Day

April 17, 2022

Good if you can get it: Benefits and inequalities in the expansion of paid sick leave during COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has focused attention on the important role that frontline retail, grocery, food service, and delivery workers play in the U.S. economy as well as on the difficult and often precarious working conditions these jobs involve.  The Families First Coronavirus Response Act exempted large employers from paid sick-leave requirements, even though prior to the pandemic, more than half of service-sector workers at large employers lacked access to paid sick leave. We draw on novel survey data from the Shift Project, collected from service-sector workers employed at large companies, to examine whether employers voluntarily increased paid sick leave when...