When Is It Appropriate To Use Sick Days From Work?

The chart above is from a YouGov Poll -- done between October 4th and 6th of a nationwide sample of 1,000 adults, with a 4 point margin of error.

All Workers Deserve A Paid Sick Leave Benefit

Even though some businesses provide at least some paid sick leave for their workers, many U.S. businesses do not. This leaves millions of workers without any paid sick leave at all -- something that is not true in any other developed country. This is shameful, and it needs to be remedied immediately!

Here, from abetterbalance.org, are some facts about sick leave:

The United States is the only developed country that does not guarantee paid sick leave for workers.7

Because of this major gap in our federal laws, over 33 million American workers do not have access to a single paid sick day.8

Women, minority, and low-income workers are the least likely to have access to paid sick leave.

• Only 20% of the lowest-paid decile of private-sector workers have access to paid sick leave, compared to 87% of workers in the top-paid decile.9
• Forty-three percent of working mothers—including 54% of Latina mothers and 42% of Black mothers—do not have access to paid sick leave.10
• Only 49% of Hispanic workers have paid sick leave, compared with 61% of the general population.11

Front-line workers also disproportionately lack paid sick leave.

• Overall, workers with high levels of public contact (e.g., those working in the restaurant/service industry, child care professionals) are less likely to have access to paid sick leave.12
• 55% of retail and fast-food workers do not have access to paid sick leave.13

Paid sick leave reduces the spread of contagion.

• Temporary access to paid sick leave in 2020 led to a decrease in 400 COVID-19 cases per day per state without existing paid sick leave requirements during the height of the pandemic.14
• Even before the pandemic, states with paid sick leave requirements saw a 40% decrease in influenza rates.15

Paid sick leave benefits businesses and the economy.

• Paid sick leave reduces worker turnover,16 which results in significant savings for employers. Replacing workers can cost a business the equivalent of 21% of an employee’s annual wage.17
• Paid sick leave leads to fewer workers coming to work with illnesses and health conditions that reduce their productivity—a problem that costs the national economy $207.6 billion per year.18
• Nationally, universal paid sick leave would result in $1.1 billion in annual savings in hospital emergency department costs, including more than $500 million in savings to publicly funded health insurance programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP.19

82% of voters—including 72% of Republicans, 79%of Independents, and 93% of Democrats—support a permanent paid sick leave law.

Trump/GOP Seriously Weaken The Coronavirus Bill

A couple of days ago, 223 Democrats and 140 Republicans voted to pass the Coronavirus bill in the House of Representatives. The bill now will go to the Senate.

It is a decent bill that does some necessary things, but it could and should have been much better. In order to get GOP and White House support for the bill, Democratic leadership let the Republicans insert too many restrictions in it -- restrictions that will hurt many low-wage workers.

Here is some of what the editorial board of The New York Times had to say about the bill:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday night celebrated the coronavirus legislation that passed early Saturday as providing paid sick leave to American workers affected by the pandemic.

She neglected to mention the fine print.

In fact, the bill guarantees sick leave only to about 20 percent of workers. Big employers like McDonald’s and Amazon are not required to provide any paid sick leave, while companies with fewer than 50 employees can seek hardship exemptions from the Trump administration.

“If you are sick, stay home,” Vice President Mike Pence said at a news conference on Saturday afternoon. “You’re not going to miss a pay check.”

But that’s simply not true. Sick workers should stay home, but there is no guarantee in the emergency legislation that most of them will get paid.

The White House and congressional Republicans, who insisted on the exemptions as the price of bipartisan support for the legislation, bear the primary responsibility for the indefensible decision to prioritize corporate profits in the midst of a public health emergency. . . .

But House Democrats also failed to act in the public interest. Paying sick workers to stay at home is both good policy and good politics. Why not pass a bill that required all employers to provide paid sick leave and then force Republicans to explain their objections to the public?

The bill does require some employers to provide full-time workers with up to 10 days of paid leave. But the requirement does not apply to the nation’s largest employers — companies with 500 or more workers, who together employ roughly 54 percent of all workers. . . .

The legislation also provides some compensation for workers who need to take longer leaves under the Family and Medical Leave Act — but this too excludes workers at big companies.

And the bill allows the Labor Department to grant hardship exemptions to businesses with fewer than 50 employees. That category includes another 26 percent of the work force, meaning that fully 80 percent of workers may not be able to cash in on Ms. Pelosi’s rhetoric.

