According to the Pew Research Center, people who have experienced job or wage loss during the pandemic — either personally or in their household — are more than twice as likely to say they’ve had trouble paying their bills, struggled to pay their rent or mortgage, used money from savings or retirement to pay bills, or borrowed money from friends or family.
The Families First Coronavirus Response Act, passed in March 2020, required certain employers to provide employees two weeks of leave at regular pay if they were experiencing Covid-19 symptoms or needed to quarantine because of exposure. But Congress allowed those benefits to expire at the end of 2020, leaving workers like my mom without a safety net.
The most recent Covid-19 relief package won’t restore those requirements — it only provides temporary tax credits to businesses that offer paid leave. That still puts workers at the mercy of their bosses.
Even though the emergency paid leave provided through Families First was only accessible to half the workforce, it was a statistical success. According to researchers at Cornell University and the Swiss Economic Institute, states that gained access to paid sick leave through the first relief package experienced about 400 fewer cases of Covid-19 per day.
Imagine how much better a robust paid leave policy would protect people.
Congress must take bold action to guarantee universal paid sick leave on the federal level. If this pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that it benefits us all when workers get paid to stay home when they are ill.
In the richest country in the world, no one should have to worry about how they will pay their bills when they’re sick and unable to work.