Sec. 2. Findings

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Congress makes the following findings: Working people need time to meet their own health care needs and to care for family members. The absence of paid sick time has forced working people to make untenable choices between needed income and jobs on the one hand and caring for their own and their family’s health on the other. It is in the national interest to ensure that all working people can care for their own health and the health of their families while prospering at work. Twenty-nine percent of the private sector workforce and 9 percent of the public sector workforce lack paid sick time.

Millions more theoretically have access to sick time, but have not been on the job long enough to use it. Millions more lack sick time they can use to care for a sick child or ill family member. Working people without paid sick days are more likely to go to work sick and delay or forgo needed health care. A 2016 study in the journal Health Affairs found that working adults without paid sick days are 3 times more likely to forgo medical care for themselves, and 1.6 times more likely to forgo medical care for their family, compared to working adults with paid sick days.

Lack of paid sick days is also a barrier to receiving annual health screenings and preventive care, according to a 2017 study in the American Journal of Nursing. Nearly 1 in 4 parents without paid sick time reports sending a sick child to school or child care because the parent has to go to work. When children go to school and child care sick, they risk their own health and that of other children, teachers, and administrators. Research suggests that schools play a key role in transmitting contagious illnesses like influenza.

A 2012 study published in the American Journal of Public Health found that a lack of workplace policies like paid sick days contributed to an additional 5,000,000 cases of influenza-like illness during the H1N1 pandemic of 2009. A National Bureau of Economic Research analysis examining influenza rates following the implementation of comprehensive paid sick time laws in 7 major cities in the United States found that when workers gained access to paid sick time in those cities, the general influenza rate in the population decreased by 5.5 to 6.5 percent.

This analysis estimates that those laws helped prevent about 100 influenza-like infections per week for every 100,000 people. Paid sick days contribute to more cost-effective use of health care resources. A 2011 study by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research found that a universal paid sick days policy would reduce preventable visits to the emergency room and result in cost savings of $1,100,000,000 per year, including $500,000,000 in savings for public health insurance programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

The American Productivity Audit completed in 2003 found that lost productivity due to illness costs $226,000,000,000 ($308,000,000,000 in 2019 dollars) annually, and that 71 percent of that cost stems from presenteeism—the practice of employees coming to work while ill. Studies in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association show that presenteeism is a larger productivity drain than either absenteeism or short-term disability.

Working while sick also increases a worker’s probability of suffering an injury on the job. A 2012 study published by the American Journal of Public Health found that workers with access to paid sick leave were 28 percent less likely than workers without paid sick leave to suffer nonfatal occupational injuries. Workers’ access to paid sick time varies dramatically by wage level, as demonstrated by the following: For private sector workers— for workers in the lowest quartile of earners, 55 percent lack paid sick time; for workers in the next 2 quartiles, 27 and 17 percent, respectively, lack paid sick time; and even for workers in the highest quartile, 10 percent lack paid sick time.

For public sector workers— for workers in the lowest quartile of earners, 21 percent lack paid sick time; for workers in the next 2 quartiles, 5 and 3 percent, respectively, lack paid sick time; and for workers in the highest quartile, 5 percent lack paid sick time. Workers’ access to paid sick days also varies depending on their occupation and race. For example, more than 80 percent of workers in food preparation and serving occupations lack access to paid sick days, compared to only 23 percent of workers in management occupations.

More than half of Latino workers and nearly half of Native American or Alaskan Native workers do not have access to paid sick days, compared to nearly 40 percent of White and Black workers. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 1 in 3 women and more than 1 in 4 men in the United States report having experienced rape, physical abuse, or some form of unwanted sexual contact at some point in their lives. Women and men of color are even more likely to report being impacted by intimate partner violence.

Too many people, and especially women, are forced to risk losing their jobs or critical income when they need to take time away from work to address domestic-violence-related issues, such as obtaining a restraining order or finding housing, in order to avoid or prevent physical or sexual abuse. Without paid sick time that can be used to address the effects of domestic violence, these victims are in grave danger of losing their jobs. In a 2018 survey of domestic violence survivors, nearly 3/4 (73 percent) reported that financial problems forced them to remain with their abusers longer than they wanted or to return to their abusers after having left, and more than half (53 percent) said they lost a job because of the abuse.

The loss of employment can be particularly devastating for victims of domestic violence, who often need economic security to ensure safety. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated that intimate partner violence costs over $700,000,000 annually due to the victims’ lost productivity in employment. A 2018 study published in the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry found that workers without paid sick leave benefits have higher levels of psychological distress and are 1.45 times more likely to report that their distress symptoms interfere a lot with their daily life activities.

Efforts to assist abused employees result in positive outcomes for employers as well as employees because employers can retain workers who might otherwise be compelled to leave. Dozens of States, cities, and localities have or will soon have paid sick time laws in place and evidence shows that those laws are working well for workers, businesses, and the economy. A 2009 study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research found that, of 22 countries with comparable economies, the United States was 1 of only 3 countries that did not provide any paid time off for workers with short-term illnesses.