Coronavirus Brings a New Legislative Push for Paid Sick Leave

The Senate and Congress are provided sick leave. They also have top of the line health care coverage that includes dental care, vision care and mental health care. Economies of scale and the Covid-19 pandemic tell us that paid sick leave; in addition to quality medical care, public health care, dental care, as well as quality mental health care IS affordable for all Americans. We lose so much by not paying forward.

With the risk of sounding ungrateful I want to say that the stimulus checks that taxpayers in the specified brackets will receive will not be enough to rescue the economy. By now many already owe that money (deferred rent/mortgage anyone?) Besides an economic aid, the government should have lenders grant an automatic deferment of at least 6 months. Lenders/investors never lose as the deferred payments only are pushed to the end of the life of the loan. Don't forget that interest is always working on behalf of the lender, so there you have it! Doing this, will allow a vast majority of pseudo-middle class people an opportunity to build a cushion fund, and maybe stop living paycheck to paycheck.

If every small businesses is going to have to pay 12 weeks of sick leave for every employee affected by the the virus -- that will result in the loss of thousands of small businesses across the country. I myself am very seriously looking at this as an excuse to close shop and close the books now rather than confront additional expenses in the absence of income. It seems like the government will intentionally undermine the economy for perhaps decades in order to lessen the burden and soften the epidemiological spike. In essence we will throw our youth under the bus for most of their adult lives just to protect a million old sick codgers that are no longer contributing to the economy. The young get screwed again!!

Donald Trump is right to oppose paid sick leave for American workers. After all, he only inherited $413,000,000 from his father, and HE doesn't need paid sick leave. So why should they?

For the government to require employers to provide paid sick leave to employees is nothing less than a tyrannical taking of private property. When an employer gives a job they have made a contract for labor of a designate duration, effort and skill level. It is bought and paid for. The government has no right to interfere with this most sacred pillar of our economy. Freedom!

Quote: “Maximizing profits can often lead to an outcome that is less than the best outcome for society,” That about sums it up. Shut down the stock markets for a month. For the good of all of us. Gambling with the margins on stocks isn't providing societal value at all.

After all the gifts to shareholders and tax breaks to the super rich including real estate companies like the one Mr.Trump owns, isn't it time to care a little bit for the poorer and more vulnerable part of the population? Shame on POTUS and the Senate if they blocked something that is the norm in virtually every other industrialized nation and which is consistent with Christian norms of caring for the weaker - which Republicans so strongly believe in.....

We own 7 hair salons in small Midwest towns. In addition to offering a matching IRA, health care, and pay & tips of $20-25 per hour, our stylists earn 3 1/2 weeks of Paid Time Off (includes vacation, sick days, holidays etc) each year in their first 3 years. When they've been with us over 3 years, we raise the multiplier so they earn about 5 1/2 weeks. We would probably recalculate how this is accrued if forced to pay separate medical leave. We share our profits with our managers and treat everyone as best we can afford for walk-in salons offering inexpensive haircuts. We always pay well above minimum wage, so as that goes up, we will raise our haircut prices to continue to pay our stylists better. If we have to close during this crisis we & our 60 employees will need immediate assistance! Not next tax year but now! I am worried for us & our employees. I'm a Democrat but I cringe when Democratic candidates make "business" the enemy. We know all our stylists personally & we stand by them & give them extra PTO when they or their families have a medical emergency. Medicare for All or Universal Healthcare should be a universal right & the responsibility of government, not business, since it is for the common good and should not depend on where you work. I am all in favor as long as all these new worker benefits are not individual owners' responsibility.

This pandemic is a real test on the model of a government. As it seems, Trump's camp is looking from top down, the democrats are looking from bottom up. They better hurry to meet somewhere. Virus cannot wait. Job security and personal finance will prohibit many people from heeding preventive or containment measure. More than ever, I vote for universal health care and federal regulation on mandatory pay leave. We need to protect the labor force, or the society will collapse from top to bottom.

Small business is going to need help to pay for this. Now, not a year later when they get a tax credit for it. And this leaves out the gig economy. Without including those workers, we are leaving a gaping hole for corona virus to match right through.

