47% Of Americans Say They Went To Work Sick In The Last Year: New Survey

'About Half Of Working Americans Say They Went To Work Sick In The Last Year.' Three-quarters of the public says companies should be required to provide all full-time employees with paid sick days, a new HuffPost/YouGov survey finds. HuffPost, March 6, 2020.

Roughly half of working Americans say they’ve gone to work sick within the past 12 months, a new HuffPost/YouGov survey finds.

Forty-seven percent of Americans who work part- or full-time say they’ve gone to work sick in the last year because they couldn’t take time off or because they felt they shouldn’t do so, according to the poll. That could be a particular cause for concern now, with health officials urging sick Americans to stay home as a measure to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

There is no federal paid sick leave law in the United States, though a few states and cities have their own mandatory minimums. This policy failing hits low-income workers the hardest: 70% of the lowest paid workers in the U.S. do not have access to sick leave.

It’s a particularly troubling datapoint as the U.S. struggles to contain a communicative disease: Those low-income workers are more likely to work in service industries where they regularly come in contact with consumers.

“When you’re talking about paid leave and who should stay home, it’s the ones who need it most that don’t have access to it, the ones showing up at work sick touching your food, touching your bags, coming into everyday contact with your direct life,” Kris Garcia, an airport worker in Denver, told The New York Times.

Workers with more stringent sick leave policies are far more likely to feel pressured to go to work while sick, the HuffPost/YouGov survey finds: 66% of workers whose jobs offer five or fewer paid sick days say they’ve felt compelled to go into work while sick, compared to 36% of those who have more generous policies.

Paid sick leave laws are extremely popular. Three-quarters of Americans favor requiring companies to provide all full-time employees with paid sick days if they or an immediate family member gets sick, with just 11% opposed. The idea is supported by two-thirds of Republicans and more than eight in 10 Democrats.

Congressional Republicans have never cottoned on to the idea. On Friday, House Democrats proposed an emergency paid sick leave law to deal with the coronavirus, but its chances of making it through the Republican-majority Senate are slim.

Even if Americans have sick leave, the high costs of health care create another roadblock. Twenty-seven percent of Americans say that, in the last year, they’ve avoided going to the doctor when they were ill because they couldn’t afford to do so...

More, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/half-americans-work-sick-poll_n_5e62b79ac5b605572804ee2d?ga2