Access to paid sick leave, vacations, and holidays varies by wage category

Among workers in private industry, 64 percent had access to paid sick leave in March 2016. Workers in lower wage categories were less likely to have access to paid sick leave than more highly paid workers. For private-industry workers with an average wage in the lowest 10 percent, 27 percent had access to paid sick leave; among workers with an average wage in the highest 10 percent, 87 percent had access to paid sick leave.

Paid vacations were available to 76 percent of private industry workers in March 2016, and paid holidays were available to 77 percent. As with paid sick leave, lower-paid workers in private industry were less likely than higher-paid workers to have access to paid vacations and paid holidays.

State and local government workers were more likely than workers in private industry to have access to paid sick leave but less likely to have access to paid vacations and holidays. As with workers in private industry, state and local government workers in the lower wage categories were less likely to have access to paid sick leave than workers in higher wage categories. This was not the case for paid vacations and holidays, however. State and local government workers in the middle wage categories were more likely to have access to paid vacations and holidays than workers in lower and higher wage categories.

These data are from the National Compensation Survey — Benefits program. For more information, see “Employee Benefits in the United States — March 2016” (HTML) (PDF).