I am a licensed teacher in NYC called a SEIT (special education itinerant teacher). We work with 3-5 year olds with special needs. We contract with companies who are given DOE money who in turn give us a percentage. We have no benefits and no job security. If I am out sick or if my student is out sick (or away on a fancy vacation) I don’t get paid (we are considered per diem/ hourly workers (even if we work full time). I will not get sick pay if my schools close due to this virus or if I get sick and need to stay home.

Good. This is fantastic. Maybe from all this chaos and death, our government will finally force employers in the US to stop treating their workers like cattle. The problem is that the government (and I include democrats in this as much as republicans) are totally on the side of corporations. They create loopholes even when they do pass laws to allow for workers to be mistreated. An example is the contractor loopholes that allow companies to not offer paid leave even after states mandates large companies provide it. Work visa loopholes have driven down wages and driven mass discrimination through loopholes that allow companies to classify a job as entry level even when it isn’t. It has resulted in a huge import of foreign workers in tech and finance being paid half what an American is for the same job. They fire the Americans, hire Indians, pay them nothing, pocket the profits and don’t pay SS taxes. Both worker groups are exploited and our politicians wrote the laws so they could be.

If this doesn’t cover the gig economy as well, it won’t help. Our Uber drivers and others forced to work sick will spread the virus.

My sister works for a large company that does not give any sick time or personal days to their employees. She works in a 'travel center' which is, in fact, a glorified truck stop. She deals with thousands of customers every day up and down the I95 corridor and the Florida turnpike. She is an hourly worker, with a chronic health condition, and in the 12 years she has worked for the company almost all her vacation time has been used for sick days. She doesn't have any vacation time at the moment so if she gets sick, she either goes to work or doesn't pay her rent and other bills, and perhaps loses her job.

How about Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk use that money that they want to send out into space to take care of their employees here on earth?

I work in a small dental office. I will be fine if we have to close, but many in my office are worried.

One can only hope that Covid-19 will bring much needed changes to the U.S.; comprehensive healthcare, paid sick leave, and associated benefits to name a few. It would be nice if we joined the 21st century and the rest of the developed nations around the world.

As a federal employee for my career, I had excellent sick and vacation leave--earning 13 days sick leave per year. I used my sick leave when I had the flu or serious cold or for medical appointments or to take care of one of my children when they were sick. Mandatory paid sick leave raises productivity because a sick worker does not infect the workplace or customers or clients. It helps parents take care of sick children at home who otherwise go to school or daycare sick and spread illness there. Now is the time for Congress to pass mandatory sick leave for all Americans, two weeks a year at least, and more weeks in a pandemic like now. What will it cost? Who cares because it will improve productivity and reduce spread of illnesses whether carona virus or standard yearly flu and seasonal colds. The U.S. should have done this decades ago like the EU

Bernie Sanders: " - Raise the minimum wage to a living wage of at least $15 an hour. - Enact a universal childcare and pre-kindergarten program. - Make sure women and men are paid the same wage for the same job through the Paycheck Fairness Act. - ******Guarantee all workers paid family and medical leave, paid sick leave and paid vacation.******" not to mention medicare for all....

Be aware that many employers no longer have "Sick Days", they have Personal Time Off (PTO) and that includes vacation. So if you get 14 days PTO and you are entitled to two weeks of vacation, all of your PTO is made up of your vacation days, you have no actual sick days.

That would be a dream come true for me. I pray it is for very small businesses as well. My boss makes money hand over fist yet we don't get paid if we are out of work sick or a doctors appt. as well. He said a small company can't afford to pay sick days which I don't understand why? Every year we are making record profits. He drives around in a 2019 Mercedes yet can't afford paid sick days. I wish I knew of a counter to say that as a small business he can't pay sick days?

More “free stuff”. I am being sarcastic. But every time something truly beneficial is proposed, like paid sick days — along with reasonable health care and education for all, it usually goes down as “free stuff”. While corporate bailouts and farmers subsidies and tax breaks are considered beneficial. By the way, where does child care fit in here? When schools and day care centers closing, or if your child, and then you, get sick, a family of four could look forward to a lot more than two weeks without working. (I don’t want to hear anymore about “working from home”— really what percentage of workers are able to do that!) Maybe this would be the time to consider Andrew Yang’s $1000 per month and avoid all the administration and bureaucracy.

a payroll tax cut, the tax that pays for Social Security. once again the Republicans are coming for our retirement benefits, this time under the pretense of a health emergency. they should be ashamed and we must vote them out.

