Leave Benefits in the United States
Linda Levine
Specialist in Labor Economics
June 5, 2009
Congressional Research Service
7-5700
www.crs.gov
RL34088
CRS Report for Congress
P
repared for Members and Committees of Congress
Leave Benefits in the United States
Summary
In addition to their jobs, workers have obligations—civic, familial, and personal—to fulfill that
sometimes require them to be absent from the workplace (e.g., to serve on a jury, retrieve a sick
child from day care, or attend a funeral). The U.S. government generally has allowed individual
employers to decide whether to accommodate the nonwork activities of employees by granting
them leave, with or without pay, rather than firing them. In other countries, national governments
or the international organizations to which they belong more often have developed social policies
that entitle individuals to time off from the workplace (oftentimes paid) for a variety of reasons
(e.g., maternity and vacations).
Public policies specifically intended to reconcile the work and family lives of individuals have
garnered increased attention among countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD). In the United States, which is an OECD member, congressional interest
has coalesced around family-friendly paid leave proposals (e.g., H.R. 2460/S. 1152 and H.R.
1723). Typically, they would entitle workers to time off with pay to accomplish parental and
caregiving obligations to help women in particular balance work and family responsibilities
because they are the typical unpaid family caregiver and a majority of women are in the labor
force.
Currently, there are few federal statutes that pertain directly or indirectly to employer provision of
leave benefits for any purpose. This report begins by reviewing those policies, including the
Pregnancy Discrimination Act and the Family and Medical Leave Act. Temporary Disability
Insurance (TDI) programs, which five states have established to compensate for lost wages while
workers are recovering from nonoccupational illnesses and injuries, are discussed as well. So too
are the California and New Jersey family leave insurance programs, which essentially extend the
TDI programs of the two states to employees caring for family members.
The report then examines the incidence of different types of paid leave that U.S. employers
voluntarily provide as part of an employee’s total compensation (wages and benefits). For
example, vacations and holidays are the most commonly offered leave benefits: more than three-
fourths of employees in the private sector receive paid time off for these reasons. Access to leave
by various employee and employer characteristics also is analyzed, with particular attention
focused on paid sick leave, which is offered to 61% of private sector employees.
The report closes with results from a federal government survey of the average direct cost to
businesses of different types of leave. Indirect employer costs that might arise in connection with
some types of leave more than others, such as the greater likelihood of hiring and training
temporary replacements for employees absent because of maternity versus bereavement reasons,
are not included. Neither are estimates of potential gains to employers (e.g., a more stable and
experienced workforce, increased productivity due to greater worker morale) and society (e.g.,
improved public health, lower formal caregiving costs, and broader participation in civic affairs).
Congressional Research Service
Leave Benefits in the United States
Contents
Federal Laws Pertaining to Leave................................................................................................ 2
The Fair Labor Standards Act ................................................................................................ 3
Federal Contractor Legislation .............................................................................................. 4
Temporary Disability Insurance............................................................................................. 4
Anti-Discrimination Legislation ...................................................................................... 5
TDI and Family Leave: California, New Jersey, and Washington State ............................ 6
The Family and Medical Leave Act ....................................................................................... 7
The Birth and Adoption Unemployment Compensation Plan ................................................. 8
The Incidence and Cost of Leave Benefits................................................................................. 10
Incidence by Employee and Employer Characteristics ......................................................... 11
In the Private Sector ...................................................................................................... 11
Among Working Parents ............................................................................................... 14
A Detailed Look at Paid Sick Leave .............................................................................. 15
Cost to Employers............................................................................................................... 19
Concluding Remarks................................................................................................................. 21
Tables
Table 1. Percent of Workers with Paid Leave Benefits by Employee and Employer
Characteristics, March 2008................................................................................................... 12
Table 2. Percent of Workers with Paid Sick Leave by Selected Demographic
Characteristics, 2004.............................................................................................................. 16
Table 3. Percent of Workers with Paid Sick Leave by Industry, 2004 ........................................ 17
Table 4. Percent of Workers with Paid Sick Leave by Education, 2004 ...................................... 17
Table 5. Percent of Workers with Paid Sick Leave by Occupation, 2004 .................................... 18
Table 6. Earnings of Workers with Paid Sick Leave by Earnings, 2004 ...................................... 19
Table 7. Employer Costs Per Hour Worked for Employee Compensation, December 2008........ 20
Table 8. Employer Costs Per Hour Worked for Leave Benefits by Type of Leave and Firm
Size, December 2008 ............................................................................................................. 20
Contacts
Author Contact Information ...................................................................................................... 21
Congressional Research Service
Leave Benefits in the United States
n addition to their jobs, workers have obligations—civic, familial, and personal—to fulfill
that sometimes require them to be absent from the workplace (e.g., to serve on a jury, retrieve
I a sick child from day care, or attend a funeral). The U.S. government generally has allowed
individual businesses to decide whether to accommodate the nonwork activities of employees by
granting them leave (with or without pay) rather than firing them. In other countries, national
governments or the international organizations to which they belong more often have developed
social policies that entitle individuals to take time off from the workplace for a variety of
reasons.1 For example, workers in countries that are part of the European Union have a minimum
vacation benefit with pay of some 20 days per year; in Spain, employees can take paid time off to
perform jury service among other civic duties;2 and 169 countries guarantee women leave with
income in connection with childbirth.3
Policies specifically intended to reconcile the work and family lives of individuals—which
include leave benefits, child-care subsidies, and flexible work arrangements—have garnered
increased attention in the 30-member Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD).4 In the United States, which is an OECD member, congressional interest has coalesced
around family-friendly paid leave proposals. They would entitle individuals to time off with pay
to accomplish parental and caregiving obligations (e.g., bonding with a newborn or newly placed
adopted child or assisting a seriously ill spouse). Women are regarded as the chief beneficiaries of
these proposals because
• women are the typical informal (unpaid) caregivers to family and friends,5 and
• a majority of women are in the workforce, with both husbands and wives
employed in about one-half of married-couple families.6
Two approaches have been proposed in Congress to guarantee workers the right to take paid leave
to attend to family and medical needs. One is an employer mandate (e.g., H.R. 2460/S. 1152); the
other, a temporary disability insurance program (e.g., H.R. 1723).7
1 These entitlements may be part of a country’s social security or labor laws. The statutes may be supplemented by
provisions in collective bargaining agreements. See, for example Antoine Math and Christele Meilland, Family-Related
Leave and Industrial Relations, European Industrial Relations Observatory On-Line, 2004, available at
http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/eiro/2004/03/study/tn0403101s.html.
2 Rebecca Ray and John Schmitt, No-Vacation Nation, Washington, DC: Center for Economic and Policy Research,
May 2007.
3 Jody Heymann, Alison Earle and Jeffrey Hayes, The Work, Family, and Equity Index: How Does the United States
Measure Up?, Montreal, QC: Project on Global Working Families, 2007, available at http://www.mcgill.ca/files/ihsp/
WFEI2007FEB.pdf.
4 OECD, Boosting Jobs and Incomes: Policy Lessons from Reassessing the OECD Jobs Strategy, Paris, FR: OECD
Publishing, 2006. OECD member countries are Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark,
Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, the
Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the
United Kingdom, and the United States.