Democrats began this process in the right place. The first draft of the coronavirus legislation included a permanent change requiring employers to allow every worker to earn up to seven days of paid sick leave, and a temporary change allowing any worker to take up to 10 days of sick leave during a public health emergency. The final draft includes only a pale shadow of those sensible requirements. The paid sick leave requirement is narrowly focused on the coronavirus; it does not even require paid sick leave during future pandemics — a contemptible signal that political leaders are already committed to not learning the lessons of this one. . . .

Roughly 86 percent of workers at big companies get some kind of paid sick leave, according to federal statistics. But few workers in the United States are eligible to take 10 days of paid sick leave. And the low-wage workers who can least afford to stay home without paid leave are precisely the workers who are least likely to qualify for those standard corporate benefits.

Companies should be required to provide paid sick leave to every worker as a standard cost of doing business, and they certainly should be required to do so in the midst of a pandemic.

The House’s failure to require universal paid sick leave is an embarrassment that endangers the health of workers, consumers and the broader American public.

What Is Really Needed From The Government Right Now

(Cartoon image is by Jimmy Margulies at jimmymargulies.com.)

In the face of the Coronavirus crisis, Donald Trump has made a lot of mistakes. Perhaps one of the worst is that he is more concerned about the stock market than about the health of Americans.

The economy does need some help, but Trump's latest idea (more tax cuts) is not going to be effective -- either for the economy or to curb the spread of the Coronavirus. We need more spending in all areas of public health. Congress seems to be doing that, but we'll have to see if they are spending enough.

The other thing that's needed is to protect workers (especially low wage workers who have not paid sick leave). Giving them paid sick leave will protect those workers financially, and it'll protect the public by allowing them to not be at work if they are sick.

Here's part of how the editorial board of The New York Times puts it:

The panic may be on Wall Street, but the pain is also going to be felt on Main Street.

Our society is constructed to reward the rich in good times and punish the poor in bad times. A coronavirus recession would be doubly painful, as lower-income households are likely to pay a heavier toll in both health and wealth.

Lower-income families are less likely to have health insurance, or jobs that provide paid leave, or jobs that can be done from the comfort of a home office. Wealthier Americans can dream of riding out the coronavirus with the help of Amazon; it is less-affluent Americans who will sort and deliver the packages.

The government can help. An effective public health response necessarily requires limits on economic activity; an effective fiscal policy response can offset the damage.

One clear and critical example is the need for universal paid sick leave. Approximately one-quarter of private-sector workers — about 32 million people — cannot take paid sick days. Congress can change that by mandating paid sick leave and covering the cost, for example through a one-time tax credit. Paying sick workers to stay home is good for public health and the economy: It protects the physical health of colleagues and customers, and the financial health of low-wage workers who might not be able to afford unpaid time at home.

Huge spending on public health is also sensible under the circumstances. The federal government should pick up the tab for state and local spending on the crisis response — including on staffing health facilities, testing for the coronavirus and equipment to keep workers safe — and it should encourage public health officials to pull out all the stops.

Limiting the spread of the virus is the best way to minimize economic damage, not to mention meet the government’s basic responsibility to prevent people from becoming seriously ill or dying. And every dollar spent on public health provides just as much of an economic boost as would spending on anything else.

One item that’s not on this list, however, is a broad-based tax cut, Washington’s preferred cure for all economic ailments. Mr. Trump said Monday that his administration planned to propose a reduction in the federal payroll tax, which is paid by a broader range of workers than the income tax. But there is good reason to worry about the public-health effects of encouraging people to go out and spend more money. The government needs to focus on limiting the spread of the virus by encouraging sick leaves, quarantines and other measures that can be described as taxes on economic activity. It makes little sense to enact a countervailing tax cut.

The time to stimulate the economy is after the danger is under control.

It's Time For Congress To Mandate Paid Sick Leave

The chart above should be an embarrassment for citizens of the United States. The nations in blue (which is most of the world) have laws that guarantee their citizens paid leave when they are sick. The United States does not. When many American workers are sick, they must go to work anyway or lose a significant part of their pay -- something low-wage workers simply cannot afford.

But it's not just the penalty suffered by workers when they are sick. These workers also pose a danger of infecting co-workers and customers when they go to work sick. Ask yourself -- Do you want sick people working at the businesses you frequent? Don't they pose a danger to you?

