Washington, D.C. — Today, the Center for American Progress released a new analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data looking at the unequal expansion of access to paid sick days for private-sector workers. Over the past 12 years, the percentage of workers without access to paid sick time has fallen by roughly a third, from 43 percent in 2006 to 29 percent in 2018. While this analysis examines the positive role access to paid sick time has for workers and the economy as a whole, it also finds that these gains have been made unequal. Key findings from the analysis include:
- Full-time workers are twice as likely to have access to paid sick days as part-time workers.
- Ninety-two percent of private-sector workers in the highest-wage decile have access to paid sick days, while only 31 percent of workers in the lowest-wage decile have access.
- Workers of color, especially Hispanic and American Indian or Alaskan Native workers, and women are far less likely to have access to paid sick days than white and male workers.
- In 2018, 36 percent of private-sector workers in the Midwest and 33 percent of private-sector workers in the South did not have access to paid sick days, compared with only 19 percent and 25 percent of these workers in the West and Northeast, respectively.
This analysis illuminates the need for a national solution to expand access to paid sick days. It also spotlights the acute threat legislation such as the Workflex in the 21st Century Act poses to workers in states and localities leading on paid sick days and how their access to paid sick time could be pre-empted by this harmful bill.
Please click here to read “The Uneven Expansion of Access to Paid Sick Days” by Diana Boesch.
For more information or to speak with an expert, please contact Colin Seeberger at [email protected] or 202.741.6292.