5 Women represent 60% of informal caregivers to family and friends age 18 and older, according to Caregiving in the
United States, 2004, by the National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP. For information on women who care for
children and parents, see Charles R. Pierret, “The ‘Sandwich Generation:’ Women Caring for Parents and Children,”
Monthly Labor Review, September 2006.
6 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Characteristics of Families in 2008, May 27, 2009.
7 The Healthy Families Act (H.R. 2460/S. 1152) would allow eligible employees at covered employers to earn a
minimum of one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked and accrue no more than 56 hours (7 days) of paid
sick leave at a given time. The sick leave could be taken to care for the employee’s own health (including obtaining a
(continued...)
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Leave Benefits in the United States
While “[d]uring the past two decades, the generosity of paid parental leave has increased in all
OECD countries, with the exceptions of Ireland, the United Kingdom and several countries with
no legislation mandating paid leave [such as the United States],”8 the organization remains
focused on leave and other policies thought to ameliorate work-family conflict. Its continuing
interest in encouraging more women to participate in the labor force is partly motivated by
concern about the impact of population aging on the future labor supply in member nations. The
economic rationale underlying paid family leave is that it will increase the amount of labor
supplied by women with child care (and increasingly elder care) obligations and thereby mitigate
the slowdown in labor force growth overall. In the United States, the end of years of escalating
labor force participation by married mothers, especially mothers of infants,9 is overlaid on the
fear of an impending labor shortfall because of its aging population.10
This report begins by reviewing U.S. government regulation of time off from work for any
purpose. It then examines the incidence of paid leave benefits voluntarily provided by U.S. firms.
Access to paid leave by various employee and employer characteristics also is analyzed.
Estimates from a government survey of the direct cost to U.S. businesses of the different types of
leave offered are presented as well. Indirect employer costs that might arise in connection with
some types of leave more than others, such as the greater likelihood of hiring and training
temporary replacements for employees absent because of maternity versus bereavement
reasons, are not included. Neither are estimates of potential gains to companies (e.g., a more
stable and experienced workforce and increased productivity due to greater worker morale) and
society (e.g., improved public health, lower formal caregiving costs, and broader participation in
civic affairs).
Federal Laws Pertaining to Leave
By-and-large, the U.S. government does not require employers to offer employees nonwage
compensation, that is, benefits (e.g., health insurance, retirement plans, and leave). The few
employment-based benefits that Congress has mandated are social security, unemployment
compensation, workers’ compensation, and most recently, unpaid family-medical leave. An
overview follows of past and present federal laws and regulations that relate to time off from
work.
State statutes may require the provision of leave beyond that in federal law. Employers and
unions may negotiate paid time off as a supplement to wages in collective bargaining agreements.
(...continued)
medical diagnosis or preventive care) or the health of family members (a child, parent, spouse or other individual
closely related by blood or affinity) or to attend to certain matters connected with domestic violence, sexual assault or
stalking. The Family Leave Insurance Act (H.R. 1723) would establish a Family Leave Insurance Fund through a
payroll tax on employees and employers to partially replace the wages of eligible workers on job-protected leave. The
12 workweeks of leave during a 12-month period could be taken for the reasons allowed under the Family and Medical
Leave Act (FMLA).
8 OECD, OECD Employment Outlook 2006: Boosting Jobs and Incomes, Paris, FR: OECD Publishing, 2006, p. 130.
9 Sharon R. Cohany and Emy Sok, “Trends in Labor Force Participation of Married Mothers of Infants,” Monthly
Labor Review, February 2007.
10 For additional information on a demographically-induced labor shortage in the United States see CRS Report
RL33661, Retiring Baby-Boomers = A Labor Shortage?, by Linda Levine.
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Complete coverage of leave benefits that originate from these non-federal sources is beyond the
scope of this report.
The Fair Labor Standards Act
The primary law setting standards for wages paid to and hours worked by most employed persons
in the United States is the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Although people often think that the
act regulates time not worked, the FLSA largely is silent on the subject.11 It does not require that
firms provide employees time off for breaks (e.g., to use a bathroom),12 meals,13 illness, holidays,
and the like.
Although the FLSA applies to both the private and public sectors, federal employees are entitled
to “legal holidays” with pay as prescribed by the Office of Personnel Management under Title 5
of the U.S. Code. Holidays also may be designated in state and municipal laws or regulations.
Private sector employers may choose to follow the public sector’s holiday practices and pay their
employees for the time not worked. If businesses voluntarily close on holidays, firms can pay an
employee they require to work the employee’s usual hourly wage rate because the FLSA does not
distinguish holidays from any other workday.
The FLSA does require employees to be paid more than their regular hourly wage rate in another
instance, namely, “overtime work.” It is in connection with overtime that the act has become part
of the debate over worktime flexibility to accommodate the family responsibilities of employees.
The FLSA was enacted in 1938 during a period of extraordinarily high unemployment. Payment
at one-and-one-half times an employee’s standard hourly rate for working more than 40 hours in a
week thus was required of companies as a penalty for extending the workweek of current
employees rather than hiring unemployed persons. About 50 years later, Congress allowed
employers in one industry—federal, state and local government—to offer employees time off in
lieu of the overtime pay they had earned.14 That is to say, a government can offer its workers the
option of taking leave in the future rather than immediately compensating them for overtime
worked. Those who want to extend “comp-time” to the private sector began in the 1990s to put
the worktime arrangement in a family friendly context by arguing that it would afford workers the
opportunity to accumulate hours they could later take off for caregiving or any other reason “if
the use of the compensatory time does not unduly disrupt the operations of the employer.”15
11 Under the FLSA, workers must be paid for short rest breaks but not for meal breaks that employers voluntarily
provide.
12 The Occupational Safety and Health Administration in a 1998 memorandum interpreted the sanitation standard for
general industry (29 CRF 1910.141(c)(1)(i): Toilet Facilities) to mean that companies must make toilet facilities
available to employees and allow individuals timely access to them.
13 Some states have laws that require businesses to give time off for meals or other breaks during the workday. Some
municipalities also have laws, regulations or guidelines that address meals or other breaks.
14 1985 amendments to the FLSA, P.L. 99-150.
15 H.R. 1119, Family Time Flexibility Act, Report No. 108-127, 108th Cong., 1st Sess., March 6, 2003. For additional
information see CRS Report RL31875, Compensatory Time vs. Cash Wages: Amending the Fair Labor Standards Act?,
by William G. Whittaker.
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Federal Contractor Legislation
In the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931 and Service Contract Act of 1965, Congress required that
certain contractors pay at least prevailing wages and benefits to their workers employed on
federal and federally assisted construction and service projects. The Wage and Hour Division in
the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) develops “wage determinations.” They list the wage
rates and fringe benefit rates DOL determines are prevailing in a given area for particular
jobs. Paid sick, vacation, and holiday leave are among the benefits that can be included in a
wage determination.
Temporary Disability Insurance
No nationwide program exists that compensates individuals for wages lost while they are absent
from the workplace due to short-term health conditions (e.g., childbirth, the flu) or injuries
unrelated to employment.