This is an especially important question these days, as the Coronavirus continues to spread across the country. At least a quarter of American workers do not have paid sick leave, and most of them cannot afford to miss work (and pay). These workers will pose a danger to American consumers, but they will be working because they cannot afford to stay home.

Isn't it time to change this?

The congressional Democrats think so. They have been trying to pass a law mandating paid sick leave for all workers for many decades. But their efforts have been blocked by Republicans. Short-sighted business interests oppose paid sick leave, and the Republicans care more what they think than the health and safety of the American public (or the economic well-being of workers).

In light of the Coronavirus epidemic, congressional Democrats are once again trying to pass a law mandating that all workers get paid sick leave. Their bill would let all workers accrue up to at least seven paid sick days, and would immediately provide fourteen additional days in the event of a public emergency (like an epidemic such as the Coronavirus).

Sadly, the Republicans in the Senate will likely once again kill this bill. It's just one more reason to vote them out of office next November.

Seven Charts That Should Shame All Americans

The charts below are from Oxfam America. They show the number of Americans living in or near poverty, even though they are working at a full-time job. You can go to the Oxfam website to see the interaction charts, showing the exact figures for each state. On the charts below, the darker colors represent a higher percentage. These charts show the percentages working for less than $12 an hour (a poverty wage), and the percentage without any paid sick leave.

According to Oxfam America:

The federal minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 an hour for seven years. This is a poverty wage, and has an effect on wages for millions of jobs. Overall, 58.3 million workers (43.7 percent) earn under $15 an hour; 41.7 million (31.3 percent) earn under $12 an hour.

Percentage Making Less Than $12 An Hour

Percentage Of Men Making Under $12 An Hour

Percentage Of Women Making Less Than $12 An Hour

Percentage Of Whites Making Less Than $12 An Hour

Percentage Of Blacks Making Less Than $12 An Hour

Percentage Of Hispanics Making Less Than $12 An Hour

Percentage Of Workers Without Any Paid Sick Leave

U.S. Should Guarantee Paid Sick Leave For All Workers

The United States is the only developed nation that does not guarantee all workers at least some paid sick leave (and one of the very few in the entire world). About 61% of workers in the bottom 25% and 73% of workers in the bottom 10% get no paid sick leave at all. This means these workers, when they get sick, must make a terrible choice -- go to work anyway and endanger themselves, co-workers, and maybe even customers (since many work in service sector jobs), or do without some basic necessities for their families because of the loss in pay for missing work.

This is especially critical in our current economy, since a substantial portion of workers are trying to exist on these low-wage jobs -- and by 2020, it is expected that a full quarter of the U.S. work force will be in these low-wage jobs.

Elise Gould and Jessica Schieder of the Economic Policy Institute have written an excellent article on this issue (and it's well worth reading). I post below only the summary and conclusion of their study:

Summary

There is no federal law that ensures all workers are able to earn paid sick days in the United States. For workers who fall ill or whose families depend on them to provide care in the event of an illness, this means sick days can be incredibly costly. Taking needed sick time means workers go without pay or must show up at work while sick and delay seeking treatment for themselves or their dependents.

This paper examines recent trends in paid sick time and highlights some of the costs to workers and their families when they are not given the opportunity to earn paid sick time. By quantifying how lack of paid sick days threatens the economic security of low- and moderate-income families, it adds new data to debates over paid sick days measures in states and cities and the need for federal legislation. Over the last several years seven states, the District of Columbia, and 31 other localities have passed paid sick days laws, five of which are set to go into effect this July. Ballot initiatives are on the horizon and some policymakers are calling for a federal guarantee to allow workers to earn paid sick time.

