lolli said. Some have only the RR logo, while others have also spelled out Rapid Realty. “They’re allowed to customize it,” he said.

Since all of Rapid Realty’s 1,100 agents work on commission, the 15 percent boost kicks in each time they complete a deal. Most agents start at a 25 percent commission so a company tattoo will bump them to the 40 percent bracket. Some agents were already maxed out at the 40 percent rate, but still got tattoos even though there was no extra pay in the deal, Lolli said.

About two years ago, Rapid Realty agent Adam Altman was the first to make the commitment after he closed a deal for a tattoo parlor in Bushwick, Brooklyn. A video on the company website documents the event, as the bespeckled, bearded agent adds the stylized RR logo to his existing tattoo collection. He already had tattoos on his arms, legs, back and mouth.

“The company’s been good to me. I don’t see myself going anywhere. If I have it on, it’s gonna force me to keep going and working harder, cuz you know I have that logo on, you know you’re not going to give up. It’s there for life,” Altman says in the video .“Rapid for life.Yo.”

So far, Lolli himself isn’t inked, but is grateful for his agents’ devotion. “It’s very humbling. I have an attitude of gratitude,” he said.

He’s considering getting a tattoo when his company hits a big benchmark of 100 offices. Currently Rapid Realty has franchises in New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Long Island and New Jersey. But with 62 locations, he has some time to consider where he wants his tattoo for the 100th.

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Not all parents can expect to get generous paid parental leave, experts say.

Hey working moms and dads, just because Yahoo employees are getting more generous parental leave benefits doesn’t mean you should expect those perks, too.

Under Yahoo’s new policy, new moms who give birth are eligible for up to 16 weeks of paid maternity leave, with benefits. New dads can get up to eight weeks of paid paternity leave with benefits, according to Yahoo.

The new parents also get $500 to spend on housecleaning and other needs, according to the new policy made public Tuesday.

The policy basically doubles the amount of leave that many new moms who work at Yahoo will receive after pregnancy, according to NBCBayArea.com.

Experts say that kind of paid leave may be available at other top-tier technology companies, but it’s a far cry from what most working parents can expect when their bundle of joy arrives.

“There’s no question” that Yahoo’s parental benefits are more generous than most, said Fatima Goss Graves, vice president for education and employment at the National Women’s Law Center, which does research and advocacy work for working women.

Kenneth Matos, senior director of employment research and practice at the Families and Work Institute, said the benefits for new dads, in particular, are far outside the norm.

“I think it’s definitely a step above what a lot of generally men -  and in the case of same-sex couples, sometimes women -  can expect when their partner has a child,”  Matos said.

Matos’s research shows that only 30 percent of U.S. employers offer paid or unpaid maternity leave that is greater than 12 weeks.

Matos also said that 58 percent of employers who provide maternity leave pay new moms for at least some of that time off. Only 14 percent of employers who provide paternity leave pay for some of the dads’ time off, according to the Families and Work Institute data.

Many employers argue that it is cost-prohibitive to provide generous paid leave when their workers have babies. Particularly for low-wage workers, advocates such as Graves said becoming a new parent can be a significant financial and emotional stress.

“You don’t want people having to choose between their own economic security (and) having that time to bond and take care of their family,” she said.

The United States is an outlier among developed countries because it generally does not require employers to provide paid parental leave. According to Graves, only two states – California and New Jersey – mandate that employers provide paid leave after a worker gives birth.

About 60 percent of U.S. employees are covered by the Family and Medical Leave Act, which gives parents the right to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave following the birth of a child, according to the Department of Labor.

The FMLA benefit is only available to employees who work in an office with 50 or more employees and have worked 1,250 hours in the previous year.

A Census Bureau study released in 2011 found that 51 percent of working women who had their first baby between 2006 and 2008 received some sort of paid leave, such as paid maternity leave, sick leave or vacation.

That’s up from 42 percent of first-time working moms who had their first child between 1996 and 2000, according to the Census Bureau.

Yahoo’s announcement Tuesday comes after a tumultuous year for the technology company. It has come under fire from work/life balance advocates for nixing telecommuting, and some also criticized new CEO and mom Marissa Mayer  for her decision to take a very short maternity leave.

