If your kid woke up with a cough and fever, would you be able to take time off to visit urgent care, or have to show up at your work shift so you don’t get fired? If you came down with flu or COVID, could you stay home to recover or would that mean missing a paycheck and leaving bills unpaid? These might sound like questions about values and priorities, but for millions of working people in the United States, they’re actually about financial realities. The latest data show that in 2024, 57 percent lack employer-provided personal medical leave for their own major health needs, and 21 percent don’t have paid sick days for short-term illnesses and preventive care. New data on paid family leave was not released. (These data measure benefits provided directly by employers, and do not track paid family or medical leave that workers may have access to through state programs.)
Despite a global pandemic that drove home how essential care is for our families and our economy, we don’t yet have a national program that guarantees paid family and medical leave for all, no matter where they live or what kind of job they have. And it shows, not only in the $22.6 billion in wages that are lost annually due to a lack of paid leave, but also in how persistently low and inequitable access to leave is.
Women Need Voters and Lawmakers to Close the Gaps on Paid Sick Days
Thanks in large part to state and local policy wins, workers’ access to paid sick days has increased substantially over the past decade, growing by more than 20 points for service workers and doubling for part-time workers.
Still, nearly 27 million workers continue to lack paid sick days. Nearly half of leisure and hospitality workers lack access (46 percent), as do three in ten construction workers (31 percent) and three in ten retail workers (31 percent). Women, who are overrepresented in lower-paid, part-time and service jobs, are less likely than men to have paid sick days. As we head into flu season and continue to experience COVID waves, it’s especially troubling when workers in public-facing jobs, such as health care and food service, lack sick leave. When people have to go to work sick or lose their jobs, it not only harms their health but can also make coworkers, customers and patients sick.
But these kinds of impossible choices between your health and your job are growing more rare, thanks to organized workers, advocates, voters and policymakers. Already, 15 states and 21 cities and counties have enacted laws that ensure workers can earn paid sick days. Notably, this year access to paid sick days jumped 5 percentage points in the Census region that includes Minnesota, where a paid sick days law went into effect in January. Access to paid sick days has also increased by 6 points since 2022 in the transportation and material moving sector, in which organizing and hard contract fights by rail workers, flight attendants and other groups has underscored the importance of paid sick days.
The fight to win paid sick days for all workers will continue this November, when voters in Nebraska, Missouri and Alaska have the power to set paid sick days standards for their states thanks to ballot initiatives.
Workers in Low-Wage Jobs Still Least Likely to Have Paid Medical Leave
As in previous years, workers in low-wage jobs, part-time jobs and at smaller employers are much less likely than average to have paid medical leave through employer-provided temporary disability insurance. Just 26 percent of service workers, 23 percent of teachers, and 31 percent of workers in construction, extraction, farming, fishing and forestry have access to paid medical leave. These low access rates leave 83 million workers nationwide without employer-provided paid medical leave.
Women – particularly women of color and disabled women – are more likely than men to work in these part-time and in lower-wage jobs that don’t provide medical leave. Women and workers of color are also more likely to report being unable to take leave when they need it.While access to employer-provided paid medical leave ticked up 2 points since last year, it has increased only 5 points in the last decade. As we pointed out last year, employers have had the option to buy temporary disability insurance for decades, and yet access has stagnated at around 43 percent. Access actually dropped by 5 percentage points among teachers from 2023 to 2024. Notably, some of the largest increases in the past year were among workers in health care and social assistance (up 4 percentage points) and in hospitals (up 7 percentage points) – sectors that have seen a big surge in labor organizing in recent years. It will take concerted action by workers and advocates, and leadership from elected officials, to change this status quo. In fact, workers in 14 states now or will soon have paid family and medical leave through state programs that guarantee access for workers and ease burdens for small employers.
New data on access to paid family leave in 2024 was not released. Click here to read our analysis from 2023.
