From the Drum Major Institute's 2008 Injustice Index on Paid Sick Leave:
Rank of “stay home when you are sick” on the list of Centers for Disease Control recommendations for preventing the flu: 2
Proportion of employees without paid sick leave who worry that taking time off when they are sick would jeopardize their job: 1 in 3
Percentage of employees without paid sick leave who say they cannot afford to take unpaid time off work when they become ill: 58
Number of countries that require employers to provide a week or more of paid sick leave annually: 136
Number of days of paid sick leave guaranteed by the United States: 0
Number of private sector employees in the U.S. without a single paid sick day at work: 46 million
Percentage of Americans who agree that employers should be required to provide paid sick days, according to a 2007 poll: 80
Proportion of U.S. employees who say they have contracted the flu virus from a sick co-worker: 3 in 10
Year in which Pope Gregory the Great urged his people to say "may God bless you" when a person sneezed to protect the blessed person from death by the bubonic plague: 580 CE
Year in which talk radio host Glenn Beck used Senator Barack Obama’s support for paid sick leave as evidence that “Democrats are communist”: 2008
Average lost productivity to businesses per employee per year when employees show up to work despite suffering from a respiratory infection: $133.84
Cost of one 18.6 oz. can of Campbell’s Chunky Classic Chicken Noodle Soup from FreshDirect, an online grocer: $2.69
Maximum number of hours the flu virus remains alive on an inanimate surface like a door knob, office desk or telephone: 8
Percentage of food and accommodation workers who don’t have paid sick leave: 86
Percentage of New York City restaurant workers who say they had gone to work sick: 52
Maximum number of points off a New York City Health Department restaurant inspection for the presence of a worker who “prepares food or handles utensil when ill with a disease transmissible by food:” 28
Number of points it takes to fail an inspection: 28
Number of well-baby check-ups the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends for healthy children during the first year of life: 7
Number of workers who do not have paid leave to care for sick children or bring them to the doctor: 86 million
Odds that a woman living in poverty loses pay when she stays home from work to care for a sick child: 3 in 4
Proportion of the adult U.S. population who currently have some caregiving responsibilities for another adult, such as a disabled or elderly relative: 1 in 5
Chances that such caregivers will need to leave work early, arrive to work late or miss work to provide care: 3/5
Projected percentage increase in the number of U.S. residents who will be over age 65 – and may be more likely to require care—by 2030: 105.7
Original air date of the Cosby Show episode when Dr. Cliff Huxtable stayed home from work to take care of sick daughter Rudy: 12/13/1984
Date that San Francisco became the first place in the U.S. to require employers to provide all employees with paid sick leave: 2/5/2007
Date of the Drum Major Institute’s next Marketplace of Ideas event, on what New York and the country can learn from San Francisco’s paid sick leave policy: 5/28/08
For more on paid sick leave, check out the liveblog of the Marketplace of Ideas event and DMI's YouTube channel, which has clips from the event.