Experts who advocate for more time off for women say they hope Yahoo’s move will spur other employers to offer more generous leave policies.

“The more you can make it possible for people to take care of their personal needs during life- changing moments, the easier it is for them to get back to being productive employees as well,” Matos said.

Pascal Lauener / Reuters

Yahoo Inc Chief Executive Marissa Mayer attends the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos in this January 25, 2013, file photo.

UPDATED 12:28 p.m. EDT: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, who sparked an uproar and hurt her image as a working mom when she banned telecommuting two months ago, is now offering employees generous new family leave benefits.

Under the new policy, mothers can take 16 weeks of paid leave with benefits, and fathers can take up to eight weeks, each time they have a new child via childbirth. Both parents receive eight weeks off for new children via adoption, foster child placement or surrogacy.

This change is a significant increase for Yahoo employees, particularly mothers, who will basically get twice as much paid time off. Under the old policy, moms received eight week paid after pregnancy, or 10 weeks if they had a C-section.

Read more from NBCBayArea.com.

Yahoo will also give new parents $500 to spend on such things as house cleaning, groceries and babysitters, plus Yahoo-branded baby gifts.

Mayer's decision, which brings the Sunnyvale-based Yahoo closer to Silicon Valley titans Google and Facebook, could help repair the damage as she works to turn around the struggling media giant.

But it doesn't only make sense from a public relations standpoint, observers said. The new policy could fit into a broader corporate strategy to attract and retain more talent and ultimately improve Yahoo's financial performance.

"It's a smart move," said Rachel Sklar, a New York-based blogger and founder of The Li.st, an organization dedicated to elevate the status of women in New Media and technology. "It suggests a long-term strategy. This is a great precedent."

Companies who provide "everything" to their employees, such as free lunch and daycare sites at Google, do better financially in the long run because there is nothing to "distract" their workers from working, Sklar said.

"The temptation will be to see this through a gender lens - -that of course she did it because she's a new-mom CEO," Sklar said. "And this certainly would suggest she has a heightened awareness as a working mom, but this will encourage new parents to be engaged with the company and have a financial piece of mind. When companies nickel-and-dime their employees, it just adds to their burden."

From the moment she became Yahoo's new chief executive last year, Mayer, 37, has been seen as a symbol of corporate gender politics. She took the job when she was five months pregnant and worked through a two-week maternity leave that ended in October.

Her decision to return to work so quickly attracted both praise and criticism - praise for showing that a new mother could continue to steer a Fortune 500 company, and criticism for failing to set a realistic expectations for America's working moms.

Mayer drew praise for adding perks such as new iPhones and free food, cutting company bureaucracy and redesigning work spaces. Many of those amenities were standard at her prior employer, Google.

In February, Mayer sparked another debate when she decided to end Yahoo's lenient telecommuting policy. Employees with existing work-from-home arrangements were told they had to start coming into the office or look for another job.

The move reflected Mayer's an all-hands-on-deck approach to turning around Yahoo and make it more competitive. But she was again accused of making it harder on working parents.

But her decision to double family leave for new parents from 8 weeks to 16 weeks puts Yahoo in the same ballpark as her Silicon Valley rivals: Google gives between 18 and 22 weeks off to new mothers, and Facebook told the New York Times that it gives new mothers and fathers four months of paid leave.

A Google spokeswoman said that all the Mountain View-company perks - which include preferred parking for expectant mothers and $500 in "baby bucks" to spend on things such as takeout dinners, like Yahoo is now offering - are so that life can be as smooth as possible for new parents. That's of course, the spokeswoman noted, so that they can come back to work fully rested.

In California, workers are eligible for six weeks of partial pay through the state's disability benefits program.

Mayer's move also comes amid a broader debate in America about the country's commitment to family leave. The United States, which hasn't updated its Family and Medical Leave Act in 20 years, ranks among the worst of all developed countries. Sweden, Denmark Russian mothers get at least a year off paid and Canadian mothers get 50 weeks off paid.

The U.S. law requires large companies to provide 12 weeks of unpaid leave to employers who need to care for a newborn child or an ill relative. And that relatively stingy benefit covers only workers who have been at a company for at least a year. That leaves millions without access to the benefit. Many more cut their absences short because they can't afford unpaid leave.