According to calculations from the National Partnership for Women and Families, between April 14 and Aug. 16 of 2021, just 13 percent of Arkansas parents and 14 percent of Mississippi parents were backstopped by paid sick leave when they had a child who was too sick to attend school or day care. A mere 18 percent of parents in Florida, Georgia, Michigan and Texas were able to take paid time off to care for their sick children. Workers in some industries don’t have paid sick days at all. Employees in the rail industry nearly went on strike to protest their employers’ practice of penalizing them for taking unpaid leave.

“We believe local governments know their populations better than the state does,” said Vasu Reddy, senior policy counsel for economic justice at the National Partnership for Women and Families, which advocates for paid sick leave. “They are worried if the cities show how popular these policies are, there won’t be an excuse for not passing them at a state level.”

“According to the National Partnership for Women and Families, paid sick days help to reduce the loss of productivity that results when employees try to do their jobs while ill.”

“Furthermore, BLS research found that, on average, workers who receive a fixed number of paid sick days use only around half of the sick days they earn per year. “This data dispels the myth that workers routinely abuse or over-utilize paid sick time,” says the National Partnership for Women & Families.”

Per a 2016 National Partnership for Women & Families study, 70% of women in the fast-food industry reported going to work in the last year despite displaying symptoms of illness, including coughing, sneezing, fever, diarrhea and vomiting.