It was during the severe depression of the thirties that the United States began its national
social insurance programs of unemployment insurance and old-age insurance. Consequently,
providing protection against costs of sickness that are more or less recurring regardless of
economic conditions did not seem to have the same urgency as providing protection against
cyclical unemployment and old-age dependency.16
In 1946, however, the Federal Unemployment Tax Act was amended to allow states in which
employees contribute to their unemployment insurance programs to use those contributions
toward cash payments for persons unable to work as a result of temporary nonoccupational
illnesses or injuries.17 California, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island passed Temporary
Disability Insurance (TDI) laws during the 1940s. Two additional jurisdictions—Hawaii and
Puerto Rico—enacted TDI legislation in the late 1960s.
Today, employees and employers contribute to four of the jurisdictions’ social insurance
programs. Rhode Island and California continue to rely on only employee payroll deductions. The
governments usually do not make contributions.18
Both employed and unemployed workers may receive TDI benefits. How this is accomplished
varies among the jurisdictions depending in part on whether employers are allowed to substitute a
private insurance plan for a state-operated plan. Most employees in the private sector are covered
because the laws generally apply to businesses with one or more workers. Jurisdictions may cover
their own government employees and the self-employed as well. The value of payments and their
duration also differ by jurisdiction. In addition, the way in which TDI benefits are coordinated
with employer-provided paid sick leave and other accrued leave benefits varies.19
16 Chapter on Temporary Disability Insurance from the Social Security Administration’s 1997 publication, Social
Security Programs in the United States, available at http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/progdesc/sspus/tempdib.pdf.
17 The Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act of 1938 also was amended in 1946 to establish a short-term disability
program. It is operated by the federal government.
18 Social Security Administration, Annual Statistical Supplement, 2006, available at http://www.socialsecurity.gov/
policy/docs/statcomps/supplement/2006/tempdisability.pdf.
19 Ibid. See also http://www.workforcesecurity.doleta.gov/unemploy/pdf/temporary.pdf.
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The TDI laws do not require employers to retain individuals on their payrolls while receiving
benefits.20 However, employers must comply with other laws that regulate treatment of
employees experiencing short-term nonwork disabilities.
Anti-Discrimination Legislation
The Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 (PDA, P.L. 95-555), which amended Title VII of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964, makes it illegal for employers with 15 or more employees to fire, refuse
to hire, or withhold a promotion because an individual is pregnant. The act further prohibits these
employers from treating women who are limited in their ability to work because of pregnancy,
childbirth, or related health conditions differently from other employees experiencing disabling
medical conditions unrelated to work. If a firm has a policy permitting temporarily disabled
employees to take sick leave, then it must allow a woman unable to perform her job due to
pregnancy or childbirth to take leave on the same terms.21 Thus, a firm “must hold open a job for
a pregnancy-related absence the same length of time jobs are held open for employees on sick or
disability leave.”22
Title VII and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 do not require employers to provide
leave to employees to attend to their own short-term illnesses. They also do not require employers
to offer employees time off to care for sick family members. But, as in the case of a company
with sick or disability leave benefits, a firm that has instituted a family leave policy is prohibited
from administering it in a discriminatory manner.23 For example, men and women must be
afforded the same opportunity to take the same amount of time off to care for their children under
an employer’s family leave plan.
Taking action against “family responsibilities discrimination” may be difficult, however, because
“Congress has never prohibited discrimination based on caregiver status so such claims must be
“indirect” applications of existing prohibitions against sex bias, disability discrimination, and
unequal pay.”24 As recently as May 2007, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
released clarifying guidance that addresses unlawful disparate treatment founded on sex-based
stereotyping of pregnant workers and of employees who are family caregivers, disparate
treatment of employees caring for family members with disabilities, and harassment that creates a
hostile work environment for employees providing family care.25
Relatedly, differences across states in leave benefit laws may make multistate companies
susceptible to discrimination complaints for interfering with the rights of employees. For
example, California’s Family Sick Leave (Kin Care) law requires all employers in the state that
20 Additional information on individual state’s TDI plans can be found at http://www.edd.ca.gov/diind.htm,
http://www.hawaii.gov/labor/dcd, http://www.state.nj.us/labor/tdi/tdiindex.html, http://www.wcb.state.ny.us/content/
main/offthejob/IntroToLaw_DB.jsp, and http://www.dlt.ri.gov/tdi/.
21 Chapter XIV—Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 29 CFR Part 1604.10.
22 See http://www.eeoc.gov/types/pregnancy.html.
23 See http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/fmlaada.html.
24 Kevin P. McGowan, EEOC Hears Discussion of Bias Claims Based on Employees’ Family Obligations,” Daily
Labor Report, April 18, 2007. As reported in the Daily Labor Report (“Teleconference Speakers Share Insights for
Stemming Tide of Family Rights Claims,” April 16, 2007), only Alaska and the District of Columbia have laws that
explicitly prohibit discrimination based on an employee’s family responsibilities.
25 See http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/qanda_caregiving.html.
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offer paid sick leave to allow employees to use some of their time off to care for sick children,
parents, spouses or domestic partners.26 But, in Minnesota, employers with at least 21 employees
must permit them to use their personal sick leave to care for sick children.27 Such variability in
leave policies also means that families have quite different options depending on the state in
which they live.
TDI and Family Leave: California, New Jersey, and Washington State
In 2002, California became the first state to mandate a paid family leave benefit by establishing
Family Temporary Disability Insurance, commonly known as Paid Family Leave (PFL)
insurance. Beginning in mid-2004, both male and female workers could take up to six weeks of
paid time off to bond with their new biological, adopted, or foster children. In addition, they
became entitled to wage replacement while absent from work to care for seriously ill children,
parents, spouses, or domestic partners. Employers may require workers to use a maximum of two
weeks of accrued vacation time before drawing payments from the insurance fund. Like the
state’s TDI program, employers must make deductions from the wages of employees to pay for
PFL. The deductions are deposited in the state’s disability fund.
PFL must be taken concurrently with the maximum of 12 weeks of unpaid family-medical leave
available to eligible employees of covered employers under the California Family Rights Act
(CFRA). The act was passed in 1991 and amended in 1993 to conform to federal legislation
discussed immediately below. The most noteworthy differences between CFRA and PFL/TDI are
that the former provides workers at firms with at least 50 employees unpaid time off with the
right to continued health benefit coverage and guaranteed reinstatement to the same or a
comparable job; the latter provides almost all employees cash benefits during their short-term
absence but not job protection.
Two other states have since enacted paid family leave legislation.
• In 2008, New Jersey enacted family leave legislation that, starting July 1, 2009,
will enable almost all workers to take up to six weeks of paid time-off to bond
with a newborn or newly adopted child, and to care for a child, spouse, domestic
partner, civil union partner, or parent. Employers may require workers to use a
maximum of two weeks of any paid sick leave, vacation time, or other leave
before being eligible to draw payments from the insurance fund. As in California,
which also is a TDI state, the New Jersey family leave program is funded by
employees through payroll deduction and the cash benefits must run concurrently
with unpaid job-protected leave taken under the federal Family and Medical
Leave Act.
