Lack of paid sick days worst for low-wage workers, Hispanics

CHICAGO — Amid the swelling national conversation about income inequality comes a report spotlighting that the lack of mandatory paid sick leave in the U.S. disproportionately burdens Hispanics and low-wage workers, including the vast majority of food service employees.

Forty percent of employed adults, or about 51 million people, get no paid sick days, forcing them to choose between a paycheck and time off to nurse the flu, take care of a sick family member or visit the doctor, and sometimes risking the loss of their job, according to a report released last month by the nonprofit Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

Employees without sick days took a median of 1.6 days off due to illness or injury, suggesting that some are going to work sick, forgoing preventive care or sending sick children to school, the report said.

Long criticized for being the only advanced economy not to mandate that employers provide any type of paid time off, the U.S. has left it to states and cities to implement their own laws.

Less than a fifth of food preparation and service workers have access to paid sick days, while close to 90 percent of employees who work in computers, architecture and engineering do.

Dr. Peter Mayock, site medical director of an Erie Family Health Center location in Chicago, sees the fallout daily from people delaying care when they can’t take off from work or even make an appointment in advance because they don’t know their work schedule until the last minute.