Half of U.S. workers don't know their state's paid sick leave laws—this tool can help

Cold and flu season has been brutal this year — have you taken any time off?

For U.S. workers, being able to take a sick day with pay isn't a guarantee. The U.S. is one of few developed countries that doesn't have a law requiring employers to offer paid days off for sick leave, or any other kind of family or medical leave for that matter.

In the absence of a federal law, workers rely on a patchwork of state laws or their private-sector employer for sick leave coverage. Even so, 50% of U.S. workers don't even know what paid sick leave they're entitled to through state and local laws, according to a 2023 survey of 1,000 workers sponsored by Theraflu and conducted by Wakefield research.

That's where AI can come in, says Reshma Saujani, founder and CEO of Moms First, an organization that supports women's economic empowerment and legislative policies for moms. She's also the founder and former CEO of Girls Who Code, the nonprofit that aims to close the gender gap in tech.

In 2023, she launched a site called PaidLeave.ai, a generative AI chatbot where parents and caregivers can ask questions based on their circumstances, then access and apply for state paid family leave benefits.

"When you looked at the states that did offer paid leave, the uptake levels were so low," Saujani says. A small share of workers, roughly 3% to 7%, actually leverage their state's benefit for paid family or medical leave each year, according to 2024 data from New America, a liberal think tank.

Saujani says workers are reluctant to take paid sick leave, even if they have access to it, "because the programs are really complex, and it requires going through pages and pages and pages of government websites, and people just give up."

That has a domino effect and creates a perception that people don't want to tap into their paid leave even if it's offered, Saujani says: "If the policy is not taken advantage of, it gets cut. And I think that's a really important lesson for paid leave, and why I think generative AI is a great solution for that."

Saujani's latest work, in partnership with Theraflu and A Better Balance, a nonprofit legal advocacy group for working families, aims to help workers understand their rights related to paid sick time.

"People don't know about their benefits," Saujani says. They wonder: "Do I live in a state that offers paid leave? Do I work for a company that offers paid leave? And so I think this idea of just knowing your rights and knowing whether you know you have paid sick time is really critical."

The joint "Right to Rest and Recover" initiative offers an educational hub and free, confidential legal helpline to help people understand what paid leave options they're entitled to. Visitors without access to paid leave through their employer can also apply for $200 microgrants intended to cover one day of unpaid sick leave.

Saujani recognizes that the American reluctance to take paid time off, even when they have access to it, also comes down to social stigma.

"I worked in finance, I worked in law, and you came to work sick — that was the culture," she says. "We really saw the price of that during Covid, where all of a sudden the culture shifted and it was like, no, don't come to work when you're sick."

However, "it feels as though we're reverting back as people are returning back to the office," she adds. "We're going back to kind of this kind of hustle work culture. Honestly, it's why I feel like everyone is sick again [now], because there isn't that same sense of, 'Well, I should stay home and rest.'"

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