There Will Be No Real Pandemic Recovery Without Paid Sick Leave

Hollie Russon Gilman wrote for Next City about why paid leave policy is crucial for pandemic recovery.

What this disease has made unmistakably clear is that the stock market, GDP, and even the employment rate do not tell the whole story of Americans’ economic health. When our economy creates unique individual desperation that has negative public health impacts, it’s clear that other metrics matter, too. Because it, too, is distributed unevenly, the lack of paid leave contributes to the larger problem of a bifurcated economy, where some workers get dignity and comfort and others — from delivery people to meatpackers — are treated as (literally) perishable inputs in the country’s economic machinery.

It doesn’t need to be this way in the United States. Americans will have to ask and answer for themselves why the U.S. and South Korea had their first cases of COVID-19 on the same day, but South Korea contained its outbreak while the U.S. became the country with the worst COVID-19 outbreak in the world. Other countries facing this pandemic are not dealing with this level of unemployment.

Paid sick leave is a big part of this equation. The U.S is sorely lacking in paid sick leave and family leave. The U.S. is the only country that does not guarantee paid sick leave for workers. According to a UNICEF study of 41 countries, the U.S. ranks worst out of 41 countries on paid family leave as well.