Following are the main findings of the paper:

• Lack of paid sick days is a real problem, particularly for low-wage workers, and it shows up in the large paid sick days gap between high- and low-wage workers. While approximately 64 percent of private-sector American workers currently have access to paid sick days, this topline number masks the fact that higher-wage workers have much greater access to paid sick days than lower-wage workers do: for example, 87 percent of private-sector workers in the top 10 percent of wages have the ability to earn paid sick days, compared with only 27 percent of private-sector workers in the bottom 10 percent.
• Lack of paid sick days deprives workers of funds needed for basic necessities.Without the ability to earn paid sick days, workers must choose between going to work sick (or sending a child to school sick) and losing much-needed pay. For the average worker who does not have access to paid sick days, the costs of taking unpaid sick time can make a painful dent in the monthly budget for the worker’s household:
  • If the worker needs to take off even a half day due to illness, the lost wages are equivalent to the household’s monthly spending for fruits and vegetables; lost wages from taking off nearly three days equal their entire grocery budget for the month.
  • Two days of unpaid sick time are roughly the equivalent of a month’s worth of gas, making it difficult to get to work.
  • Three days of unpaid sick time translate into a household’s monthly utilities budget, preventing the worker from paying for electricity and heat.
  • In the event of a lengthier illness—say, seven and a half days of unpaid sick time—the worker would lose income equivalent to a monthly rent or mortgage payment.
• State laws providing the right to paid sick days appear to be having a small but meaningful effect as the share of workers with access to paid sick time has increased, particularly at the low end of the wage spectrum.
  • Access to paid sick time for low-wage workers has increased since 2012, the year the first state law requiring paid sick days went into effect, in Connecticut. The share of low-wage, private-sector workers nationwide with paid sick time rose from 18 percent in 2012 to 27 percent in 2016, while the share of the top 10 percent of wage earners with this benefit has barely budged (86 to 87 percent over this period).
  • Of all regions, the Pacific region had the biggest overall increase in access to paid sick days, with the share of workers with access rising from 63 percent in 2012 to 73 percent in 2016 (in contrast, the share nationwide rose from 61 to 64 percent during the same period). Paid sick days laws went into effect in 2015 in California and 2016 in Oregon (two of the three states in the Census-designated Pacific region).

    Conclusion

    For the millions of workers without access to paid sick days, many workers who are sick feel forced to go to work, where they are less likely to be productive and more prone to mistakes. The income security provided by paid sick days allows workers to rest, get the health care they need, and fully recover from an illness before returning to work. Also important, it allows workers to continue paying their monthly bills, even in the event of illness. This economic security is incredibly important for low-wage workers and their families, given that the vast majority of low-wage workers do not currently have access to paid sick time.
    State and local measures are critical but the problem calls for a national solution—especially given impending state attacks on the right of localities to legislate these protections (National Partnership 2017b). This year paid sick days protections were provided to the federal contractor workforce, guaranteeing the ability to earn (or expand) paid sick days to an estimated one million private-sector workers (Gould 2017). But efforts to reach the overall workforce have yet to succeed. The Healthy Families Act, first introduced in 2004, would allow workers in workplaces with 15 or more employees to earn at least one hour of paid sick time per 30 hours worked, among other provisions. While Congress has reintroduced the Healthy Families Act with stronger sponsorship than before, the act is not expected to advance. More action is needed to reach workers across the economy regardless of their wage levels, hours, or where their jobs are located.

The United States Is Still The Only Developed Nation Without A Guarantee Of Paid Medical Leave For Workers

To it's great shame, the United States remains the only developed nation that refuses to guarantee workers at least some paid medical leave. While a few employers offer some paid sick days and some offer paid medical leave for new parents, no business in the United States is required to do that -- and quite a few take advantage of that to offer nothing. In those businesses, an employee who gets sick or has a baby would lose their pay, and could lose their job completely.

But while our Republican-controlled federal government does not want to require businesses to offer paid medical leave, that is not the feeling of the general public. As the chart above shows, 85% believe workers should receive paid medical leave for a serious medical condition, 82% want mothers to receive paid leave after having a baby (and 69% would extend that to fathers also), and 67% say a worker should receive paid leave to help care for a family member.

Who should pay for that medical leave. Members of both political parties say it should be employers rather than the government (and they like the idea of giving employers tax credits to do so).

The public also believes guaranteeing paid medical leave would be good for the economy (65% to 34%), for families (94% to 4%), for women (93% to 5%), for men (87% to 11%), and for most employers (52% to 47%). They do however say that it would not be good for small businesses (41% to 57%). That could be addressed through some kind of government help for those small businesses.

The charts above are from the Pew Research Center. The information is from two surveys done between November 17th and December 14th. The first queried 2,029 adults, and had a 2.3 point margin of error. The second questioned 5,934 adults, and had a 2.1 point margin of error.

