I 
109TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 1902 
To provide for paid sick leave to ensure that Americans can address their 
own health needs and the health needs of their families. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
APRIL 27, 2005 
Ms. DELAURO (for herself, Mr. RANGEL, Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California, 
Mr. OWENS, Ms. MCCOLLUM of Minnesota, Mr. BERMAN, Mr. PALLONE, 
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas, Mr. NADLER, Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas, 
Mr. GUTIERREZ, Ms. SCHAKOWSKY, Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Mr. 
FRANK of Massachusetts, Mr. WAXMAN, Ms. LEE, Mr. ENGEL, Mr. HIN-
CHEY, Mr. KILDEE, Mr. LANTOS, Mrs. MALONEY, Mr. MCGOVERN, Ms. 
NORTON, Mr. MEEHAN, Mr. JEFFERSON, Mr. OBERSTAR, Mrs. MCCAR-
THY, Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD, Mr. JACKSON
of Illinois, Mr. 
SERRANO, Mr. BRADY of Pennsylvania, Mr. LEWIS of Georgia, Mr. 
MCNULTY, 
Mr. 
TOWNS, 
Mr. 
GRIJALVA, 
Mr. 
ANDREWS, 
Mr. 
BLUMENAUER, Mr. CLAY, Mr. OLVER, Ms. WOOLSEY, Mr. DAVIS of Illi-
nois, Ms. KILPATRICK of Michigan, Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD, Mr. EVANS, 
and Mr. HOLT) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
Committee on Education and the Workforce, and in addition to the Com-
mittees on Government Reform and House Administration, for a period 
to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consider-
ation of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee 
concerned 
A BILL 
To provide for paid sick leave to ensure that Americans 
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 to take time off 
from their jobs for their own health care needs or 
to perform essential caretaking responsibilities for a 
wide range of family members, including, among 
others, 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 tend to 
their own health care needs ensures that they will be 
healthier in the long run. Preventive care helps avoid 
illnesses and injuries and routine medical care helps 
detect illnesses early and shorten the duration of ill-
nesses. 
(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 are improved. 
Parents who cannot afford to miss work and must
send children with a contagious illness to child care 
or school contribute to the high rate of infections in 
child care centers and schools. 
(5) Providing paid sick leave 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. 
(6) Routine medical care results in savings by 
decreasing medical costs by detecting and treating 
illness and injury early, decreasing the need for 
emergency care. These savings benefit public and 
private payers of health insurance, including private 
businesses. 
(7) The provision of individual and family sick 
leave by large and small businesses, both in the 
United States and elsewhere, demonstrates that pol-
icy solutions are both feasible and affordable in a 
competitive economy. Measures that ensure that em-
ployees are both in good health themselves and do 
not need to worry about unmet family health prob-
lems help businesses by promoting productivity and 
reducing employee turnover. 
(8) 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 
drain than either absenteeism or short-term dis-
ability. 
(9) The absence of sick leave has forced Ameri-
cans to make untenable choices between needed in-
come and jobs on the one hand and caring for their 
own and their family’s health on the other. 
(10) The majority of middle-income Americans 
lack paid leave for self-care or to care for a family 
member. Low-income Americans are significantly 
worse off. Of the poorest families (the lowest quar-
tile), 76 percent lack regular sick leave. For families 
in the next 2 quartiles, 63 percent and 54 percent, 
respectively, lack regular sick leave. Even in the 
highest income quartile, 40 percent of families lack 
regular sick leave. Less than half of workers who 
have paid sick leave can use it to care for ill chil-
dren. 
(11) It is in the national interest to ensure that 
Americans from all demographic groups can care for
their own health and the health of their families 
while prospering at work. 
(12) Due to the nature of the roles of men and 
women in society, the primary responsibility for fam-
ily caretaking often falls on women, and such re-
sponsibility affects the working lives of women more 
than it affects the working lives of men. 
(13) Although women are still primarily respon-
sible for family caretaking, an increasing number of 
men are taking on caretaking obligations, and men 
who request leave time for caretaking purposes are 
often denied accommodation or penalized because of 
stereotypes that caretaking is only ‘‘women’s work’’. 
(14) Employers’ reliance on persistent stereo-
types about the ‘‘proper’’ roles of both men and 
women in the workplace and in the home— 
(A) creates a cycle of discrimination that 
forces women to continue to assume the role of 
primary family caregiver; and 
(B) fosters stereotypical views among em-
ployers about women’s commitment to work and 
their value as employees. 
(15) Employment standards that apply to only 
one gender have serious potential for encouraging