• Fact Sheets
• Cost and Benefits Analyses
• Paid Sick Days Studies

FACT SHEETS

These short fact sheets highlight some of the most reliable and significant findings available to help make the case for a paid sick days initiative in your community.  Please share these with other activists, coworkers and friends.

• Working Women Need Paid Sick Days
• Paid Sick Days are Good for Children’s Health
• Paid Sick Days Improve Public Health
• Victims of Domestic Violence, Stalking and Sexual Assault Need Paid Sick Days
• Paid Sick Days Help Protect Economic Security for Working Families During the Recession
• Paid Sick Days Make Good Business Sense
• Paid Sick Days are Good for Caregivers
• Paid Sick Days are Necessary to Manage Chronic Illness
• Workers Caring for Older Relatives Need Paid Sick Days
• Paid Sick Days: Busting the Myths 
• Working Families Need the Healthy Families Act

The following tool can help you find the answers! Developed by the Institute for Women's Policy Research in January 2007, this tool provides a straightforward process for estimating how many workers in your state have a paid sick days policy, and how many do not.

You can calculate the number or the percent of the workforce with and without paid sick days. The estimation tool also presents a quick method for estimating the savings your state would experience under a minimum paid sick days standard, and the costs to employers of such a policy. Step-by-step instructions guide you in gathering relevant state-level data from federal government data sources. The accompanying template allows you to drop these numbers into a short narrative that includes explanations of the data and methodology used.

In addition, this tool offers a separate guide for calculating the percent of workers in your state who work for smaller firms. This information may be useful in evaluating the impact of employer size thresholds when considering different strategies for expanding access to paid sick days.

• Find information about the number of workers in your state, by the industries they work in 
• Calculate how many workers, and what share of workers in your state, do and do no have paid sick days (Excel spreadsheet)
• Estimate the savings and costs of a minimum paid sick days standard (Excel spreadsheet)
• Report your calculations (with this template)
• Find Information About the Number and Percent of Workers in Your State by Establishment Size
• Calculate the Number and Percent of Workers in Your State by Establishment Size (Excel spreadsheet)

(Note: Paid sick days for non-agricultural wage and salary workers who are not employed in private households are considered as data on other workers are not available.)

Legislative Reviews: Working Families Need Paid Sick Days

Policy Briefing Series: Opportunities for Policy Leadership on Paid Sick Days. 2007. Sloan Work and Family Research Network

The Policy Briefing Series (PBS) provides state legislators with information on implications of work-family policies and their effects on their constituents. The PBS on Paid Sick Days highlights what steps have been taken at the local, state, and national levels to guarantee paid sick days for workers. 

The Work, Family, and Equity Index: Where Does the United States Measure Up? 2007. Jody Heymann, et al. Harvard School of Public Health, Project on Global Working Families, Boston, MA.

The Work, Family, and Equity Index is a cross-national comparison of work and family policies in 177 countries, with emphasis on how the U.S. compares to other nations. The Index concludes that the U.S. lags significantly behind other countries in its lack of access to paid sick days and paid family leave for workers.

Get Well Soon: Americans Can’t Afford to Be Sick. 2004. National Partnership for Women & Families, Washington, DC.

The Get Well Soon report provides a comprehensive assessment of state and federal paid sick days measures and finds that not a single state is doing an adequate job to guarantee paid sick days for workers.  Get Well Soon outlines emerging models and discusses state progress towards paid sick days standards. 

Demographic Studies: Access to Paid Sick Days

Working Sick, Getting Stiffed: How Some of America’s Biggest Companies Fail Their Workers and Jeopardize Public Health. 2007, Association of Community Organizations for Reforms Now, ACORN’s Healthy Workers, Healthy Families Campaign for Paid Sick Days.

ACORN’s Working Sick, Getting Stiffed report highlights the lack of paid sick days among the 50 largest food service and retail companies. The report urges businesses to reform their sick days practices, and recommends that policymakers intervene to protect the interests of working people. 

One Sick Child Away From Being Fired: When “Opting Out” Is Not an Option. 2006. Joan C. Williams, Center for WorkLife Law, UC Hastings College of Law, San Francisco, California.

The report examines union arbitration cases and finds that low-income workers are often disciplined or fired when they miss work to care for their families. Williams concludes that employers can better meet the needs of workers by implementing workplace standards like paid sick days.

