Do Americans not get sick leave?? What’s your sick leave policy?

[Youngandfree]

Just that really and posting here for traffic? I’m forever seeing posts on Facebook etc from ppl in the US (and actually sometimes uk) about how they are sick all week and so they have no pay from work?? Surely if under a permanent contract then you have sick leave allowance, I can understand in some jobs (0 hour contracts etc). Genuinely interested, not criticizing! I have known ppl in jobs to be off for months at a time with back problems/stress etc and they have been paid. What’s your Sick leave policy?
Mine is as follows:
For an ordinary illness, a teacher has access to 183 days of paid sick leave in a rolling four year period. This is subject to a further limit of 92 days of full pay in any single twelve month period. After 92 days full pay sick leave in a twelve month period, the teacher will move on to half pay.

Is standard serious or...

BTW I don't even get SSP as I am self-employed - something which is conveniently forgotten by people who say I am a wealthy tax-dodger (I am not).

I was a teacher in a local school. We got 12 days paid sick
leave and 3 days paid personal leave a year. Unused days could be rolled over and added to the next year, up to a maximum of 180 days.
When you retired you were paid for any unused days. Also, you could DONATE a maximum of 3 days a year to any colleague who was suffering an illness and had used up their sick leave.

I just get SSP, i took two days off straight after a broken rib which led to other symptoms afterwards last year, but only took further days off because of them if i couldn't stand up with the dizziness as I'm paid minimum wage working in a pharmacy (I do have qualifications in my job) I've just decided to stay until i hopefully have a DC and go on mat leave rather than have the stress of moving jobs and risk not having mat pay.

I can take a maximum of 26 weeks of paid sick leave nowadays (you need >10 years service to be entitled to this amount).

I think my company is pretty good on this sort of thing (maternity leave is 9 months on full pay once you’ve got >5 years service, and 12 weeks on full pay, then SMP if you’ve got between 6 months and 5 years service).

@standardaccount seriously...it’s a valid conversation that ppl have?? No need to be so rude! If you don’t want to answer then don’t!

Another thing to keep in mind about US healthcare is that it's taken from your wages before tax, unlike here where you either pay out of taxable (taxed) income or if you are given it by an employer you pay income tax on the value of the benefit. Americans also get tax relief on Children and other dependents that we don't get.

I’m in the UK and I don’t get sick pay from my work. Only statutory sick pay from your 4th consecutive day off. Most illnesses I seem to have only last a day or two so have never been paid sickness

I live and work in the USA and it came as a massive shock to me coming from the UK just how little paid time off - sick, vacation, maternity leave - you get here. It depends on your employer and what state you are in and how many employees there are. I live in a relatively progressive state but even so it’s dire. Where I work we get a generous (sarcasm alert) 3 days paid personal time off allowance we can/have to use for sick leave if necessary. I’ve been there 10 years and have accrued a whopping 3 weeks vacation. Most if they really are that sick they can’t struggle into work and have used all their pto, then have to use vacation time if they have any or go without pay. No work no pay as a previous poster said. If it’s a long term illness you’ll probably find yourself out if a job altogether and then you lose your workplace medical insurance. It’s dreadful.

Workers' rights are terrible in the US.
Right wing people want the UK to go the same way and it's a big part of what Brexit is all about.
We have to be very, very, careful that we don't end up in a similar situation.

@standardaccount Is that you, Donald Trump?

...and this is what Farage and his neo-liberal Brexit party are fighting to bring to the UK. They want to save Britain from all of those pesky European workers rights.

Accrual is very different in my experience in the US. So in the UK, if you're in a salaried job with a contract, you'll have the allowances for annual leave, sick leave, maternity leave etc. built in from the start. But in the US I think it's pretty common to have to accrue these during your working period. You might not have any for the first six months, for example, though usually if you needed to use one or two (especially after you'd worked for a couple of months) you'd be allowed to bring it forward. Even then, you'd have to have worked somewhere for several years before you get anything like the kind of annual leave allowance that's normal in the UK.

Plenty of workers in the UK on permanent contracts only get SSP.

For the last 15yrs (lots of different jobs though) I’ve only had SSP.

As I get older it is a worry.

Sorry @Merryoldgoat I meant to say that was when we lived in the US, now in UK I get statutory sick.

Bloody hell standard

settle down

In the US sick pay is generally paid via disability insurance - short term and long term. Usually short term disability kicks in after you've been off for say a week and pays 60% of your pay, then after 3-12 months you move into long term disability which is around 50% of pay for life. At that point you can also apply for social security disability. Most companies offer disability insurance because they get a tax break for doing so and it's not particularly expensive.

Depending on how long you've worked for an employer they'll often pay you more on top of or before disability kicks in.

Childbirth is generally classed as a qualifying condition for 6 weeks of disability.

bridgetreilly

In DH’s company he will need to be there for 8 years to get the same leave as the UK. However his US company is so much more family friendly and Work from home friendly than the UK

..and this is what Farage and his neo-liberal Brexit party are fighting to bring to the UK. They want to save Britain from all of those pesky European workers rights
SSP is already above the EU minimum requirements. We aren't getting any generous sick pay from the EU, just to be clear.

In my last job, the amount of paid sick leave increased with length of employment. I was up to 6 months full pay, then 6 month half pay, then on to Statutory Sick Pay. There are people I've known exhaust all of that, but the company didn't dare sack them as all the absence was disability related. I know that we are lucky here in the UK & EU to an extent.

I was in a US supermarket whilst on holiday there a few years ago and our cashier had one of those hospital bracelets on. She looked very poorly and I asked if she was ok. She told me she'd had surgery the day before and, although recovering and in lots of pain, she was scared, and couldn't afford, to have more than that 1 day off work. She was gobsmacked when I told her about our entitlements and rights.

Disability payments in the US are very hard to get. pretty much all are denied at the first application many need to employ a lawyer to help re apply, I had friends in US who really were disabled, were talking back surgery, unable to walk far, issed a blue badge, on super painkillers just to function minimally and still took over a year to get disability.

It's going the same way here, courtesy of the Tory party and everyone who votes for them.

My daughter was offered a job by a US company. Three weeks paid 'absence' a year; she could use the time off for being sick or being on a beach - entirely up to her. Any days off after those fifteen would be unpaid. Salary was great and working for a really nice guy; that's just the way they work it over there.
She is still working in London