I 
111TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 2460 
To allow Americans to earn paid sick time so that they can address their 
own health needs and the health needs of their families. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
MAY 18, 2009 
Ms. DELAURO (for herself, Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California, Mr. HARE, 
Mr. HINCHEY, Mr. SERRANO, Ms. SCHAKOWSKY, Mrs. CAPPS, Mr. NAD-
LER of New York, Mr. MCGOVERN, Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts, Mrs. 
MALONEY, Mr. GUTIERREZ, Mrs. MCCARTHY of New York, Mr. WALZ, 
Mr. RUSH, Ms. BALDWIN, Mr. HOLT, Ms. LINDA T. SA´NCHEZ of Cali-
fornia, Ms. NORTON, Mr. FILNER, Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas, Mr. 
STARK, Ms. SCHWARTZ, Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia, Mr. WAXMAN, Ms. 
CASTOR of Florida, Ms. ZOE LOFGREN of California, Ms. MOORE of Wis-
consin, Mr. CONNOLLY of Virginia, Mrs. LOWEY, Mr. KILDEE, Mr. 
BISHOP of New York, Mr. OLVER, Mr. BLUMENAUER, Mr. RYAN of Ohio, 
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Mr. CLEAVER, Mr. ELLISON, Mr. KUCINICH, 
Ms. SUTTON, Mr. ORTIZ, Mr. ISRAEL, Mr. BRADY of Pennsylvania, Mr. 
MARKEY of Massachusetts, Ms. WOOLSEY, Mr. AL GREEN of Texas, Mr. 
GENE GREEN of Texas, Mr. CUMMINGS, Mrs. DAVIS of California, Mr. 
LEWIS of Georgia, Mr. MCDERMOTT, Mr. RODRIGUEZ, Mr. LYNCH, Mr. 
MICHAUD, Ms. BERKLEY, Mr. VAN HOLLEN, Mr. JACKSON of Illinois, 
Mr. SARBANES, Mr. ROTHMAN of New Jersey, Mr. OBERSTAR, Ms. 
HIRONO, Mr. GRAYSON, Mr. GRIJALVA, Ms. PINGREE of Maine, Mr. CAR-
SON
of Indiana, Mr. CAPUANO, Mr. COHEN, Mr. CONYERS, Mr. 
COSTELLO, Ms. ESHOO, Mr. HONDA, Ms. KILPATRICK of Michigan, Mr. 
LARSON of Connecticut, Ms. LEE of California, Ms. MCCOLLUM, Mr. 
MORAN of Virginia, Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut, Mr. PASCRELL, Mr. 
PRICE
of North Carolina, Mr. SHERMAN, Mr. KENNEDY, Ms. 
VELA´ZQUEZ, Mr. WEINER, Mr. DOYLE, Mr. FATTAH, Mr. SIRES, Mr. 
DAVIS of Illinois, Mr. CLAY, Ms. CORRINE BROWN of Florida, Mr. 
PALLONE, Mr. MEEKS of New York, Mr. BERMAN, Mr. COURTNEY, Mr. 
MEEK of Florida, Mrs. CHRISTENSEN, Mr. PAYNE, Ms. CLARKE, Ms. 
SHEA-PORTER, Mr. ABERCROMBIE, Ms. EDWARDS of Maryland, Mr. 
SABLAN, and Ms. FUDGE) introduced the following bill; which was re-
ferred to the Committee on Education and Labor, and in addition to the 
Committees on Oversight and Government Reform and House Adminis-
tration, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in 
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each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdic-
tion of the committee concerned 
A BILL 
To allow Americans to earn paid sick time so that they 
can address their own health needs and the health needs 
of their families. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Healthy Families Act’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress makes the following findings: 
(1) Working Americans need time to meet their 
own health care needs and to care for family mem-
bers, including their children, spouse, parents, and 
parents-in-law, and other children and adults for 
whom they are caretakers. 
(2) Health care needs include preventive health 
care, diagnostic procedures, medical treatment, and 
recovery in response to short- and long-term ill-
nesses and injuries. 
