Lack of paid sick days and large numbers of uninsured increase risks of spreading the #coronavirus | Economic Policy Institute
▻https://www.epi.org/blog/lack-of-paid-sick-days-and-large-numbers-of-uninsured-increase-risks-of-spreadi
The CDC released very clear instructions to help prevent the spread of respiratory diseases, including staying home when you are sick. Not everyone has that option.
Overall, just under three-quarters (73%) of private sector workers in the United States have the ability to earn paid sick time at work. And, as shown in the figure below, access to paid sick days is vastly unequal. The highest wage workers are more than three times as likely to have access to paid sick leave as the lowest paid workers. Whereas 93% of the highest wage workers had access to paid sick days, only 30% of the lowest paid workers were able to earn sick days. In this way, access to paid sick days increases with wages among workers, disproportionately denying workers at the bottom this important security. And, low-wage workers are more likely to be found in occupations where they have contact with the public—think early care and education workers, home health aides, restaurant workers and food processors. When workers or their family members are sick, they shouldn’t have to decide between staying home from work to care for themselves or their dependents and paying rent or putting food on the table. But, that is the situation our policymakers have put workers in.