• Washington state passed a family leave insurance program in 2007, without a
financing mechanism and with benefits to become available to workers on
October 1, 2009. However, after a task force was unable to agree on a long-term
financing mechanism for the program and in light of the state’s budget shortfall,
the legislature delayed implementation of the program until October 1, 2012.
26 See http://www.fehc.ca.gov/act/law.asp.
27 CRS Report RL33710, State Family and Medical Leave Laws, by Jon O. Shimabukuro and Cassandra L. Foley.
(Hereafter cited as CRS Report RL33710, State Family and Medical Leave Laws, by Jon O. Shimabukuro and
Cassandra L. Foley, State Family and Medical Leave Laws.)
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Many more states have mandated the unpaid job-protected approach to family-medical leave
found in the California Family Rights Act than have adopted the insurance approach. Some 35
states and the District of Columbia either proposed or passed unpaid job-protected time-off
legislation shortly after the first family-medical leave bill was introduced in Congress in 1985.28
The Family and Medical Leave Act
Congress passed and President Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA, P.L.
103-3) in 1993. Until recently, the federal law entitled eligible employees at covered employers to
leave without pay for the following four reasons:
• the birth of a child of the employee and to care for the newborn child,
• the placement with the employee of a child for adoption or foster care and to care
for the newly placed child,
• to care for an immediate family member (i.e., spouse, child under age 18 or any
age if incapable of self-care due to an activity-limiting disability, or parent) with
a serious health condition that necessitates the employee’s presence,29 or
• to care for the employee’s own serious health condition (including maternity-
related disability) that makes the employee unable to perform the functions of
his/her position.
After the president signed the FY2008 Department of Defense authorization bill in 2008 (P.L.
110-181), two other reasons were added to the FMLA: to attend to matters arising from members
of the National Guard and the Reserves being called to military duty; and to care for members of
the Armed Forces, National Guard, or Reserves who recently became seriously ill or injured.
The latest Labor Department survey shows that the predominant reason for leave-taking under the
FMLA in 1999-2000, at 49%, was to attend to the employee’s own health (including maternity-
related disability). Caregiving for newborn, newly adopted, or newly placed foster children
followed at almost half the rate. About the same fraction of FMLA leave-takers used their time
off to care for ill family members.30
Employees who take leave under the act are generally guaranteed the right to reemployment in
the same or comparable positions. Employers cannot retaliate against workers for taking FMLA
leave by, for example, firing them. But, employers are allowed to terminate leave-takers for
legitimate business reasons (e.g., the duties of the unit in which the employee works are
outsourced).
28 Janine A. Parry, “Family Leave Policies: Examining Choice and Contingency in Industrialized Nations,” NWSA
Journal, vol. 13, no. 3, Fall 2001.
29 The term “serious health condition” is defined at 29 C.F.R. Part 825 as an illness, injury, or mental or physical
condition that involves any period of incapacity or treatment connected with inpatient care in a hospital, hospice, or
residential mental facility; a period of incapacity requiring absence of more than three consecutive days from work,
school, or other regular daily activities that also involves continuing treatment by or under the supervision of a health
care provider; any period of incapacity due to pregnancy or prenatal care; a period of incapacity that is permanent or
long-term due to a chronic condition for which treatment may not be effective; or any absences to receive multiple
treatments (or recovery therefrom) by a health care provider for a condition that likely would result in incapacity of
more than three consecutive days if left untreated.
30 CRS Report RL30893, Explanation of and Experience Under the Family and Medical Leave Act, by Linda Levine.
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Private sector firms that had 50 or more employees on their payrolls for at least 20 workweeks in
the current or preceding calendar year must allow employees to take leave under the act if the
employees worked for them at least 12 months, a minimum of 1,250 hours, and at a facility where
at least 50 employees are employed by the firm within 75 miles. Regardless of their size, public
sector employers (e.g., federal and local governments, Congress and its agencies) also must
provide FMLA leave.31
The act’s 12 workweeks of leave in a 12-month period,32 firm-size threshold, and reasons for
leave are minimum standards. Employees who work for employers that offer or are covered by
collective bargaining agreements that include more expansive family-medical leave, or who
work in jurisdictions that have enacted more comprehensive statutes are entitled to the more
generous benefits.33
The FMLA differs from TDI by being national in scope, providing more reasons for leave,34
continuing health benefit coverage for absent workers, and guaranteeing job security. The TDI
programs, for their part, provide cash benefits and do not have firm-size exclusions. Employees
drawing TDI benefits cannot be terminated, however, if they have not exhausted their entitlement
to leave under the FMLA or comparable state laws. Analogously, employees receiving cash
payments under California’s PFL program while caring for newborn, newly adopted, or newly
placed children and while caring for children, spouses, or parents cannot be terminated while still
entitled to leave under the FMLA or CFRA.
The Birth and Adoption Unemployment Compensation Plan
President Clinton directed the Department of Labor (DOL) to propose regulations enabling states
to utilize tax dollars accumulated in the federal-state Unemployment Compensation (UC)
program to partially replace the wages of parents who opt to take time off to bond with their
newborn or newly adopted children. The purpose of the Birth and Adoption Unemployment
Compensation (BAA-UC) experiment, popularly known as Baby UI, was to allow DOL to
determine if the availability of cash benefits to working parents within 52 weeks of the birth or
placement for adoption of a child encourages long-term attachment to the labor force.35
Unlike the FMLA, BAA-UC leave was not guaranteed nationwide and employers did not have to
retain employees receiving BAA-UC unless they were also FMLA-eligible. The reasons for leave
under BAA-UC were much narrower than under the FMLA as well. Alternatively, the firm-size
31 Bills have proposed changes to the firm-size threshold among other provisions of the act. For additional information
see CRS Report RL31760, The Family and Medical Leave Act: Legislative and Regulatory Activity, by Linda Levine.
32 The leave period to care for an injured servicemember is 26 workweeks. The 12 or 26 workweeks generally may be
taken on an intermittent or reduced schedule basis (e.g., a shortened work day).
33 For example, the Oregon Family Leave Act requires employers with at least 25 employees to provide job-protected
leave to employees after the birth or adoption of a child; to care for an ill or injured child who requires home care; to
care for a spouse, parent, child, parent-in-law, or domestic partner with a serious health condition; and for pregnancy-
related disability. In June 2007, the Oregon legislature amended the statute to require that employers allow employees
to use their paid sick leave for leave taken under the act; previously, use of sick for family leave was a matter of
employer policy. See also CRS Report RL33710, State Family and Medical Leave Laws.
34 Only California’s TDI program in combination with its PFL program provides reasons for leave comparable to those
under the FMLA.
35 65 FR 114 (June 13, 2000), p. 37210.
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requirements of the FMLA did not apply to BAA-UC, which was guided by the much broader
employer coverage of the UC program.
