No worker should have to choose between their health or the health of a loved one and their economic security. Yet because there is no federal guarantee to a universal right to paid sick time, millions of workers in the United States must do just that. Paid sick leave alleviates the economic necessity to work and forgo care while sick, which is good for public health, businesses, and the economy alike, while also helping to save lives.
This issue brief advances the public health and business cases for passing a guaranteed right to paid sick time.
Paid sick time refers to short-term time off that workers can use when they are sick, injured, or receiving medical treatment.1 Workers may also use their sick time to care for a loved one’s health needs.
While no U.S. federal law generally guarantees the right to paid sick time, 14 states, Washington, D.C., and many cities and counties have state and local paid sick time laws. Still, almost 1 in 4 private sector workers2—about 28 million workers in total3—do not have access to even a single paid sick day. Furthermore, the lowest 10 percent of earners are half as likely to have paid sick time as the private sector workforce as a whole, and part-time workers are much less likely to have paid sick time than full-time workers, with access varying significantly by occupation.4
The evidence is clear that paid sick time not only is good for individual workers but also has widespread benefits for public...
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