Mandates are a predictable liberal solution for problems both real and percieved. The Huffington Post proved it again when it argued for a federal mandate for paid sick leave, claiming a new study offered a “compelling” reason for the law.
The attention grabbing headline from Oct. 21, claimed, “Flu Rate Would Decline Significantly If the U.S. Mandated Paid Sick Leave.”
The numbers beg to differ. “Significantly.”
Huffington Post’s Emily Peck wrote about a new working paper by economists at Cornell University and Swiss Economic Institute. The paper has yet to be peer reviewed. They estimated flu rates “would decrease by at least 5 percent,” if the U.S. had a pay sick leave law.
Five percent is a small figure, especially since only five to 20 percent of the total population catches the flu annually. Of all those cases, thousands of people die according to CDC data cited by Huffington Post.
Certainly, every flu caused death is tragic, but does the possible prevention of five percent of those through a federal mandate make sense? Huffington Post didn’t ask that question, instead they promoted government regulation and bashed critics. Peck also didn’t explore any other ways to reduce flu rates or flu deaths.
Peck pooh-poohed objections and criticism of a federal sick leave mandate saying, “Opponents of government-mandated leave like to say that forcing companies to pay workers when they’re ill is a ‘job killer.’ There’s little evidence to support that notion.”
She complained that the US “stubbornly refuses to pass a paid sick leave law” even though other nations do. Peck also called employers who do not offer paid sick leave “stingy.”
Yet, if employees become more expensive to employ (such as through mandatory paid sick leave) businesses will have to recoup that money somehow whether through lower pay, fewer employees or higher prices for service.
