1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Healthy Families Act . 2. Findings Congress makes the following findings: (1) Working people need time to meet their own health care needs and to care for family members. The absence of paid sick time has forced working people to make untenable choices between needed income and jobs on the one hand and caring for their own and their family’s health on the other. It is in the national interest to ensure that all working people can care for their own health and the health of their families while prospering at work. (2) Thirty-six percent of the private sector workforce and 10 percent of the public sector workforce, lacks paid sick time. Millions more theoretically have access to sick time, but have not been on the job long enough to use it. Millions more lack sick time they can use to care for a sick child or ill family member. (3) Working people without paid sick days are more likely to go to work sick and delay or forgo needed health care. A 2016 study in the journal Health Affairs found that working adults without paid sick days are 3 times more likely to forgo medical care for themselves, and 1.6 times more likely to forgo medical care for their family, compared to working adults with paid sick days. Lack of paid sick days is also a barrier to receiving cancer screenings and preventive care, according to a 2012 study published by BioMed Central Public Health. (4) Nearly one in four parents without paid sick time reports sending a sick child to school or child care because the parent has to go to work. When children go to school and child care sick, they risk their own health and that of other children, teachers and administrators. Research suggests that schools play a key role in transmitting contagious illnesses like influenza. (5) A 2012 study published in the American Journal of Public Health found that a lack of workplace policies like paid sick days contributed to an additional 5,000,000 cases of influenza-like illness during the H1N1 pandemic of 2009. (6) An