DOL included model state legislation in an appendix to the BAA-UC regulations, which went
into effect in mid-2000. The model Baby UI bill envisioned the availability of BAA-UC for a
maximum of 12 weeks, and the time not worked would be counted toward the maximum duration
of unemployment benefits. It also assumed that states would base the amount of BAA-UC
benefits on the same criteria (earnings and employment histories) as their individual UC
programs and would deduct other income (e.g., employer-provided paid sick or family leave and
the value of employer contribution to disability insurance) from BAA-UC payments.
In commentary attached to the regulation, DOL noted that it was not imposing solvency
requirements on states before their enactment of BAA-UC. The department stated its expectation
that states would not initiate BAA-UC without first examining the impact on the solvency of their
UC trust funds.
In late 2003, the Bush Administration rescinded BAA-UC as part of a review of all DOL
regulations. The review was undertaken in the context of a recession having led to much reduced
balances in state UC funds and a challenge in federal district court to the consistency of BAA-UC
with federal UC law.36 The Bush Administration declared BAA-UC to be “a misapplication of
federal UC law relating to the A&A requirements,” which state that a person must be able and
available for suitable work to be eligible for unemployment benefits.37 It disagreed with the
Clinton Administration’s explanation of the BAA-UC rule as “part of an evolving interpretation
of the A&A requirements that recognizes practical and economic realities” (e.g., not terminating
or denying UC benefits to individuals while they are awaiting recall to the firms that temporarily
laid them off).38 The Bush Administration declared that
the intended recipients of BAA-UC generally do not meet this test as they have initiated their
separation from the workforce and it is their personal situation, rather than the lack of
available work, that has removed them from the labor market. Because the BAA-UC
experiment is based on an assumption of increased future labor force attachment, the
payment of BAA-UC will likely be made for periods where parents have completely
suspended their labor force attachment. Indeed, in cases where the parent is on approved
leave from a job, BAA-UC more closely resembles a paid-leave program than a UC
program.39
It further stated that “Congress intended the UC system to be subordinate to the main task of
getting people back to work.... BAA-UC is not consistent with this goal since it encourages
parents to refuse available work.”40
Some 24 Baby-UI bills were introduced in 20 states in 2001, the year after the BAA-UC
regulation became effective.41 But, no state had passed legislation before the regulation was
removed in November 2003.
36 See LPA, Inc. v. Chao, 211 F.Supp. 2d 160 (D.D.C. 2002) (dismissed on procedural grounds).
37 67 FR 233 (December 4, 2002), p. 72122.
38 65 FR 114 (June 13, 2000), p. 37213.
39 67 FR 233 (December 4, 2002), p. 72122.
40 68 FR 196 (October 9, 2003), p. 58542.
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Leave Benefits in the United States
In light of the inaction of states while the BAA-UC regulation was in effect and the handful of
states with TDI laws, they appear reluctant to require family-medical leave benefits by taking
either an approach based on unemployment or disability insurance. The belief that higher taxes
paid by companies located in states that adopt either approach—arguably putting them at a
competitive disadvantage with firms in non-adopting states—might contribute to this reluctance
on the part of individual states. The UC program is largely financed through state and federal
payroll taxes of employers. And, three of the five states with TDI programs partly finance them
through a payroll tax on employers.
The Incidence and Cost of Leave Benefits
Unlike the abundant data on wages and salaries, less information is available on the benefits paid
to workers. At present, benefits account for 30% of the total compensation (wages and benefits)
of employees in the civilian economy.42 Leave benefits—which represent 7% of total
compensation—receive short shrift compared to the information on some other supplements to
wages voluntarily provided by employers. For example, the government’s primary survey of the
labor force—the Current Population Survey (CPS)—does not ask households about time off from
work, while it does ask about health and retirement benefits. (These benefits respectively account
for almost 8% and over 4% of total compensation). As a result, there is limited data on gender,
age, and other demographic characteristics of workers by employer provision of paid leave.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) more often looks to employers for information on
benefits because they “typically furnish more reliable information than households do on the
details of employer-provided benefit plans and the employers’ costs for providing those
benefits.”43 The National Compensation Survey (NCS) collects information from companies on
benefit incidence as well as compensation cost levels and trends. Firm size, as measured by the
number of employees, is one of the company characteristics for which the NCS obtains data.
Again, employer rather than household surveys are a better source of size information. Although
the NCS lacks demographic information on employees receiving benefits, it does afford data by
job characteristics (e.g., occupation, industry, and earnings).
Some private firms conduct compensation surveys, but the results may be proprietary, very
expensive to access, or not representative of typical business practices (e.g., if the survey covers
primarily large corporations). For these reasons, the analysis below is derived from the NCS, and
to provide demographic information, from the National Survey of America’s Families and the
Medical Expenditures Panel Survey. The latter two are nationally representative surveys of
noninstitutionalized households in the civilian population, similar to the CPS.
(...continued)
41 Lauren Couillard, “Current State Family Leave Bills Contemplate Several Payment Systems,” Daily Labor Report,
September 17, 2001.
42 BLS, Employer Costs for Employee Compensation—December 2008, March 12, 2009. Private households, farms,
and the federal government are not surveyed.
43 Diane E. Herz, Joseph R. Meisenheimer II, and Harriet G. Weinstein, “Health and Retirement Benefits: Data from
Two BLS Surveys,” Monthly Labor Review, March 2000, p. 4.
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Leave Benefits in the United States
Incidence by Employee and Employer Characteristics
In the Private Sector
More than three-fourths of employees at firms in the private sector are provided paid vacations
and holidays, making these the most widely available leave benefits. (See Table 1.) About
seven of every ten workers have access to paid funeral leave and time off for jury duty.
Considerably fewer employees in the private sector—61%—have sick leave as part of their
compensation package. Companies continue to pay almost one-half of employees who are absent
from work to fulfill military obligations. Less than two in five workers can take paid leave for
personal reasons. Employers in the private sector offer paid family leave to a very small
percentage of their workers (8%).
As shown in Table 1—regardless of the type of paid leave—it usually is true that
• relatively more private sector employees in white-collar occupations (i.e.,
management, professional, and related; sales and office) than blue-collar
occupations (i.e., natural resources, construction, and maintenance; production,
transportation, and material moving) or service occupations (e.g., food, cleaning,
personal, health, and protective service workers) have access to leave with pay;
• relatively more full-time than part-time workers receive paid leave;
• relatively more union than nonunion employees have the opportunity to take
leave with pay; and
• relatively more higher than lower paid employees are provided leave as part of
their compensation package.
In terms of company rather than worker characteristics, it generally is the case that—regardless of
the type of paid leave—
• relatively more employees of larger than smaller establishments receive leave
with pay;
• relatively more workers in firms located in metropolitan than nonmetropolitan
areas have access to paid leave benefits; and
• relatively more employees at firms in the New England and Middle Atlantic
regions, compared to other regions, are provided paid leave.
