Sick leave is not required and state law preempts local requirements
No sick leave laws
The United Statesfederal government requires unpaid leave for serious illnesses, but does not require that employees have access to paid sick leave to address their own short-term illnesses or the short-term illness of a family member. However, a number of states and localities do require some or all employers to provide paid sick leave to their workers. Some jurisdictions allow for "safe leave", the use of sick leave for health and safety reasons related to domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, and other forms of violence and harassment.
A 2009 analysis from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) found that around 39 percent of American workers in the private sector do not have paid sick leave.[1] Around 79 percent of workers in low-wage industries do not have paid sick time.[2] Most food service and hotel workers (78 percent) lack paid sick days.[3]
A 2008 survey reported that 77 percent of Americans believe that having paid sick days is "very important" for workers.[4] Some workers report that they or a family member have been fired or suspended for missing work due to illness.[5]
A 2020 paper found that requiring paid sick leave in the US likely increased overall well-being.[6] When paid sick leave is required by law, workers tended to take two more days off work each year.[6]
Unpaid sick leave
The US requires unpaid leave for serious illnesses through the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). This law requires most medium-sized and larger employers to comply and, within those businesses, covers employees who have worked for their employer for at least 12 months prior to taking the leave.[7]
Paid sick leave
As of 2023, 18 states and Washington DC require paid sick leave, while 32 states do not. 18 states preempt local governments from requiring paid sick leave. Some localities require paid sick leave.[8][9][10]
All full-time, part-time, and temporary workers earn one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked. Employees of companies with 15 or more employees can accrue up to 40 hours a year, while employees of smaller companies can only accrue 24 hours a year. Companies are only required to allow employees to use their time off after being employed for 90 days.[8]
Arkansas
Arkansas does not require paid sick leave and preempts local governments from requiring it.[8][9]
California
All employees are entitled to earn one hour of paid sick leave every 30 hours after working 30 days. Employees can earn up to 48 hours a year, but companies can limit the amount one can use to 40. Unused hours are carried over. Companies are only required to allow employees to use their time off after being employed for 90 days. San Francisco, Oakland, Long Beach, San Diego, Emeryville, Santa Monica, Los Angeles, and Berkeley have more expansive requirements.[8][21]
Colorado
All employees earn one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked and can accrue and use up to 48 a year, with unused hours being carried over. If a public health emergency is declared, full-time workers are allowed an additional 80 hours off, while part-time workers are allowed an additional number of days equal to their average days worked a week or schedules to work in 14 days.[8]
Connecticut
Companies with 50 or more employees are required to provide paid sick leave to hourly, service workers. Temporary or day workers are not included. Employees earn one hour off for every 40 hours worked and can use up to 40 hours a year, with unused hours carrying over.[8]
All employees are entitled to one hour of paid leave for every 40 hours worked and can accrue up to 40 hours per year. Leave can be used for any reason.[22] In addition, Cook County and its county seat of Chicago have local paid sick leave laws, although some municipalities have opted out. In those two localities, anyone, except government employees and some construction workers, who works more than 80 hours within 120 days can earn one hour off for every 40 hours worked. The maximum time off is 40 hours a year.[8]
Indiana
Indiana does not require paid sick leave and preempts local government from requiring it.[8][9]
Iowa
Iowa does not require paid sick leave and preempts local government from requiring it.[8][9]
Kansas
Kansas does not require paid sick leave and preempts local government from requiring it.[8][9]
Kentucky
Kentucky does not require paid sick leave and preempts local government from requiring it.[8][9]
Louisiana
Louisiana does not require paid sick leave and preempts local government from requiring it.[8][9]
Maine
Companies with 10 or more employees are required to give employees one hour of paid leave for every 40 hours worked. Leave can be used for any purpose, but planned leave required 4 weeks notice. Only 40 hours can be used a year, with unused hours carrying over. Employers are only required to allow workers to take time off after being employed for 120 days.[8]
Maryland
Companies with 25 or more employees are required to give anyone who works over 12 hours a week paid sick and safe leave. Workers earn 1 hour of paid sick and safe leave every 30 hours and can use up to 40 hours a year. Unused time can be carried over, but employers can limit the number of accrued hours to 64. Local governments are preempted from enacting more expansive requirements as of January 1, 2017.[23]Montgomery County's sick and safe leave law, enacted on October 1, 2016, grants up to 56 hours of paid sick leave to anyone who works more than 8 hours a week and for a company with more than 5 employees.[24]
