The Center for American Progress released a new fact sheet on the need for paid sick days in the United States in August, 2012. The report authors point out how our outdated work and family policies aren’t working for today’s families: “While our workforce and families have changed dramatically, our nation’s labor standards have not been updated in decades. There are sensible policies that would assist families while simultaneously helping employers’ bottom lines, but both employers and policymakers have been slow to recognize how fundamentally our lives have changed and what needs to be done to make our workplace policies match the way that we live and work today.”
Here are the key facts they share (you can read more about each by downloading the full report):
- 38 percent of private-sector workers lack even one paid sick day.
- Low-income workers are less likely to have access to paid sick days.
- Women are less likely than men to have paid sick days.
- Workers with access to paid sick days are more likely to utilize preventative health services such as cancer screenings and tests.
- Many Americans risk their jobs to care for themselves and their families.
- Latinos are the least likely to have access to paid leave of any type out of any racial or ethnic group.
- Workers without paid sick leave are 1.5 times more likely to go to work sick and contagious than those who have paid sick days.
- Employers have little to lose and much to gain from granting paid sick days.
- Workers who have paid sick days don’t abuse them.
- The United States is the only developed country that doesn’t guarantee paid sick leave.
- Some states and municipalities are seeing the benefits of paid sick days.
- Americans want a paid sick day policy.
- The Healthy Families Act would provide workers with the right to up to seven job-protected paid sick days per year to recover from their own short-term illnesses or to care for an ill family member.
Read the full report here.