Top Earners Get Sick Leave, Not So Much at Bottom of Wage Scale

[Donnachaidh]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2011/04/11/top-earners-get-sick-leave-not-so-much-at-bottom-of-wage-scale/



Workers at the top of the wage scale are more than four times more likely to have paid sick days than workers toiling near the bottom wage scale, says a new Economic Policy Institute (EPI) Economic Snapshot.

Just 19 percent of low-wage workers have paid sick days, compared with 86 percent of high-wage workers. These low-income workers are the ones who can least afford to lose pay when they are sick. Overall one in four workers have no paid sick days and when they become ill, are forced to go to work sick, or stay home without pay and risk losing their job.

Many of those low-wage workers are also in occupations most likely to have regular contact with the public—­food service and preparation, and personal care and service—according to a study earlier this year from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR). And that, says Dr. Robert Drago, research director for IWPR, “raises serious public health concerns.”

The fewer the number of workers who are able to stay home when sick, the more likely it is that diseases will spread, increasing health care costs and causing needless economic losses. We saw this during the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic when workers without paid sick days were more likely to go to work while infected with H1N1.

More at the link --

[rucky]

1. Too bad labor unions are "outdated"

[InkAddict]

2. Whose "will" is "at will" these days?

Slave-traders.