For many people, there's no happier moment than the day you welcome a child into the world. With so many emotions to deal with, and so many things to prepare for, the last thing you need to worry about is whether or not you'll be getting paid.

At UncommonGoods, we make sure that our more than 100 team members can welcome a new child without that hassle. Recently, President Obama gave the same benefit to federal contractors.

But many businesses in the U.S. don't provide this benefit. They may couch that decision in terms of cost -- claiming it would hurt their bottom line -- but that's short-sighted. More importantly, it's shifting their costs onto the government, when new parents are forced to go on public assistance. That raises taxes for all of us, including businesses that provide paid leave.

And right now, federal law is severely lacking: The U.S. is the only developed country in the world that doesn't guarantee paid time off following childbirth, leaving us in the company of countries like Papua New Guinea. The existing Family and Medical Leave Insurance Act guarantees some time off, but it covers less than half of the American workforce -- and the leave is unpaid. Many employees can't afford that.

Anyone who runs a business knows that their most valuable asset is their team. Losing good employees is costly. Just hiring and training a replacement can cost thousands, not to mention the lost productivity when the position is unfilled. Furthermore, not offering benefits like paid leave makes it more difficult to attract and retain capable employees. Considering the costs of employee turnover -- the average costs of replacing a worker earning less than $50,000 can be 20 percent of their salary, by one estimate -- this is not a forward-thinking business strategy.

At our company, new mothers get four weeks of paid leave, plus up to seven sick days, following childbirth; employees whose spouse or partner has given birth will get two weeks. Families that have recently adopted a child also get two weeks. And that's before we get into the paid sick days, short-term disability insurance, or flex time that we offer all of our year-round employees.

We're not doing this because we're a social service organization. We're doing it because it makes good business sense -- because happier team members work harder and stick around longer. We'd encourage all businesses to offer these benefits.

Until then, we'd like to see paid leave be the law of the land. Government assistance should not enable businesses to shirk their responsibilities to their employees and force taxpayers to pick up the slack.

That's why we support legislation that would expand paid family leave to all American employees. Some in Congress say that it would place an undue burden on business. Our experience shows the opposite: Paid leave is a wise investment, both for businesses and the country.

UncommonGoods offers paid leave because it's the right thing to do, and that's not going to change. But we're also working with groups like the American Sustainable Business Council (ASBC) to promote this legislation because we can prove just how important this can be to a business like ours. Paid leave helped us attract a strong team, and it helps us keep them on board with us. We can't thrive without our team members, so it only makes sense we'd want to take care of them when they welcome a new bundle of joy. As it turns out, taxpayers and the entire economy benefit too.

Bolotsky is Founder and CEO of UncommonGoods, an online marketplace based in New York City.