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Jill Jenkins is the chief economist and research director for the Employment Policies Institute (EPI), a nonprofit research organization dedicated to studying public policy issues surrounding employment growth. In particular, EPI focuses on issues that affect entry-level employment. Among other issues, EPI research has quantified the impact of new labor costs on job creation and analyzed the demographic distribution of mandated benefits.
Just this June, San Francisco began requiring employers to provide paid sick leave for all workers: an hour of leave for every 30 hours worked. More than a dozen states and even Congress are considering similar paid sick leave legislation. Washington, joining California, became only the second state to require most employers to offer paid leave for parents of newborns or adopted children.
The intentions of such laws are obvious: Don't make workers choose between work and their health or family; don't risk making others at your workplace sick by giving workers an incentive to show up ill. But do such laws work, and at what cost? Jill Jenkins, the chief economist and research director for the Employment Policies Institute (EPI), argues that paid sick leave mandates do not necessarily get the desired results, can hurt the workers they are most supposed to help and even force some businesses to shut down.
Jenkins says that because such laws are a recent phenomenon, more research needs to be done, but that experience with similar employer mandates indicates that an increase in costs in one area makes it likely employers will cut back in others. "A substantial body of literature shows that job loss typically results from mandated compensation increases, with the lower skilled and less educated the hardest hit" by lost hours or layoffs, Jenkins writes. "A typical sick leave policy increases employer costs by as much as 5% per year." Jenkins sometimes overreaches with her arguments -- the unsupported assertion, for example, that "in reality, paid sick leave amounts to government-mandated unscheduled paid vacations." But she makes a strong case for lawmakers to make sure they have a full understanding of the possible consequences of paid sick leave laws.
POSTED BY: Ann Twiggs (August 10, 2008 11:49 PM)
If paid sick leave is so devastating how come most of the industrialized nations in the world offer it and how come those countries have stronger economies that the US?
POSTED BY: gbg (October 04, 2008 12:52 AM)
Looks like a promising business opportunity. Lots of helpful information. More than a dozen states and even Congress are considering similar paid sick leave legislation.
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