What sick pay costs
Just in time for the potential vote in Philadelphia on paid sick days is the monthly report from the U.S. Labor Department on compensation costs. Reading through the report makes it easy to see why restaurant workers and restaurant owners are lining up on opposite sides of this bill.
What sick pay costs
Jane M. Von Bergen, Inquirer Staff Writer
Just in time for the potential vote in Philadelphia on paid sick days legislation is the monthly report from the U.S. Labor Department on compensation costs. Reading through the report makes it easy to see why restaurant workers and restaurant owners are lining up on opposite sides of this legislation.
For most private employees, the U.S. Labor Department said Tuesday, all paid leave amounts to 6.9 percent of compensation.
Obviously wages are the largest component of a workers' compensation package -- 70.3 percent for most private sector workers. Various benefits and mandates account for the rest. After wages, legally required benefits, such as Social Security payments, add up to 8.2 percent of wages. Health insurance is next at 7.7 percent and paid leave follows that. Paid leave includes vacation, holidays and sick pay. Of those, vacation costs were the most expensive at $1.03 an hour for the average employee. Sick pay was 25 cents per hour.
The cost of paid leave benefits tend to follow salary rates and they also vary by sector. Paid leave in the information industry, for example, runs $4.12 an hour, at 8.9 percent of total compensation. That's the highest. By contrast, paid leave in the leisure and hospitality sector, which includes restaurants, is the lowest. It runs at 39 cents, or 3.1 percent of total average compensation.
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I cut hair and the salon I work at on south street doesn't give us any sick days or medical benefits. I work full-time as well, so I don't understand why we are not entitled to those things. I wish that they would pass laws to make all employers give their hard working staff the benefits they deserve. I cut probably 20-30 heads a day at that place.- you're not 'entitled' to anything other than minimum wage. if you want paid time off, work somewhere else.
i'm willing to bet you don't claim all of your tips on your taxes, so the money you're hiding from uncle sam can cover you for the days you're too sick to work.— Zero - Obviously, you and your family ARE entitled to benefits through your employer, no? Therefore, anyone else who works and PAYS taxes is not? Do us a favor - next time you need someone to hide your bald spot go visit Bosley.
- I'm not entitled to anything through my employer. I stay with my employer because my compensation is suitable. If I was displeased with my compensation or benefits, I would simply go elsewhere.
— jfar86 - Americans get less time off from work than almost any other first world nation. we work an average of ten weeks a year more than the average German worker. and Germany's economy is booming. We are working ourselves to death.— Ryan
- Thank You. That other monster who put me down so ugly is obviously constipated with anger.
- "We are working ourselves to death." Haven't laughed that hard in a long time. Thanks for sharing your lunacy. lol — b,ill a,tkins
- I take great offense at that ZERO who considers the job of cutting hair a "minimum wage" career. These are the same people who bring their screaming children in and stand beside you instructing us on how to cut each and every strand and then tip $2 after taking up 45 minutes of client time. I love when they want us to make them another appointment. Fat chance.
- Maybe it's your lousy attitude that earns you a 2 dollar tip. No one told you to go into the hair cutting business, and further more, no one told you to accept the job your currently at.
— 835union - If you're so great, why not go work for yourself? — b,ill a,tkins
- Oh, that Zero made me so annoyed. May their scalp get psoriasis for being so cruel.
- I LOVE Tammy Weerds! You tell 'em kid! I hope you get your own shop soon. My sister was a hairdresser and that job is tough. If you work full time, your employer should provide paid time off - say five days a year to start and up to twenty days after ten years.— Themonkofmagdalena
Sick pay is a term to relegate our humanity to by business interests into a category of humiliating and degrading servile status. The word entitlement is now used by right wing business promoters to erode the rights of citizens by making outrageous property claims on other people's lives. Apparently, once we set foot at work, we stop becoming naturally endowed with rights and become arrogant, extorting gangsters for wanting to support our families and earn living. And these attacks are base on the aristocratic presumption of business owners who treat people as solely workers, with no other aspect to their lives than that of the cost of labor. Once we are reduced to this dehumanized status, a cost component, any move we make to disrupt the equation of profits in favor of business owners becomes some crazy entitlement, that is not the result of the hard working sweat of our brow and a back breaking days work. We are expected to grovel before our superiors, our job creators, as if they are the divine source of work direct from god almighty, the truly entitled one, and everyone else is following a radical, dangerous and childlike delusion. Without the people who do the work, no business owner could grow beyond being a sole proprietor, a one man shop. Google has 53,000 employees and dozens of services and treats the employees as if they are entitled to their humanity, which of course, we are all. Naturally endowed with rights means just that. Anything less is tyranny.
Comment removed.- Tammy- I applaud your hard work but I think you are barking up the wrong tree. Why don't you open your own salon and offer your employees paid sick leave. When you realize the cost and how if affects your margins you will understand.— Niko
