Sick Days:
Frequently Asked Questions

What are sick days?

Everyone gets sick from time to time. Living in Montana, we know that especially during the winter, a cold or the flu is inevitable. All workers and their families need paid sick days to give them time to visit a doctor, recover from illness, or support a sick child or loved one without sacrificing their wages or their job.

How would sick days work?

Sick days are workplace protections passed by either a state law or local ordinance. If passed in Montana, a policy would guarantee that workers could earn a few sick days each year. Unlike paid family and medical leave, sick days policies are for short-term illnesses or injuries and would not require the creation of an insurance pool to fund the program.

How does earning sick days support working families in Montana?

Sick days help parents remain financially secure while balancing home and work demands.

• Especially for Montanans living paycheck to paycheck, the loss of even one day’s earnings, to recover from the flu or to take care of a sick child, can be devestating to the family’s ability to pay bills.
• Parents with paid sick days are more likely to stay home with a sick child, which helps kids recover quicker, and the more time kids are healthy and in class, the better they do in school. Keeping sick children at home also prevents the spread of illness to classmates.

How do sick days support businesses and our economy?

When working families have a reliable income that they can count on, regardless of unexpected illnesses, this money flows back into our local economies.

• Paid sick days can help reduce unemployment.
• When workers come to work sick, they are less productive. This costs employers $234 billion a year, which is considerably more than the cost of workers absent from work due to sickness.

How do sick days support public health?

Paid sick days keep workplaces healthier by preventing the spread of disease to others.

• Without sick days, people are forced to go to work regardless of their illness, which spreads public health risks to workers and customers. During the coronavirus pandemic, 20,000 front-line employees at one company alone contracted Covid-19.
• Low-wage workers – who often work in food service, health care, and childcare jobs – are the least likely to have access to paid sick days. Workers in sectors such as these are also at higher risk of Covid-19 infection.

Do other states and communities have sick day laws?

15 states and 38 cities have passed earned sick days laws, helping over 16 million people. Currently, 49 percent of private-sector workers in Montana do not have access to paid sick days through their employers. Passing a sick days law would provide these workers the opportunity to earn a minimum number of sick days each year and be able to remain financially secure when they need to care for themselves and loved ones.