Euripides observed, “of the three classes, it is the middle that saves the country.” Virtually everyone agrees that America needs to maintain its middle class; however, as MIT Economics Professor Lester Thurow states, “wherever one looks, one now finds rising inequality.”[1] The decline of middle-class manufacturing jobs and the move to minimum wage service jobs has been accompanied by a fall in union membership which is now less than 12 percent.[2] It was the unions that traditionally fought to protect workers’ rights, but with unions slowly disappearing working protections are as well.[3] In the new economy where employees are on individual contracts with limited collective bargaining capability the government is needed to ensure a minimum level of employee protection.
People have obligations to their employers, their families, and their communities and in order to fulfill the two latter responsibilities, employees are sometimes required to be absent from the workplace. In the United States time off to care for one’s own health or that of a family member is not a job-protected entitlement. In 2010, 1 out of 3 employees did not have access to paid sick leave.[4] This highlights concerns about individual, familial, and public health as well as issues of societal equity which are important to consider to ensure the wellbeing of marginalised groups. To put the issue of paid leave into context, this report briefly summarises the legislative history on the topic of employee protections in the United States and discusses the decline of the middle class. The failure of the market to adequately respond to the need for paid leave is reviewed, the policy problem is defined, and the traditional arguments in favour of paid sick leave legislation are discussed. Then the report reviews inequalities between people’s access to paid sick leave with special attention to gender, single parents, and the poor. Analysis is provided about how these disparities perpetuate the gap between the upper and lower classes. A discussion follows which addresses the major criticisms of protected access to paid sick leave and lastly, the report asserts that in the interest of strengthening the middle class a job-protected paid leave policy should be adopted in the form of the Healthy Families Act (HFA).
[1] Stephen Koepp, “Is the Middle Class Shrinking?” Time Magazine, June 24, 2001, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,143633,00.html (accessed October 21, 2011).
[2] Sam Hananel, “Bureau of Labor Statistics show steep decline in union membership in 2010,” The Associated Press, http://www.masslive.com/business-news/index.ssf/2011/01/bureau_of_labor_statistics_shows_steep _d.html (accessed October 21, 2011).
[3] Stephanie, Armour, “Sick Days Dwindle, Disappear for Many,” USA Today, November 26, 2004. http://www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2004-11-12-flu-sick_x.htm (accessed October 23, 2011).
[4] United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. http://www.bls.gov/data/ (accessed September 11, 2011).