Paid Sick Leave Mandates and Housing Stability: Evidence from Eviction Filings

• In Event: Power, Protection, and Precarity: Evaluating Interventions in Housing Stability

Abstract

Paid sick leave (PSL) mandates are intended to protect workers’ earnings when they or a family member experience short-term illness, yet little is known about whether these policies also affect housing-related hardship. This paper examines the effect of county and statewide paid sick leave mandates on housing instability, using eviction filings as a measure of severe rent-related distress. The central hypothesis is that by reducing earnings losses associated with illness and caregiving, paid sick leave may help renter households remain current on rent and avoid formal eviction proceedings. The analysis combines county-level eviction filing data with the staggered adoption of paid sick leave mandates at both the county and state levels. Difference-in-differences models compare changes in eviction filings in counties newly exposed to a mandate with changes in counties not yet exposed over the same period. Event-study estimates are also used to assess pre-policy trends and trace the dynamic effects of mandate adoption over time. The results indicate that paid sick leave mandates are associated with declines in eviction filings, consistent with improvements in housing stability following implementation. The effects emerge after mandates take effect and strengthen over time, a pattern consistent with gradual changes in employer compliance, worker awareness, and benefit utilization. These findings suggest that paid sick leave functions as a form of short-term income stabilization that helps households absorb temporary health and caregiving shocks without falling into rental arrears severe enough to trigger formal eviction action. Additional analyses explore heterogeneity across counties with different levels of baseline economic vulnerability and pre-mandate access to paid leave. The reductions in eviction filings are larger in places where workers are less likely to have employer-provided paid sick leave prior to the mandate and where renter households face greater financial precarity. This pattern is consistent with the policy having its largest effects among households most exposed to liquidity constraints and nonpayment risk. Taken together, the findings show that paid sick leave mandates reduce eviction risk. More broadly, the results highlight how labor market institutions can shape poverty-related outcomes in the housing market.

Author

• Jooyoung Kim, San Diego State University
  Presenting Author