Hillary Clinton's Stand On Paid Family And Medical Leave

(Photo of Hillary Clinton is from her own web site.)

From hillaryclinton.com:

“For many workers, staying home to take care of a sick child or an aging parent means losing a paycheck—or worse, even losing a job. That is an impossible choice we shouldn’t ask anyone to make—and yet American workers are forced to make it every day.”

HILLARY, NOVEMBER 9, 2015

Today, the United States is the only developed nation in the world with no guaranteed paid leave of any kind. In fact, only 13 percent of American workers have access to paid family leave—with the lowest paid workers up to four times less likely to have access than the highest paid. 

Hillary has long believed it’s past time for that to change. In an economy where both men and women typically hold down a paying job and women are breadwinners in two-thirds of families with children, paid family and medical leave is core to our economic growth and competitiveness. Paid leave helps families remain economically stable, benefits children’s early health and development by allowing parents to care for their newborn children, and reduces employee turnover. The availability of paid leave bolsters our economy by allowing more Americans to participate fully in the workforce and ensures that we don’t leave any talent on the sidelines.  

As president, Hillary will: 

• Guarantee up to 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave. Under Hillary’s plan, workers—men and women—will be guaranteed up to 12 weeks of paid family leave to care for a new child or a seriously ill family member, such as an elderly, ailing parent or a spouse with cancer, and up to 12 weeks of medical leave to recover from a serious illness or injury of their own. 
• Enable hard working Americans to support their families economically while on leave. To ensure families remain stable and supported during both joyful and stressful times—like when a new baby arrives, a worker gets cancer, or an employee must care for an elderly parent suffering from Alzheimer’s—Hillary’s plan will provide financial support to workers taking leave. Under her plan, workers who have met a minimum number of hours the previous year will receive a percentage of their income during leave. 
• Ensure at least a two-thirds wage replacement rate for workers. Hillary’s plan will ensure that the wage replacement rate is at least two-thirds of a worker’s current wages, up to a ceiling, so that low-income and middle class workers receive the financial support they need to take the leave they need.
• No new business or employee mandate. Hillary’s plan will not impose additional costs on businesses, including small businesses. There is no business or employee mandate to pay for leave, nor is there a payroll tax to pay for it.
• Fund paid leave by making the wealthy pay their fair share, not by increasing taxes on working families. Hillary strongly believes that middle class families deserve a raise, not a tax increase. American families need paid leave, and to get there, Hillary will ask the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share. She’ll ensure that the plan is fully paid for by a combination of tax reforms impacting the most fortunate.

It's Time The U.S. Guaranteed Paid Sick Leave To Workers

It is a sign of the power that business and corporate interests have over the United States government that this country does not guarantee any amount of paid sick leave for any worker (or paid annual leave or paid maternity leave). In fact, out of the 22 most developed nations of the world, the United States is the only one that doesn't require businesses to provide at least some paid sick leave.

You may be saying to yourself -- Don't most businesses provide paid sick leave for workers anyway? Some do. According to the Labor Department, about 61% of American workers receive at least some amount of paid sick leave. But that means there are 39% who do not get any paid sick leave benefit. And since the latest Labor Department statistics say there are 148,201,000 employed workers at this time, that means there are around 57,798,000 workers who do not get a paid sick leave benefit.

That 57-58 million workers must go to work when they are sick, or they will get their pay cut for that week (and could lose their job). Many of them are in low-wage jobs (at or near the minimum wage) and having a hard time making ends meet anyway. They simply cannot afford to miss any pay at all. This means they have to go to work sick -- even if it means they are endangering their own health, or the health or fellow employees or customers who could contract a disease from them.

It is inexcusable that the richest nation in the world has so little care for its workers. It is time for this government to show it cares as much about workers as it does about corporations, and require all businesses to provide some paid sick leave for all workers.

The corporate-owned congressional Republicans oppose requiring paid sick leave -- but that just makes one more issue on which they oppose the majority of Americans. The charts in this post are from a recent YouGov Poll -- done between January 29th and February 1st of a random national sample of 1,000 adults, with a margin of error of about 4 points. It shows that a whopping 70% of the public thinks businesses should be required to provide paid sick leave -- and that extends across all demographic groups.

And that's not all. About 67% also think businesses should be required to provide paid maternity leave -- and a smaller, but still significant majority (55%) think businesses should also be required to provide paid paternity leave.