Temp workers, gig workers, entertainment workers, etc, are a whole segment of the work force that won't be covered under this legislation. No work, no money. Get sick, no money. Salaried workers will live and not lose their home, apartment, or run credit card debt. Workers using Upwork and all the gig economy platforms, contract workers, temp workers, entertainment workers will lose everything. Shutdowns = no work = no money. This legislation is prejudicial. It has shades of Jim Crow for the gig economy. This is how the Trump government makes sure that every young person votes and votes Democrat next November because their entire livelihood was wiped out by a biased "paid sick leave" policy. We'll never forget this.

It’s up to the media to name and shame those places that don’t pay sick leave. I certainly don’t want to go to their shops. Also you need to publicity praise those that do.

Coronavirus underscores the pressing need for paid leave. There is also a pressing need to protect consumers from being exploited by cruise lines. Two days ago the US State Department advised Americans, especially the elderly, to avoid cruises, due to the higher risks of coronavirus infection and making U.S. citizens vulnerable to possible international travel restrictions, including quarantines. Yet cruise lines pose further dangers to travelers. My wife and I are in our 70’s so yesterday I called Regent cruise line to cancel our pending cruise to the Baltic. I was told that our $4,000 deposit would not be refunded but instead put in a “Reassurance Account” to be applied to a future cruise that must be booked within a year. No one knows if the coronavirus will be gone in a year, my wife and I are getting older and less mobile, and based on recent events we have zero confidence in the ability of Regent and other cruise lines to keep their ships from becoming floating Petri dishes. And now they want to keep our deposit! Exposure to coronavirus is frightening, disruptive and dangerous whatever one’s age, so think twice—or 3 or 4 times—before booking with Regent or any other cruise line; they do not refund deposits even when their trips are scheduled to stop in countries with confirmed coronavirus cases and the US government recommends not taking cruises. Contact your government representatives to let them know Regent’s other cruise lines’ dirty secret.

Don't forget me (and many people like me). I don't have an employer. I'm a sole proprietor, and my work brings me into close contact with dozens of people each week. I have the same need for paid sick leave as people in more conventional jobs, but who would pay for that sick leave? I really don't know the answer to that question. But without that sick leave, I have a strong incentive to keep working until symptoms overwhelm me.

Wow wee! You mean America might join the rest of the industrialized world. Say it isn’t so. What’s next, universal health care and free colleges and universities. I can’t believe Americans will give up bomb making to actually help it’s citizens.

The GOP has spent over 70 years doing everything it can to undermine the American worker, slashing or eliminating unions, pensions, benefits, benefit plans and hourly wages. Now they are getting within one election of axing social security and medicare-their real targets. They are going to let Trump talk, his base will love everything he says, but the only thing they are going to do is offer loans to business, loans where someone makes money on the interest. Profits over people, they aren’t going to stop now. If they offer free money, it will be newly printed and the vale of the dollar which buys much less since Trump has taken office will decline still further.

Good luck getting this through the Congress. We have a moronic ego maniac demagogue sitting in the WH thinking if this will make him look good and how it can make money off of it trying to convince his colleagues in the Congress to pass it although they are living in the 1930s Middle Ages when it comes to benefits for workers.

Even as one who is convinced that businesses often don't give their workers an even break, I don't see why the cost to society of sick workers should fall on the backs of their employers. We as a society need to support those too ill to work. But we can't ask a small business, especially one whose revenues have been slashed by a public health emergency, to pay those costs for us.

While I’ve never had a job that offered it, I understand the concept of working from home while sick or paid sick leave in an office setting. But what about jobs that require employees to be “in the office” for any work to get done? Mechanics, bartenders, dog walkers - if people don’t show up for work, the businesses that employ these people can’t open. I’m all for labor rights but legislators need to include input from owners of these types of businesses before crafting legislation that is wholly inapplicable to situations in which the physical presence of employees is a requirement for a business to stay open.