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Table 1. Percent of Workers with Paid Leave Benefits
by Employee and Employer Characteristics, March 2008
(private nonfarm industries)
Characteristic
Sick Family Personal Vacation Holiday Funeral Jury
Duty Military
All Workers
61
8
37
78
77
69
71
48
Worker Characteristics
Management, professional, and related occupations
83
15
55
87
89
86
88
66
Sales and office occupations
66
8
39
80
81
73
75
50
Natural resources, construction, and maintenance occupations
47
6
26
76
76
56
56
38
Production, transportation, and material moving occupations
51
4
32
83
85
69
71
46
Service occupations
42
5
26
61
52
49
55
34
Full-timea 71
9
42
90
89
77
79
54
Part-timea 27
4
21
39
40
42
48
30
Union 66
7
47
84
85
82
83
56
Nonunion 60
8
36
77
76
67
70
47
Average wage within the following percentiles
Less than 10
23
2
17
43
38
37
42
24
10 to under 25
41
5
25
63
61
50
55
35
25 to under 50
63
7
38
84
84
71
74
48
50 to under 75
70
9
39
88
89
78
78
52
75 to under 90
77
13
52
87
88
84
84
62
90 or greater
83
14
54
88
89
84
89
68
Establishment Characteristics
Nonfarm goods-producing industriesb 51
6
33
86
86
70
70
51
Private service-producing industriesb 63
9
38
76
75
69
72
48
1-99 workers
52
6
26
71
69
57
60
36
100 or more workers
71
10
50
86
86
82
84
62
CRS-12
Characteristic
Sick Family Personal Vacation Holiday Funeral Jury
Duty Military
Geographic Areas
Metropolitan area
62
9
39
78
78
70
73
50
Nonmetropolitan area
53
5
31
76
74
62
64
41
Regionc
New England
68
9
42
75
78
74
82
53
Middle Atlantic
67
8
46
79
80
76
81
53
East North Central
56
9
43
76
76
72
71
49
West North Central
59
7
31
77
74
69
68
48
South Atlantic
58
9
33
79
78
68
73
50
East South Central
57
6
37
81
80
64
70
43
West South Central
60
8
34
79
80
64
67
46
Mountain 60
5
35
75
75
64
68
44
Pacific
63
10 34 77 74 65 64 44
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, data from the National Compensation Survey for March 2008.
Notes: Beginning with March 2008 estimates, the definition of paid sick leave was expanded to include plans previously excluded because workers had not made use of the
benefit. This change effectively raises the access rate for paid sick leave.
a. The definition of ful -time and part-time is that used by individual employers.
b. The definition of private nonfarm industries are al of the fol owing except agriculture and public administration: nonfarm goods-producing industries (natural resources
and mining; construction; and manufacturing) and service-producing industries (wholesale and retail trade; transportation and utilities; information; financial activities;
professional and business services; education and health services; leisure and hospitality; other services; and miscel aneous service industries).
c. Regions are composed of the following states: New England (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont), Middle Atlantic (New
Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania), East North Central (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin), West North Central (Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri,
Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota), South Atlantic (Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and
West Virginia), East South Central (Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee), West South Central (Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas), Mountain
(Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming), and Pacific (Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington).
CRS-13
Leave Benefits in the United States
The picture is more mixed for incidence of paid time off by sector of employment. Substantially
larger percentages of businesses that produce goods than produce services offer employees leave
for vacations and holidays. The opposite is true for sick leave. If government is added to the
private service-producing sector shown in Table 1, the gap in sick leave provision between the
two sectors is even wider. In March 2008, 89% of employees in state and local governments had
access to paid sick leave.44 Federal employees similarly have near universal access to paid sick
leave as well as many of the other benefits for which data are collected in the NCS. They also are
permitted to use their annual leave not only for vacations but also for personal reasons.45 In
addition, they can use sick leave for family caregiving and bereavement. Some state governments
also permit their employees to use sick leave for other reasons (e.g., family caregiving).46
Among Working Parents
Utilizing data from the National Survey of America’s Families (NSAF), the Urban Institute
published information on the characteristics of working parents 18-54 years old with any type of
paid leave. Significantly more fathers (83.5%) than mothers (76.2%) report having any time off
with pay. Married parents (81.5%) are significantly more likely than single parents (73.8%) to
have access to paid leave. Receipt of paid leave increases with age of parents and age of youngest
child; as a result, it appears that “workers with a great need for leave—parents with very young
children—are the least likely to have access to leave.”47 Access to paid leave benefits increases in
step with family income measured as a percentage of the federal poverty level.
Three other studies similarly estimated a direct relationship between family income and receipt of
paid time off from work. On the basis of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth,
76% of families in the bottom quartile of the income distribution lacked paid sick leave and 58%
lacked paid vacations at some point while employed between 1990 and 1996. In contrast, 40% of
families in the top quartile of the income distribution lacked paid sick leave, and 41% lacked paid
vacations.48 Similarly, results from the Kaiser Foundation’s Women’s Health Survey show that
64% of employed women with family income below 200% of the federal poverty level are not
paid when they miss work to care for a sick child compared to 37% of working women in higher
income families.49 And, based on their analysis of 2003-2004 data from the Medical Expenditures
Panel Survey, Clemens-Cope et al. estimated that while 81% of children in employed families
with incomes at least 200% above the federal poverty level had at least one parent with access to
paid sick leave, only 36% of lower-income children had one or more parents with access to paid
sick leave.50
44 Natalie Kramer and Alan Zilberman, New Definitions of Employee Access to Paid Sick Leave and Retirement
Benefits in the National Compensation Survey, posted to the BLS website (http://www.bls.gov) on December 23, 2008.
45 Information on paid leave for federal employees is available at http://www.opm.gov/oca/leave/HTML/factindx.asp.
46 For more information see CRS Report RL33710, State Family and Medical Leave Laws.
47 Katherine Ross Phillips, Getting Time Off: Access to Leave among Working Parents, Washington, DC: The Urban
Institute, Series B, No. B-57, April 2004, p. 2-3. (Hereafter cited as Phillips, Getting Time Off.)
48 Jody Heymann, The Widening Gap, New York, NY: Basic Books, 2000.
49 The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, Women, Work, and Family Health: A Balancing Act, April 2003.
50 Lisa Clemans-Cope, Cynthia D. Perry, and Genevieve M. Kenney et al., “Access to and Use of Paid Sick Leave
Among Low-Income Families with Children,” Pediatrics, vol. 122, no. 2 (2008).
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Leave Benefits in the United States
Welfare receipt at any time significantly reduces a parent’s likelihood of having paid leave,
according to the analysis of NSAF data. But, leave availability is greater among those no longer
receiving welfare than among current recipients—with almost three in five working parents
currently on welfare lacking any type of paid time off. The study’s author describes the low rate
of access to paid leave among parents currently receiving welfare as “troubling” because
These parents may be trying to move off public assistance. Without ample work supports,
including job-protected leave, they may be unable to keep their ties to the labor market in the
event of a family crisis, or even just a sick child.51
The data from the NSAF (household) survey accord with that from the NCS (employer) survey in
terms of the relationship of benefit access to hours worked and firm size. Employees who work
fewer hours are less likely to be offered time off with pay, and the incidence of paid leave is
lower at smaller than larger employers.
The availability of paid leave among working parents generally increases with job tenure. For
poor working parents, however, access to any kind of paid leave is as likely for those with less
than one year on the job as for those with two or more years of tenure. This might be the case if
poor parents tend to work part-time, in service occupations (e.g., food preparers, building
cleaners), or for small businesses—each associated with low provision of paid leave benefits (see
Table 1).
