Paid Sick Leave

How paid sick leave laws work

Connecticut passed the first statewide law in 2011. Since then, about 20 states plus Washington, D.C. have followed, often through ballot measures, and many cities and counties have their own ordinances, sometimes more generous than state law. Illinois went further in 2024 with a law giving employees paid leave they can use for any reason.

Most laws share a structure:

• Accrual: employees earn leave as they work, commonly 1 hour per 30 hours worked, starting on the first day of work.
• Waiting period: many laws let employers delay use for up to 90 days after hire.
• Caps: employers may cap annual use or total accrual, commonly at 40, 48 or 56 hours a year.
• Carryover: unused leave usually carries over to the next year, subject to caps, unless the employer frontloads the full amount at the start of each year.
• Covered uses: the employee's own illness, injury or medical care, care for a family member, and safe leave for domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking. Some laws add school closures or public health emergencies.
• Documentation: employers generally can't demand a doctor's note for short absences, often until more than three consecutive days are taken.
• No payout required at separation in most states, unless the employer combines sick leave into a general PTO policy that state law treats as wages.

Frontloading vs accrual

Employers can either track accrual every pay period or give employees the annual amount up front. Frontloading 40 hours on January 1 is simpler to administer and avoids carryover tracking in many states, but new hires mid-year still need a prorated amount or accrual until the next frontload. Accrual is cheaper for high-turnover hourly workforces where many employees leave before using much leave, but it requires accurate hour tracking and pay-stub reporting in states that require balances to be shown.

Many multi-state employers adopt a single PTO policy that meets the most generous requirement in any state where they operate. That simplifies administration but can raise costs if it gives more than required elsewhere.

Why it matters for hourly and high-volume employers

Paid sick leave collides most often with attendance policies. A contact center or warehouse using an attendance point system cannot assign points for protected sick leave. Most laws prohibit counting covered absences as occurrences, and retaliation for using sick leave is the most common type of claim under these laws.

What works in practice:

• Separate protected sick absences from unprotected absences in your timekeeping codes.
• Train supervisors not to ask for detailed medical reasons. The employee usually only needs to say it's for a covered reason.
• Set call-out rules that are reasonable. Many laws allow employers to require notice "as soon as practicable" for unforeseeable absences, but not to deny leave because the notice rule wasn't followed perfectly.
• Distinguish sick leave from no-call no-show situations, where the employee gives no notice at all.

For longer absences, sick leave may run alongside FMLA leave or a state paid family leave program, and some states let employees use sick leave to cover a waiting week.

Common mistakes

• Points for sick days. Counting protected leave under attendance rules is the single most common violation.
• Demanding doctor's notes for one-day absences.
• Forgetting part-time, temporary and seasonal workers. Most laws cover them from day one.
• Ignoring local ordinances that are stricter than state law, such as those in several large cities.
• Not showing balances on pay stubs where required.

This is general information. Sick leave laws vary by state and city and change often, so check the rules for each work location.