All employers are required by Maryland law to inform their workers in writing the amount of available earned sick and safe leave.[25] In Montgomery County, this requirement may be satisfied by documenting available leave on pay stubs and/or through an online portal that workers can access.[24]
Massachusetts
Most employees who work for companies with more than 11 employees are entitled to 40 hours of paid sick leave after being employed for 90 days.[8]
Michigan
In 2015, Michigan preempted local governments from requiring paid sick leave,[9] but in 2018, they passed a law requiring paid sick leave for companies with 50 or more employees. Workers earn one hour of sick leave for every 35 hours worked. Up to 40 hours can be earned, but it can only be used after being employed 90 days.[8]
All employees are entitled to one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked and can accrue up to 48 hours per year.[20] In Duluth, companies with at least 5 employees are required to give workers up to 40 hours of sick leave per year. In Minneapolis, employees who work more than 80 hours are guaranteed 48 hours of sick leave, if they work for a company with 6 or more employees. In St. Paul, employees who work more than 80 hours are entitled to up 48 hours a year.[8]
Mississippi
Mississippi does not require paid sick leave and preempts local government from requiring it.[8][9]
Missouri
Missouri does not require paid sick leave and preempts local government from requiring it.[8][9]
Companies with 50 or more employees are required to give full-time employees sick leave. Temporary or seasonal employees are not included. Workers earn 0.01923 hours of paid leave for every hour worked, which can be used after 90 days of employment. Unused hours carry over.[8]
New Hampshire
New Hampshire does not require paid sick leave.[8]
New Jersey
All companies are required to give up to 40 hours of paid sick leave per year for both full- and part-time employees, except per diem healthcare employees and unionized construction workers. Eligible employees earn one hour of paid sick leave for evert 30 hours worked and can use it after 120 days after being hired. Unused time can be carried over. Local governments are preempted from creating their own requirements.[8][9]
New Mexico
Workers earn one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked and can use up to 64 hours per year, with unused hours being carried over.[8]
New York
Companies with 5 or more employees or a net income of more than $1M must provide paid sick leave. Both part- and full-time employees earn one hour off for every 30 hours worked and can use up to 40 hour a year. Employees of companies with more than 100 employees are entitled to 56 hours per year. Government employees are not covered. Unused hours can be carried over. Cities with a population of over one million can create more expansive requirements and both Westchester County and New York City have done so.[8]
North Carolina
North Carolina does not require paid sick leave and preempts local government from requiring it.[8][9]
Ohio does not require paid sick leave and preempts local government from requiring it.[8][9]
Oklahoma
Oklahoma does not require paid sick leave and preempts local government from requiring it.[8][9]
Oregon
Companies with 10 or more employees must provide up to 40 hours of paid sick leave per year, which can be used 90 days after being hired. Full-time, part-time, and temporary employees are covered and earn one hour off for every 40 hours worked. Although state law preempts local governments from creating their own requirements, companies with 6 or more employees must provide time off in Portland.[8][9]
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania does not require paid sick leave. In Philadelphia, companies with 10 or more employees must provide up to 40 hours of paid sick leave.[8]Pittsburgh requires companies with 15 or more employees to provide up to 40 hours, while small business employees are only entitled to 24 hours per year.[26]
Rhode Island
Companies with more than 18 employees must provide up to 40 hours of paid sick leave to full-time, part-time, and temporary employees. Workers earn one hour off for every 34 hours worked, which can be used after 90 days for full-time employees, 180 days for part-time employees, and 150 days for seasonal employees.[8]
South Carolina
South Carolina does not require paid sick leave and preempts local government from requiring it.[8][9]
Employees who work over 18 hours per week, on average annually, are entitled to up to 40 hours of paid sick leave. Both full- and part-time employees are covered, but it does not apply to seasonal employees, per diem healthcare workers, federal workers, and some state workers. New businesses are exempt for 12 months after hiring their first employee. Employees earn one hour off for every 52 hours worked, which can be used one year after being hired.[8]
Employees earn one hour of paid sick leave for every 40 hours worked. There's no maximum number of hours than can be accrued, but only 40 hours can be carried over into the next year. SeaTac, Seattle, and Tacoma have more expansive requirements.[8]
Washington DC
Companies with 24 or fewer employees are required to give up to 3 days of sick and safe leave per year, companies with 25 to 99 employees are required to give 5, and companies with 100 or more employees must provide 7. Time can be used after 90 days of employment and unused time can be carried over.[8]
West Virginia
West Virginia does not require paid sick leave.[8]
Wisconsin
Wisconsin does not require paid sick leave and preempts local government from requiring it.[8][9]
86 percent of people surveyed said they favor a basic paid sick day policy.