(3) Providing employees time off to meet health 
care needs ensures that they will be healthier in the 
long run. Preventive care helps avoid illnesses and 
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injuries and routine medical care helps detect ill-
nesses early and shorten their duration. 
(4) When parents are available to care for their 
children who become sick, children recover faster, 
more serious illnesses are prevented, and children’s 
overall mental and physical health improve. In a 
2009 study published in the American Journal of 
Public Health, 81 percent of parents of a child with 
special health care needs reported that taking leave 
from work to be with their child had a ‘‘good’’ or 
‘‘very good’’ effect on their child’s physical health. 
Similarly, 85 percent of parents of such a child 
found that taking such leave had a ‘‘good’’ or ‘‘very 
good’’ effect on their child’s emotional health. 
(5) When parents cannot afford to miss work 
and must send children with contagious illnesses to 
child care centers or schools, infection can spread 
rapidly through child care centers and schools. 
(6) Providing paid sick time improves public 
health by reducing infectious disease. Policies that 
make it easier for sick adults and children to be iso-
lated at home reduce the spread of infectious dis-
ease. 
(7) Routine medical care reduces medical costs 
by detecting and treating illness and injury early, 
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decreasing the need for emergency care. These sav-
ings benefit public and private payers of health in-
surance, including private businesses. 
(8) The provision of individual and family sick 
time by large and small businesses, both here in the 
United States and elsewhere, demonstrates that pol-
icy solutions are both feasible and affordable in a 
competitive economy. A 2009 study by the Center 
for Economic and Policy Research found that, of 22 
countries with comparable economies, the United 
States was 1 of only 3 countries that did not provide 
any paid time off for workers with short-term ill-
nesses. 
(9) Measures that ensure that employees are in 
good health and do not need to worry about unmet 
family health problems help businesses by promoting 
productivity and reducing employee turnover. 
(10) The American Productivity Audit found 
that presenteeism—the practice of employees coming 
to work despite illness—costs $180,000,000,000 an-
nually in lost productivity. Studies in the Journal of 
Occupational and Environmental Medicine, the Em-
ployee Benefit News, and the Harvard Business Re-
view show that presenteeism is a larger productivity 
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drain than either absenteeism or short-term dis-
ability. 
(11) The absence of paid sick time has forced 
Americans to make untenable choices between need-
ed income and jobs on the one hand and caring for 
their own and their family’s health on the other. 
(12) Nearly half of Americans lack paid sick 
time for self-care or to care for a family member. 
For families in the lowest quartile of earners, 79 
percent lack paid sick time. For families in the next 
2 quartiles, 46 and 38 percent, respectively, lack 
paid sick time. Even for families in the highest in-
come quartile, 28 percent lack paid sick time. In ad-
dition, millions of workers cannot use paid sick time 
to care for ill family members. 
(13) Due to the roles of men and women in so-
ciety, the primary responsibility for family care-
taking often falls on women, and such responsibility 
affects the working lives of women more than it af-
fects the working lives of men. 
(14) An increasing number of men are also tak-
ing on caretaking obligations, and men who request 
paid time for caretaking purposes are often denied 
accommodation or penalized because of stereotypes 
that caretaking is only ‘‘women’s work’’. 
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(IV) includes the Government 
Accountability Office and the Library 
of Congress. 
(ii) PUBLIC
AGENCY.—For purposes 
of clause (i)(III), a public agency shall be 
considered to be a person engaged in com-
merce or in an industry or activity affect-
ing commerce. 
(iii) DEFINITIONS.—For purposes of 
this subparagraph: 
(I) 
COMMERCE.—The 
terms 
‘‘commerce’’ and ‘‘industry or activity 
affecting commerce’’ mean any activ-
ity, business, or industry in commerce 
or in which a labor dispute would 
hinder or obstruct commerce or the 
free flow of commerce, and include 
‘‘commerce’’ and any ‘‘industry affect-
ing commerce’’, as defined in para-
graphs (1) and (3) of section 501 of 
the Labor Management Relations Act, 
1947 (29 U.S.C. 142 (1) and (3)). 
(II) EMPLOYEE.—The term ‘‘em-
ployee’’ has the same meaning given 
such term in section 3(e) of the Fair 
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