Olive Garden's Expansion Of Paid Sick Leave During COVID-19 Reduced The Share Of Employees Working While Sick.

Daniel Schneider,Kristen Harknett,Elmer Vivas-Portillo

doi:10.1377/hlthaff.2020.02320

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has focused public and policy attention on the acute lack of paid sick leave for service-sector workers in the United States. The lack of paid sick leave is potentially a threat not only to workers’ well-being but also to public health. However, the literature on the effects of paid sick leave in the US is surprisingly limited, in large part because instances of paid sick leave expansion are relatively uncommon. We exploit the fact that large firms in the US were not required to expand paid sick leave during the COVID-19 pandemic but that one casual dining restaurant in particular, Olive Garden, faced intense public pressure to do so. We drew on data collected from 2017 through fall 2020 from 10,306 food service–sector workers in the US by the Shift Project, which include employer identifiers. Using a difference-in-differences design, we found strong evidence of an increase in paid sick leave coverage among Olive Garden workers, as well as evidence that this expansion reduced the incidence of working while sick among front-line food service workers.

Highlights

The COVID-19 pandemic has focused public and policy attention on the acute lack of paid sick leave for service-sector workers in the United States
In the years before COVID-19 (2017, 2018, and 2019), we see that very few workers at Olive Garden, about 23 percent, reported access to paid sick leave and that this share was slightly higher, at 30– 35 percent, at comparison employers
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought renewed attention to the acute lack of paid sick leave faced by millions of service-sector workers

Summary

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic has focused public and policy attention on the acute lack of paid sick leave for service-sector workers in the United States. The COVID-19 crisis has brought this lack of paid sick leave to the forefront of public and policy attention, with a particular focus on service-sector workers These include the front-line and “essential” workers who have continued to stock stores, fulfill takeout orders, and deliver necessities throughout the health crisis. Once employees have access to paid sick leave, community rates of influenza-like illness significantly decrease.[7,15]

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Results

Conclusion