94 percent of self-identified liberals and 81 percent of self-identified conservatives believed that paid sick day should be a basic workplace right.
77 percent of respondents believed that paid sick days were very important.
63 percent of workers who do not have access to paid sick leave said they are concerned about not having paid sick days.
16 percent of workers report that they or a family member have been fired, suspended, or otherwise punished or that they would be fired if they missed work due to illness.
46 percent of respondents said they are more likely to vote for a candidate who supports paid sick days.
U.S. federal legislation
The Healthy Families Act (HR 2460 / S 1152) would establish a basic workplace mandate of paid sick days so workers can take paid sick days to care for their health or the health of their families.
The bill creates a minimum requirement that allows workers to earn up to seven days per year of paid leave to recover from illness, to care for a sick family member, or to seek preventative health care. It enables victims of domestic violence, stalking, and sexual assault to take paid time off to recover from incidents and seek assistance from the police or court. It also allows people to take time off to care for ill parents and elderly relatives, or to attend diagnostic or routine medical appointments. Employers with fewer than 15 workers would be exempt from the law.
The Healthy Families Act would allow an additional 30 million workers to have access to paid sick leave from their jobs, including 15 million low-wage workers and 13 million women workers. If the bill were to become law, 90 percent of all American workers would have access to paid sick days (up from 61 percent currently).[29]
A version of the bill was first introduced in 2004. Each session, it has gained support inside and outside of Congress.[citation needed] Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro and Senator Edward Kennedy reintroduced the Healthy Families Act in the 111th Congress in May 2009.[30] After Senator Kennedy's death, Senator Chris Dodd became the lead Senate sponsor of the Healthy Families Act. The bill currently has 125 co-sponsors in the House and 24 in the Senate.
The Obama Administration has testified in support of the bill.[31] First Lady Michelle Obama has spoken out on numerous occasions about the need for a paid sick day mandate.[32]
The U.S. government guarantees federal employees 13 paid sick days a year.[33]
Related Research Articles
Working time or laboring time is the period of time that a person spends at paid labor. Unpaid labor such as personal housework or caring for children or pets is not considered part of the working week.
The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) is a United States labor law requiring covered employers to provide employees with job-protected, unpaid leave for qualified medical and family reasons. The FMLA was a major part of President Bill Clinton's first-term domestic agenda, and he signed it into law on February 5, 1993. The FMLA is administered by the Wage and Hour Division of the United States Department of Labor.
In accounting and finance, an accrual is an asset or liability that represents revenue or expenses that are receivable or payable but which have not yet been paid.
Absenteeism is a habitual pattern of absence from a duty or obligation without good reason. Generally, absenteeism refers to unplanned absences. Absenteeism has been viewed as an indicator of poor individual performance, as well as a breach of an implicit contract between employee and employer. It is seen as a management problem, and framed in economic or quasi-economic terms. More recent scholarship seeks to understand absenteeism as an indicator of psychological, medical, or social adjustment to work.
A full-time job is employment in which workers work a minimum number of hours defined as such by their employer.
The Federal Employees' Retirement System (FERS) is the retirement system for employees within the United States civil service. FERS became effective January 1, 1987, to replace the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) and to conform federal retirement plans in line with those in the private sector.
The Australian Fair Pay and Conditions Standard was a set of five minimum statutory entitlements for wages and conditions introduced as part of the Howard government's WorkChoices amendments to Australian labour law in 2006 and then abolished by the Fair Work Act 2009 in 2010.
Annual leave, also known as statutory leave, is a period of paid time off work granted by employers to employees to be used for whatever the employee wishes. Depending on the employer's policies, differing number of days may be offered, and the employee may be required to give a certain amount of advance notice, may have to coordinate with the employer to be sure that staffing is available during the employee's absence, and other requirements may have to be met. The vast majority of countries today mandate a minimum amount of paid annual leave by law.
Sick leave is paid time off from work that workers can use to stay home to address their health needs without losing pay. It differs from paid vacation time or time off work to deal with personal matters, because sick leave is intended for health-related purposes. Sick leave can include a mental health day and taking time away from work to go to a scheduled doctor's appointment. Some policies also allow paid sick time to be used to care for sick family members, or to address health and safety needs related to domestic violence or sexual assault. Menstrual leave is another type of time off work for a health-related reason, but it is not always paid.
