As the raging Omicron version of COVID-19 infects workers across America, millions of people whose jobs don't provide paid sick days are having to choose between their health and their paychecks .
While many companies established more robust sick leave policies at the start of the pandemic, some of them have since been scaled back with the rollout of vaccines.
Meanwhile, the current labor shortage is adding to the pressure of workers to decide whether they should be sick to show up for their jobs if they can't afford to stay at home.
"It's a vicious circle," said Daniel Schneider, a professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. "Since staffing is reduced because people are sick, it means those who are at work have more to do and are even more reluctant to get sick when they are sick."
Low-income hourly workers are particularly vulnerable. While about 80 percent of all private sector workers get at least one paid sick day, only 33 percent of workers whose wages are below 10 percent, according to a national survey conducted in March by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, They get paid sick leave, compared to 95 percent in the top 10 percent.
A recent survey of nearly 6,600 hours of low-wage workers conducted by Harvard's Shift Project found that 65 percent of workers who reported being sick in the past month said they went to work anyway.
This is less than the 85 percent who came to work sick before the pandemic, but much higher than it should be in the midst of a public health crisis. Schneider says it could get worse because of the lack of Omicron and labor.
Schneider noted that the share of workers with paid sick leave before the pandemic was only 1 percent during the pandemic, and many of those surveyed don't even have $US400 ($A556) in emergency funds. He further added that the termination of Child Tax Credit families are now facing even worse financial conditions.
The Associated Press interviewed a worker who started a new job with the state of New Mexico last month and began experiencing COVID-like symptoms earlier in the week. The worker, who asked not to be named as it could jeopardize his employment, took a day off for the test and two more days to wait for the results.
A supervisor called and told the worker that they would be eligible for paid sick days only if the COVID test turned positive. If the test is negative, the employee will have to spend days without pay, as they do not have enough time for sick leave.
“I thought I was doing the right thing by protecting my coworkers,” said the worker, who is still awaiting results and estimates that $US160 ($A222) per day if they test negative. ) will cost. "Now I wish I had just gone to work and said nothing."
A Trader Joe's employee in California, who also asked not to be named, said that the company allows accrued paid time off for holidays or sick days, but once that time is used up, employees often do so. Looks like they can't take unpaid days off.
Trader Joe's offered hazard pay until last spring, and paid time off even if workers had COVID-related symptoms, but the worker said those benefits had been exhausted. The company also no longer requires customers to wear masks in all of its stores.
Other companies are similarly reducing the sick leave they offered earlier in the pandemic. Kroger, the nation's largest traditional grocery chain, is ending some benefits for non-vaccinated salaried workers in an effort to get more of a jab in an effort to get more because of COVID-19 cases. grow again.
Non-vaccinated workers enrolled in Kroger's health care plan will no longer be eligible to receive up to two weeks of paid emergency leave if they become infected -- a policy that was implemented last year when vaccines became unavailable.
Meanwhile, Walmart, the nation's largest retailer, is slashing pandemic-related paid leave in half -- from two weeks to one -- after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention slashed isolation requirements for people who have There are no symptoms after testing positive.
The increasing number of states has brought some relief to the workers. According to the National Convention of State Legislatures, over the past decade, 14 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws or ballots that require employers to provide paid sick leave.
On the federal front, however, the movement has stalled. Congress passed a law in the spring of 2020 requiring most employers to provide paid sick leave for employees with COVID-related illnesses. But the requirement expired on 31 December of the same year.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, Congress later extended tax credits to employers who voluntarily provide paid sick leave, but the extension ended in late September.
In November, the US House passed a version of President Joe Biden's Build Back Better plan that would require employers to provide 20 days of paid leave for employees who are sick or caring for a family member. But the future of that bill in the Senate is uncertain.
“We cannot do a kind of patchwork. It should be holistic. It has to be meaningful,” said Josephine Kalipeni, executive director of Family Values@Work, a national network of 27 state and local coalitions that helps advocate for policies like paid sick days.
According to a 2020 study by the World Policy Analysis Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, the US is one of only 11 countries worldwide with no federal mandate for paid sick leave.
On the other hand are small business owners like Don Crowley, CEO of House Cleaning Heroes, who can't afford to pay workers when they're sick.
But Crowley is trying to help out in other ways. He recently took a cleaner to a nearby test site who didn't have a car. Later he bought some medicine, orange juice and oranges to the cleaner.
"If they're out, I try to give them money but at the same time my company has to survive," Crowley said. "If the company goes down, nobody has work."