A Detailed Look at Paid Sick Leave
The Medical Expenditures Panel Survey (MEPS), co-sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare
Research and Quality and the National Center for Health Statistics, asks a nationally
representative sample of households in the civilian noninstitutional population about demographic
characteristics, job characteristics, and access to paid sick leave. In the following analysis of the
household component of MEPS data for 2004 undertaken by the Congressional Research Service,
individuals are considered employed if they had a job when they were interviewed or had a job to
return to on the date of the interview. Sick leave coverage is for the main job held on the
interview date. Self-employed persons and individuals who did not respond to the sick leave
question are excluded.
A little more than three in five workers (61.7%) reported that their employers provide paid sick
leave.52 The MEPS also asked households about access to paid vacations, which are available to
almost seven in ten employees (69.6%). Although the magnitudes not surprisingly vary given the
different employee populations and time periods they cover, the MEPS and NCS data agree that
relatively more workers have access to paid time off to take vacations than to care for illnesses or
injuries.
As shown in Table 2, relatively more employed women (63.2%) than men (60.3%) have sick
leave in their compensation package—a small but statistically significant difference. Married
persons (69.2%) also are significantly more likely than never-married individuals (47.3%), who
could include single parents, to have access to the leave benefit.
51 Phillips, Getting Time Off, p. 3.
52 The total employment on which the percentages were calculated is individuals who responded to both the paid sick
leave as well as demographic, income, and other questions.
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Leave Benefits in the United States
Although more than 60% of employees age 25 and older receive paid sick leave, this is true for
fewer than half as many younger workers. The high rate of part-time employment among young
workers and the low incidence of sick leave among part-timers may partly account for this
finding.
Table 2. Percent of Workers with Paid Sick Leave by
Selected Demographic Characteristics, 2004
Characteristic Total
Employed
Employed Persons
With Paid Sick Leave
All Workers
100.0%
61.7
Gender
Males 100.0%
60.3
Females 100.0%
63.2
Marital Status
Married 100.0%
69.2
Widowed, divorced or separated
100.0%
62.2
Never-married 100.0%
47.3
Age
16-24 years old
100.0%
27.9
25-34 years old
100.0%
64.4
35-44 years old
100.0%
68.8
44-54 years old
100.0%
72.9
55 years and older
100.0%
63.7
Ethnicity and Race
Hispanic 100.0%
45.3
Black, not Hispanic
100.0%
65.6
Asian, not Hispanic
100.0%
65.2
White, not Hispanic
100.0%
63.8
Source: Prepared by U.S. Congressional Research Service from the 2004 Medical Expenditures Panel Survey
(MEPS) household component.
Similarly, Hispanics are significantly less likely to receive paid sick leave than the non-Hispanic
groups shown in Table 2. The industry employment pattern among Hispanics may contribute to
this outcome, because they work at well above-average rates in a few industry groups where
access to paid sick leave is limited (i.e., construction, agriculture, leisure and hospitality). As
shown in Table 3, the fraction of workers with sick leave in these industry groups was well below
the average of 61.7%: in 2004, 32.2% of workers in construction, 22.5% in leisure and
hospitality, and 30.3% in natural resources had paid sick leave. (Leisure and hospitality is an
exception to the above-average incidence of paid sick leave in the service-producing sector noted
in Table 1, as is the “other services” industry group that includes automotive repair and
maintenance shops, beauty salons, and religious organizations).
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Leave Benefits in the United States
Table 3. Percent of Workers with Paid Sick Leave
by Industry, 2004
Industry Total
Employed
Employed Persons
With Sick Leave
Al industries
100.0%
61.7
Natural resources
100.0%
30.3
Mining 100.0%
55.2
Construction 100.0%
32.2
Manufacturing 100.0%
63.2
Wholesale and retail trade
100.0%
53.8
Transportation and utilities 100.0%
70.7
Information 100.0%
77.9
Financial activities
100.0%
76.9
Professional and business services
100.0%
66.3
Education, health, and social services
100.0%
75.1
Leisure and hospitality
100.0%
22.5
Other services
100.0%
46.2
Public administration
100.0%
90.3
Source: Prepared by U.S. Congressional Research Service from the 2004 Medical Expenditures Panel Survey
(MEPS) household component.
MEPS data suggest a positive relationship between educational attainment and the incidence of
paid sick leave. (See Table 4.) Just 28.0% of employees with less than 12 years of schooling have
paid sick leave compared to 80.8% of those who completed four years of college. Occupational
employment patterns may help explain this pattern because (as shown in Table 1) employers
generally require higher schooling levels for white-collar (e.g., professional) positions than for
blue-collar (e.g., construction) jobs or service (e.g., hairdresser) jobs.
Table 4. Percent of Workers with Paid Sick Leave by Education, 2004
Years of Schooling
Total Employed
Employed Persons
With Sick Leave
Total 100.0%
61.7
Fewer than 12 years
100.0%
28.0
12 years
100.0%
56.3
1-3 years of col ege
100.0%
64.1
4 years of col ege
100.0%
80.8
5 or more years of col ege
100.0%
85.0
Source: Prepared by U.S. Congressional Research Service from the 2004 Medical Expenditures Panel Survey
(MEPS) household component.
The MEPS data in Table 5 provide more detailed information on receipt of sick leave benefits by
occupation than the NCS data shown in Table 1. Persons in all but one white-collar occupational
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Leave Benefits in the United States
group report above-average access to paid sick leave.53 Persons in blue-collar occupations (e.g.,
automotive service technicians and mechanics, carpenters) and service occupations (e.g., nursing,
psychiatric, and home health aides; child care workers) report well below average receipt of sick
leave.54
Table 5. Percent of Workers with Paid Sick Leave by Occupation, 2004
Occupation Total
Employed
Employed Persons
With Sick Leave
Al occupations
100.0%
61.7
Management, business, and financial operations occupations
100.0%
86.9
Professional and related occupations
100.0%
79.5
Service occupations
100.0%
40.3
Sales and related occupations
100.0%
49.3
Office and administrative support jobs
100.0%
68.5
Farming, forestry, and fishing jobs
100.0%
21.8
Construction, extraction, and maintenance occupations
100.0%
42.8
Production, transportation, and material moving occupations
100.0%
50.0
Source: Prepared by U.S. Congressional Research Service from the 2004 Medical Expenditures Panel Survey
(MEPS) household component.
A positive relationship between employee earnings and the prevalence of paid sick leave appears
in the MEPS data, which echoes the pattern found in the NCS shown in Table 1.55 Just 16.9% of
persons who earned $7.25 an hour or less in 2004 received sick leave according to the data in
Table 6. The share almost quadruples among those who earned between $7.26 and $20.00 per
hour.56 The percentage of employees who had access to the benefit was still higher, over 80%,
for those paid more than $20.00 an hour. Part of the reason low-wage workers are less
frequently offered paid sick or other leave benefits may be that employers consider them more
easily replaceable than higher skilled workers in whom they tend to make greater investments
(e.g., training).