Paid time off, planned time off, or personal time off (PTO), is a policy in some employee handbooks that provides a bank of hours in which the employer pools sick days, vacation days, and personal days that allows employees to use as the need or desire arises. This policy pertains mainly to the United States, where there are no federal legal requirements for a minimum number of paid vacation days. Instead, U.S. companies determine the amount of paid time off that will be allotted to employees, while keeping in mind the payoff in recruiting and retaining employees.
The Labor Code of the Philippines is the legal code governing employment practices and labor relations in the Philippines. It was enacted through Presidential Decree No. 442 on Labor day, May 1, 1974, by President Ferdinand Marcos in the exercise of his then extant legislative powers.
The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 29 U.S.C. § 203 (FLSA) is a United States labor law that creates the right to a minimum wage, and "time-and-a-half" overtime pay when people work over forty hours a week. It also prohibits employment of minors in "oppressive child labor". It applies to employees engaged in interstate commerce or employed by an enterprise engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce, unless the employer can claim an exemption from coverage. The Act was enacted by the 75th Congress and signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1938.
Iranian labor law describes the rules of employment in Iran. As a still developing country, Iran is considerably behind by international standards. It has failed to ratify the two basic Conventions of the International Labour Organization on freedom of association and collective bargaining, and one on abolition of child labor. Countries such as the US and India have also failed to ratify many of these Conventions and a mere 14 other Conventions, only 2 since the Islamic Revolution.
The California Labor Code, more formally known as "the Labor Code", is a collection of civil law statutes for the State of California. The code is made up of statutes which govern the general obligations and rights of persons within the jurisdiction of the State of California. The stated goal of the Department of Industrial Relations is to promote and develop the welfare of the wage earners of California, to improve their working conditions and to advance their opportunities for profitable employment."
Work–life balance in the United States is having enough time for work and enough time to have a personal life in the United States. Related, though broader, terms include lifestyle balance and life balance. The most important thing in work and life is the personal ability to demonstrate and meet the needs of work and personal life in order to achieve goals. People should learn to deal with role engagement management, role conflict management and managing life needs to achieve balance. Balance is about how to properly achieve the desired work and life satisfaction and needs in a conflict situation.
Parental leave is regulated in the United States by US labor law and state law. The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) requires 12 weeks of unpaid leave annually for parents of newborn or newly adopted children if they work for a company with 50 or more employees. As of October 1, 2020, the same policy has been extended to caregivers of sick family members, or a partner in direct relation to the birth of the child therefore responsible for the care of the mother. Although 12 weeks are allowed to them, on average American fathers only take 10 days off, due to financial need. Beginning in 2020, California, New Jersey, and Rhode Island required paid parental leave to employees, including those a part of 50 or less employees. There is no paid paternity leave in the United States currently.
Italy does not have a national unified labor code. Labor legislation is wide-ranging, with laws, regulations and statutes that bear on labor relations. The Constitution of Italy contains declarations of principle relating to fair payment, maximum working hours, vacation, protection of women and minors, social insurance, illness, disability, industrial diseases and accidents, Freedom of Association and the right to strike. The Workers' Statute of 1970 plays an important role and was modified later on.
The Families First Coronavirus Response Act is an Act of Congress meant to respond to the economic impacts of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The act provides funding for free coronavirus testing, 14-day paid leave for American workers affected by the pandemic, and increased funding for food stamps.
Absence management, also known as leave management, is a combination of employer policies, procedures, or programs designed to handle employee leaves of absence and minimize the impact of those absences on the employer. Absence management programs aim to maximize productivity by supporting an employee from initial absence through return-to-work and stay-at-work plans.
Mondelez v AMWU is a 2020 decision of the High Court of Australia involving the appeal of a decision by the Federal Court of Australia regarding personal leave, an entitlement used when an employee is sick and not able to work. A subsidiary of Mondelez International, Mondelez Australia, operates a chocolate factory in Claremont, Tasmania. Employees of the chocolate factory work under a collective bargaining agreement. The relevant agreement outlines employment terms and conditions, stipulating a 36-hour work week averaged over a four-week cycle, with three 12-hour shifts worked weekly for shift workers.
↑ Testimony of Deputy Secretary of Labor Seth HarrisArchived July 14, 2010, at the Wayback Machine , U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Children and Families Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, United States Senate, Hearing Titled: "The Cost of Being Sick: H1N1 and Paid Sick Days" (November 10, 2009).
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
