If anyone’s suffered a financial impact from Connecticut’s 2012 paid-sick-leave law, its workers between the ages of 20 and 34, according to a study commissioned by the pro-industry Employment Policies Institute.
According to the study, released Aug. 1, those workers have seen a 24-hour reduction in the number of hours they work per year and an $850 hit in income as a result of the law. That amounts to reductions of 1.5 percent and 3.3 percent, respectively.
The impact on the overall working population has been less pronounced, the study said.
“Overall, hours do decrease by about 10 per year, but the impact is only weakly statistically significant,” wrote University of Kentucky economist Thomas Ahn, the study’s author. “There is a lot of noise in the estimate, and it is difficult to say with much confidence that employers are cutting hours.”
Ahn also said he was unable to assert anything about the average impact on all incomes in the state.
The study relies on 2012-2014 data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
The Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit EPI has opposed minimum-wage increases and other liberal causes in the past.
EPI has issued several reports on Connecticut’s paid-sick-leave law, which was passed by the legislature in 2011 and took effect the following year.
The law requires non-manufacturing companies with 50 or more workers to provide an hour of paid sick leave to employees for every 40 hours worked.
A 2015 study, co-authored by Ahn, found that the Connecticut law had resulted in a 0.9-percent increase in the fraction of unemployed workers in the state.
In 2013, EPI surveyed Connecticut business owners about the law, finding that it led some to reduce benefits, hours and wages to avoid paying higher costs.
