Paid sick leave limits outbreaks, increases jobs, pay says study
UIUC-ILEPI research finds white male workers downstate would benefit
A new study finds an Illinois law on paid sick leave would not only benefit restaurant workers, but also white males across the economy downstate. (Shutterstock)
By Ted Cox
A new statewide study suggests that an Illinois law on paid sick leave for workers would help limit illness outbreaks, but also increase jobs and pay through higher productivity.
The Project for Middle Class Renewal at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Illinois Economic Policy Institute released the study, “Enacting Paid Sick Leave in Illinois: COVID-19 and the Impact of Workplace Standards on Public Health,” on Tuesday, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. It found that an Illinois law on paid sick leave would not only improve the state’s ability to contain the spread of infectious disease, but would also create more jobs and raise incomes for more than 1.5 million Illinois workers by an average of $1,040 per year.
“COVID-19 reminds us that when workers are forced to choose between a paycheck and their health, it makes it harder for communities and states to contain infectious disease,” said ILEPI Policy Director and study co-author Frank Manzo IV. “Yet while prior research has already detailed that paid-sick-leave laws reduce the spread of disease during an epidemic by 39 percent, our research shows that, if enacted in Illinois, it would improve economic activity and would boost income for Illinois workers by $1.5 billion each year.”
“The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has brought the issue of paid sick leave to the forefront of state and national policymaking,” the study states. “Many sick workers are forced to choose between staying home to recover and going to work to earn a paycheck.” It grants that the Family First Coronavirus Response Act, passed this month and signed into law by President Trump, has attempted to take on the issue in the midst of the health crisis, but the report’s focus “considers the implications if Illinois were to enact a permanent paid-sick-leave law to preempt future epidemics,” adding that a dozen U.S. states already have such laws.
The law’s effect on public health is of the utmost importance now, of course, and the study finds that, as might have been expected, “paid sick leave reduced infections by 6 percent and by 39 percent during an epidemic.”
Yet the report also pointed out that the economy also benefits from the added worker stability. San Francisco became the first city to offer paid sick leave, and “employment grew twice as fast in the city as it did in neighboring counties,” once adopted, “and 68 percent of businesses supported the ordinance.” In the two and a half years since Chicago passed an ordinance on paid sick leave, the “Chicago metro region has grown by more than 71,000 jobs while employment has stagnated in the rest of Illinois.”
Because many Chicago workers already have that right under the ordinance, a state law would most dramatically impact workers in the suburbs and elsewhere in Illinois. The report finds that “more than 80 percent of Illinois workers who currently lack access to paid sick leave are white and the majority are men,” and that a state law would affect 762,000 workers in the suburbs and 581,000 workers “downstate,” while also adding 128,000 Chicago workers not covered under the city ordinance, such as independent contractors and “gig” economy workers.
While 7 percent of Chicago workers don’t have access to paid sick leave, 30 percent of suburban workers and 32 percent of workers elsewhere in Illinois don’t get paid sick days.
“Fully 90 percent of the benefits from the law would accrue ‘downstate’ and in the suburbs,” the report states, and “total worker income would increase by more than $1.5 billion per year, or $1,040 per directly impacted worker.”
While the study grants that businesses would take a hit in profits and payroll costs, that would more than be compensated across the state economy by increased worker productivity, health, and spending.
“The data show a paid-sick-leave law would improve workforce productivity, increase consumer spending by workers, and deliver substantial public health benefits — all without hindering job growth,” said UIUC Progessor Robert Bruno, director of the Project for Middle Class Renewal and co-author of the study. “This conclusion is also supported by the recent experience of Chicago, where job growth has far exceeded the rest of Illinois in the 30 months since the city enacted its paid-sick-leave ordinance.”
The study finds that Latino workers are actually most likely to have paid sick days, with just 9 percent of that group lacking access, while 19 percent of African-American workers lack access and 31 percent of white workers statewide do not have paid sick leave in their jobs. A quarter of men don’t have paid sicks days and 22 percent of women.
“Paid sick leave is associated with decreased risk of spreading infections at workplaces, improved overall productivity, and higher income for workers,” the study states. “With the COVID-19 pandemic potentially reducing employment by 207,000 jobs in Illinois by summer, paid sick leave is one permanent component of a comprehensive package — alongside other short-term actions such as expanding temporary unemployment insurance and providing zero-interest loans to small businesses — that could stem its economic effects.”
“The extraordinary measures now being taken to protect the public and shore up our economy have exposed vulnerabilities that should help inform a comprehensive policy response,” said study co-author and ILEPI researcher Jill Gigstad. “Temporary extensions to unemployment benefits for workers and zero-interest loans for small businesses will surely be critical in the short term, but the long-term choice on enacting a paid-sick-leave law is really about making sure we are better prepared for these types of disruptions in the future.”