school « Washington Policy Watch

May 13, 2011 • 8:57 am 0

Paid sick days: Children’s health and education

Evaluating Paid Sick Leave: Social, economic and health implications for Seattle

From the report Evaluating Paid Sick Leave
Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |10

A parent’s lack of paid sick leave can have a negative impact on the child’s health and school performance. For 74.4% of school-age children and 64.2% of preschoolers in Seattle, all parents in the family are in the work force.

Caring for a sick child or taking a child to see a health care provider during regular business hours is a significant problem without sick leave. Many childcare centers and schools have policies requiring sick children to stay home. The CDC recommends keeping children at home for 24 hours after a fever subsides.

The Seattle Public Schools and Seattle King County Public Health recommend keeping children suspected of having H1N1 home for at least 7 days and until all symptoms are gone for 24 hours.

Studies show children recover more quickly from illness with a parent present. Older children are sometimes kept home from school to care for younger siblings when parents are not able to take time off from work, affecting the older child’s educational outcomes.

Children in families with lower incomes are much less likely to have a parent with access to sick leave than higher income children. A study of employed parents based on 2003 and 2004 data found that just 36.3% of children in families with incomes below 200% of the federal poverty level had a parent with access to paid sick leave, compared to 80.9% of higher income children.

Children in low income families are also more likely to be in poor health. In Washington, 30% of children in families below the poverty level were rated by their parents as being in less than very good health, compared to about 9% of middle and upper income children.

Parents with low incomes are far more likely to take time off work to care for a child or other family member if they had paid sick leave. The 2010 San Francisco survey found that parents without access to sick leave were more likely to send a sick child to school: 75.9% of parents without access to paid sick days said their child had gone to school while sick, compared to 53.8% of parents with paid sick days.

Filed under: paid sick days, work and family, paid sick days, paid sick leave, public health, school

June 4, 2010 • 11:11 am 1

Cough if you need sick leave

The short, lumpy red couch in Stili Klikizos’ second-grade classroom at Milwaukee’s Fratney Elementary School was meant for quiet-time reading. Now it’s “the sick couch,” a place for ill students to lie down as they await the bus that takes everybody home at day’s end. “The parents work and will lose pay if they come get them,” she told me as I sat on the couch. Thanks to her union contract, Klikizos gets 12.5 paid sick days a year. Many of her students’ parents aren’t so fortunate. “It crosses socioeconomic lines. Sometimes kids tell me not to even call, since ‘Mom will get fired if she leaves.’” Last year, several couch-sitters were belatedly diagnosed with swine flu.

The no-show parents are among the 40 percent of the private sector who don’t receive sick pay. Among full-time workers, 73 percent are covered by paid medical days. (Ninety-one percent have paid vacation, 89 percent paid holidays). The percentage is far lower on every count for part-time workers, though it’s not just the motel cleaning lady or immigrant dishwasher who is scared to call in sick, see a doctor, or pick up a kid from school. Retail sales supervisors and information technology managers deal with the same domestic crises.

Initiative 1098 vs. Initiative 1077: What’s the difference?

Left to right: Marilyn Watkins, John Burbank, and Bill Gates Sr. sign Initiative 1098

It was deja vu all over again yesterday as supporters of Initiative 1098 heard a pep talk from Bill Gates, Sr. and picked up the very first petitions for the campaign — just like the Initiative 1077 kickoff that took place almost exactly one month ago. So what’s the difference between the two measures? And why was I-1077 refiled as I-1098?

In virtually every respect, the two measures are the same. If approved by voters, I-1098 will:

Exempt every small business in Washington from the B&O tax with a $4,800 business tax credit;

Reduce the state portion of the property tax by 20 percent;

Create a modest income tax on income over $400,000 per year (for couples) or $200,000 per year (for individuals); and

Invest the net revenue — estimated at over $1 billion per year — in education and health care.

The difference between the two measures is simply this: I-1098 adds language that ensures domestic partners are treated the same as married couples when it comes to filing a single or joint return for the new state income tax. And since adding language to a ballot measure effectively makes it a new initiative, Washington State requires the initiative to be refiled and assigned a new number by the state attorney general’s office.

Looking for more information about Initiative 1098? Visit the Economic Opportunity Institute website.

Filed under: tax and budget, budget, health, health care, I-1098, property tax, public policy, school, tax reform

February 13, 2010 • 4:59 pm 0

News and Views: Saving public colleges, fixing Washington’s budget, and protecting working families

University centers create economic opportunity | As the budget picture worsens, higher education is again a target for policymakers, even as they argue that their top priority is economic recovery. If lawmakers want to grow the economy and revive the state’s workforce, they should be investing in higher education — not steadily withdrawing state support from our colleges and universities. | More: Everett Herald

Washington state’s budget deficit swells more, but revenue picture improves | Washington’s budget deficit grew to about $2.8 billion, but early signs of an economic recovery are making the state’s financial future a bit brighter. The new deficit figure stems from Friday’s report of the state Economic and Revenue Forecast Council, which formulates the official estimate of future state tax collections. The report showed a state economy that appears to be stabilizing, with growth in state revenues returning over the next few years. | More: Everett Herald

Why I-960 is unworkable in this grim reality | Standing between Democrats in the state Legislature and their vote to increase taxes to help close a $2.2 budget shortfall is Initiative 960, passed by voters in November 2007. The simple truth is this: The bottom has fallen out of the economy since voters approved the tax-limiting initiative more than two years ago. The landscape has shifted. | More: Olympian

The Worst of the Pain | When it comes to employment, there are roughly three broad categories in the United States. The folks in the upper-income group are not suffering much, if at all, from the profound reversals in employment brought about by the Great Recession. Those in the middle have been hit hard. The job losses there have been severe and long-lasting. But for those in the lower-income groups, the scale of the employment crisis has been mind-boggling. | More: New York Times

The Three Faces of Work-Family Conflict | These are the three faces of work-family conflict in our country today. These are the families that need comprehensive work-family government policies that give them all the opportunity to achieve the American dream. | More: MomsRising Blog

Filed under: education, state economy, tax and budget, work and family, budget, childcare, children, economic security, economy, family, higher education, middle class, paid family leave, politics, public policy, revenue, school, taxes, united states, washington state, women, work

Washington Policy Watch

Paid sick days: Children’s health and education

Cough if you need sick leave

Initiative 1098 vs. Initiative 1077: What’s the difference?

News and Views: Saving public colleges, fixing Washington’s budget, and protecting working families

Budget and Taxes

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Family-wage Jobs

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Paid Sick Days

Paid Family Leave

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