53 White-collar occupations are composed of the following major groups: management, business, and financial
operations; professional and related; sales and related; and office and administrative support.
54 Blue-collar occupations are composed of the following major groups: construction, extraction, and maintenance;
production, transportation, and material moving.
55 Additionally, a study of 2006 NCS microdata by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) estimated that
21% of workers in the bottom quartile of the wage distribution had paid sick leave in 2006 while 72% of workers in the
top quartile received the benefit. Testimony of IWPR President Heidi Hartmann before the U.S. Senate Committee on
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, Hearing on the Healthy Families Act, February 13, 2007.
56 An hourly rate of $7.25 was chosen because that is the wage to which the federal minimum was raised in P.L. 110-
28. The next interval ($7.26-$20.00) was chosen because the average hourly earnings of all wage and salary workers in
2004 was $20.34, as estimated by CRS from the March Supplement to the CPS.
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Leave Benefits in the United States
Table 6. Earnings of Workers with Paid Sick Leave by Earnings, 2004
Hourly Wage
Total Employed
Employed Persons
With Sick Leave
Total 100.0%
61.7
$7.25 or less
100.0%
16.9
$7.26-$20.00 100.0% 60.1
$20.01-$30.00 100.0% 82.9
$30.01-$40.00 100.0% 86.4
$40.01-$50.00 100.0% 90.8
Over $50.00
100.0%
83.5
Source: Prepared by U.S. Congressional Research Service from the 2004 Medical Expenditures Panel Survey
(MEPS) household component.
Cost to Employers
Paid time off from work composes a considerable part of the employee benefit package. The cost
to employers of offering leave with pay—$2.06 per hour worked on average in nonfarm private
industries and state and local government—nonetheless comes in behind insurance ($2.45) and
legally required benefits ($2.27). (See Table 7.) If Congress were to pass either of two proposed
paths to paid family-medical leave—a mandate, or a TDI program funded in part through a
payroll tax on employers—one would expect the compensation costs of employers to increase.
Because employees generally are no more valuable (i.e., productive) to businesses after
imposition of a benefit, however, they have no economically sound reason to raise their
workforce’s total compensation as a result of either congressional action. Economists therefore
theorize that firms will try to finance the added benefit cost by reducing or slowing the growth of
other components of compensation.
BLS computes benefit costs across all surveyed employers, whether or not they provide the
benefit. Therefore, the cost per hour worked will be affected by the incidence of benefit
provision. Not surprisingly then in light of the above-described frequency of provision by type of
leave, the employer’s average cost per hour worked is highest for vacations followed by holidays.
The lower incidence of sick leave benefits is reflected in its average cost being about one-third
that for vacations and one-half that for holidays.
A good deal of variation exists between private firms and state and local government in labor
costs for time not worked. The widest disparity between the two types of employers occurs in
connection with paid sick leave: the time off allowed employees to care for illness or injury
costs private firms 23 cents per hour worked on average; state and local government, 81 cents.
Once again, this difference reflects the generally greater prevalence of sick leave among
government workers.
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Leave Benefits in the United States
Table 7. Employer Costs Per Hour Worked for Employee Compensation,
December 2008
Civilian Workers in the Private Nonfarm Sector and in the Public Sector
Excluding Federal Employees
Compensation
Component
Total
Private Nonfarm
State and Local
Industry
Government
Cost Percent Cost Percent Cost Percent
Total
29.18 100.0
27.35 100.0
39.25 100.0
Wages and salaries
20.37 69.8
19.37 70.8
25.87 65.9
Benefits
8.81 30.2
7.98 29.2
13.38 34.1
Paid
leave
2.06 7.1
1.76 6.8
3.21 8.2
—Vacation
0.98 3.4
0.95 3.5
1.14 2.9
—Holiday
0.67 2.3
0.60 2.2
1.05 2.7
—Sick
0.32 1.1
0.23 0.8
0.81 2.1
—Personal
0.09 0.3
0.07 0.2
0.22 0.6
Supplemental paya 0.74 2.5
0.81 3.0
0.34 0.9
Insurance
2.45 8.4
2.09 7.6
4.43 11.3
—Health
2.31 7.9
1.95 7.1
4.25 10.8
Retirement
and
savings
1.29 4.4
0.96 3.5
3.07 7.8
Legally requiredb 2.27 7.8
2.26 8.3
2.32 5.9
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employer Costs for Employee Compensation—December 2007, March 12,
2009.
Note: Benefit costs are computed across al surveyed employers, whether or not they provide the benefit.
Percentages may not add to 100% due to rounding and omission of miscel aneous benefits.
a. Supplemental pay is premium pay for working overtime, weekends, or holidays; shift differentials; and
nonproduction bonuses.
b. Legally required benefits are social security, unemployment compensation, and workers’ compensation.
Within the private sector, the cost of leave benefits per hour worked usually is less on average at
smaller than larger companies because relatively few small businesses offer paid leave. (See
Table 8.) For example, the provision of paid sick leave at workplaces with 99 or fewer employees
averages 14 cents per hour worked; at workplaces with 100 or more employees, 32 cents per hour
worked. There is little variability in the average cost of sick leave provision between firms with 1
to 49 employees versus 50 to 99 employees. However, the average cost of offering employees
sick leave doubles between firms with 100 to 499 employees and 500 or more employees.
Table 8. Employer Costs Per Hour Worked for Leave Benefits by Type of Leave and
Firm Size, December 2008
Paid Leave
Size of Firm
Vacation Holiday
Sick Personal
All private industry workers
0.95 0.60
0.23
0.07
1 to 99 employees
0.62
0.43
0.14
0.04
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Leave Benefits in the United States
Paid Leave
Size of Firm
Vacation Holiday
Sick Personal
—1 to 49 employees
0.59
0.40
0.13
0.04
—50 to 99 employees
0.72
0.49
0.18
0.06
100 or more employees
1.31
0.79
0.32
0.09
—100 to 499 employees
0.98
0.63
0.23
0.07
—500 or more employees
1.73
1.00
0.44
0.13
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employer Costs for Employee Compensation—December 2008, March 12,
2009.
Concluding Remarks
Access to the paid time off from work that employers voluntarily provide is not evenly distributed
across employees. This unevenness appears to exacerbate wage inequality, with leave benefits
more often available to higher than lower paid workers, to more rather than less educated
workers, to white-collar compared to blue-collar or service workers, to persons working full-
rather than part-time, and to employees of larger in contrast to smaller firms.
The U.S. government has a comparatively limited role in mandating or regulating leave benefits.
The sole leave entitlement Congress passed—unpaid time off under the FMLA—has a long hotly
debated history. State governments have been more active in this policy area than the federal
government. Nonetheless, very few states appear interested in enacting individually a family-
medical leave statute that provides both cash benefits and job security. Businesses for their part
have been loosening the link between employment and benefit provision in the last several years
(e.g., the shift from traditional pensions to 401k retirement plans and ceasing to extend employee
health insurance to retirees).
Author Contact Information
Linda Levine
Specialist in Labor Economics
llevine@crs.loc.gov, 7-7756
Congressional Research Service
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