Sixty-two percent of South Carolina workers do not or cannot use the benefits of unpaid leave, an analysis shows, a harsh reality during the COVID-19 pandemic that forced work interruptions due to illness or quarantine.
THE Family and Sick Leave Law grants workers the right to 12 weeks of unpaid leave. But less than half of all employees are actually able to use it, either because they do not qualify or because their income is too low to justify the use of unpaid time.
South Carolina’s rate is median compared to other states in the analysis, produced by National Partnership for Women and Families, a left-wing non-profit organization.
“For many people, they are already so financially precarious that staying away from work without pay is really impossible,” said Jessica Mason, senior policy analyst at the partnership. “Our workplaces do not reflect the fact that people will inevitably need time away from their jobs for these critical purposes.”
Alternatively, Mason said, during the pandemic, people continued to work while they were sick or faced with job loss.
Although the law provides that at least some workers have guaranteed unpaid vacations, the issue of paid leave is up to employers to offer.
Three quarters of all employees across the country have paid leave of some kind, according to the Secretariat of Labor Statistics. But that number can vary depending on the sector; only 52% of employees in the hospitality sector have access to the benefit, for example.
Among all regions of the United States, workers on the southern coast are the least likely to have paid or unpaid family leave in their benefits package, according to the National Compensation Survey.
The National Partnership is defending a bill in Congress sponsored by two House Democrats. According to the proposal, workers would have access to a national program of paid family leave and sick leave that would compensate a percentage of their wages while on leave.
Most Democratic and Republican voters support the overarching idea of a national license policy paid for by the federal government. The notion was supported by both parties, with the right-wing think tank American Enterprise Institute writing in late 2020 in support of creating a new federal benefit, but differing in the number of weeks covered by the benefit and how to pay for it.
The issue only gained further momentum during COVID-19, when Congressional coronavirus relief focused on two weeks of mandatory sick leave for anyone with COVID-19 or quarantine; this aid expired on 31 December.
Catch up Mary Katherine Wildeman at 843-607-4312. Follow her on Twitter @mkwildeman.