Highlights of the 2002 National Study of the Changing Workforce. 2005, Families and Work Institute, New York, New York.

The Study of the Changing Workforce documents the changes in the U.S. workforce and family life during the 25 year period between 1977 and 2002.

No Time to be Sick: Why Everyone Suffers when Workers Don’t Have Paid Sick Leave. 2004. Vicky Lovell, Institute for Women’s Policy Research, Washington, DC.

Lovell’s groundbreaking research investigates the availability of paid sick days in the U.S. by industry and demographic categories. Lovell finds that nearly half of all private-sector workers do not have a single paid sick day, and examines the ramifications for workers, families, businesses, and communities.

Getting Time Off: Access to Leave Among Working Parents. 2004, Katherin Ross Phillips, Urban Institute, Washington, DC.

Phillips’s report examines whether access to paid leave, including paid sick days, differs by socioeconomic status and finds that low-income workers have less access to all forms of leave. Phillips asserts that increasing access to paid leave would help provide economic security for many working parents.

Women, Work and Family Health: A Balancing Act. 2003. Issue Brief, An Update on Women’s Healthy Policy, The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

This Kaiser issue brief examines women's roles in family health care decision-making and coordination, and the effects on women’s careers and financial stability.

The Widening Gap: Why America’s Working Families are in Jeopardy and What Can Be Done About It. 2000. Jody Heymann, Basic Books.

The Widening Gap examines the major transformations in the U.S. labor force and family life in the past 150 years. Heymann concludes that our laws have failed to respond to meet new needs of workers and family caregivers.

Cost Benefit Studies: Paid Sick Days Benefit Employers, Families, and the Economy

Responsive Workplaces: The Business Case For Employment That Values Fairness and Families. 2007, Jodie Levin-Epstein, Center for Law and Social Policy.

The Responsive Workplaces issue brief frames work/life business practices not only as good social policy, but good business sense.  This report provides examples of how businesses benefit from better workplace standards, through increased worker retention, higher productivity, and a healthier work environment.

Valuing Good Health: An Estimate of Costs and Savings for the Healthy Families Act. 2005. Vicky Lovell. Institute for Women’s Policy Research, Washington, DC.

Valuing Good Health presents a comprehensive estimate of the costs and savings associated with the Healthy Families Act, a federal bill that guarantees seven paid sick days per year to full-time workers. The report finds that if workers were provided just seven paid sick days per year, our national economy would experience a net savings of approximately $8 billion per year.

Health Absence, Disability, and Presenteeism Cost Estimates of Certain Physical and Mental Health Conditions Affecting U.S. Employers. 2004, Ron Goetzal, et al. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

The study estimates the costs related to health problems, absence, short-term disability, and productivity losses for 10 health conditions. Goetzal et al. conclude that sick workers forced to remain on the job costs our national economy $180 billion annually in lost productivity, or on average $255 per employee per year. The cost of “presenteeism” exceeds that of absenteeism and medical and disability benefits combined.

Work-Family Benefits: Which Ones Maximize Profits? 2001, Christine Siegwarth Meyer et al., Journal of Managerial Issues, vol. 13, no. 1.

This study concludes that implementing minimum paid sick days standards would have no negative impact on companies that already provide paid sick days. In fact, paid sick days standards would “level the playing field” by enabling smaller companies who want to provide paid sick days an opportunity to compete with larger companies.

Public Health Fact Sheets: Paid Sick Days Improve Public Health

Here’s a Tip…When Restaurant and Hotel Workers Don’t Have Paid Sick Days, It Hurts Us All. 2007, Jodie Levin-Epstein, Center for Law and Social Policy, Washington, DC.

Levin-Epstein’s report examines the public health risks associated with the lack of paid sick days among low-wage accommodation and food industry workers.  She argues that providing paid sick days for workers in all sectors would not only benefit workers’ health and their families, but public health, as well.

Paid Sick Days Improve Public Health by Reducing the Spread of Disease. 2006. Vicky Lovell, Institute for Women’s Policy Research, Washington, DC.

Lovell’s issue brief explains how providing paid sick days promotes a healthier, more productive workforce and reduces the spread of disease in the workplace. Inversely, workers who must go to work sick because they lack paid sick days may infect coworkers and customers, increasing work absence and health care spending.