A bill in Congress that would require employers to offer workers seven paid sick days a year has fostered a classic debate between liberals who want government to protect workers, and conservatives who say the last thing business needs is another government-imposed mandate.
Now a new poll by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago shows strong public support for such legislation.
The survey of 1,461 randomly selected people found that 86 percent of respondents favored legislation that would guarantee up to seven paid sick days a year, while 14 percent opposed such legislation.
According to the survey, which was released on Monday, 69 percent of respondents said paid sick days were “very important” for workers, with 78 percent of women compared with 61 percent of men saying paid sick days were “very important.” Sixty-four percent of respondents who described themselves as strong Republicans said paid sick days were “very important” as a labor standard, compared with 85 percent of those who identified themselves strong Democrats.
“Americans overwhelmingly view paid sick days as a basic labor right,” said Tom W. Smith, a senior fellow at the National Opinion Research Center and director of the study, “Paid Sick Days: Attitudes and Experiences.”
Mr. Smith said that by a margin of 33 points, voters were more likely to support a political candidate who favored paid sick days. Forty-seven percent of respondents said they would be more likely to back a candidate who supported paid sick days, while 14 percent said they would be less likely to vote for such a candidate.
The survey found that 55 percent of respondents who said they were not eligible for paid sick days said they had at some point gone to work with a contagious illness like the flu or a viral infection, compared with 37 percent who said they received paid sick days. Twenty-four percent of those who did not receive paid sick days said they had sent a sick child to school or day care because they had to go to work. That compared with 14 percent of those who were eligible for paid sick days.
The poll was sponsored by the Public Welfare Foundation, a Washington-based foundation that describes itself as “supporting efforts to ensure fundamental rights and opportunities for people in need”
Unhappy that an estimated 40 million American workers do not receive paid sick days, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the late Massachusetts Democrat, and Representative Rosa DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat, reintroduced the Healthy Families Act in May 2009.
Their bill would require all employers with 15 or more employees to provide seven paid sick days a year. The bill has 125 co-sponsors in the House and 25 in the Senate. With Mr. Kennedy’s death, Senator Chris Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, has become the bill’s main sponsor in the Senate. The Obama administration backs the legislation, although many business groups oppose it, saying it would significantly raise their costs.
San Francisco and the District of Columbia have legislation in place requiring paid sick days, while voters in Milwaukee have approved a referendum requiring paid sick days, although that is being challenged in state court. The New York City Council is also debating such legislation.
The survey found that just 17 percent of respondents said employers with fewer than 15 employees should be exempted from providing any sick days. Forty seven percent said smaller employers should provide “some but fewer” paid sick days than other employers.
The survey found that workers who did not receive paid sick days and therefore faced more difficulty in scheduling daytime doctors’ appointments were more likely to use hospital emergency rooms. Twenty percent of respondents not eligible for paid sick days (compared with 10 percent of those who received paid sick days) said they used hospital emergency rooms because they “were unable to take off from work to get medical care during normal job hours.”