Falling ill shouldn't mean worse financial wellbeing
By Rob Moore - Strategy Director - Payments and Insurance at Wagestream
Did you know that in the UK we have one of the lowest rates of sick pay in Europe?
Nobody wants to get sick. But the reality is that all of us sometimes need time to rest and recover, for periods of sickness, or injury. It's part of life.
We all deserve to know that if we need to, we can take the time to get better, without feeling severe financial stress – or compounding pre-existing financial stress.
But government sick pay in the UK is so low that it works out as less than £3 an hour for a full-time worker. It is nowhere near enough to be able to pay the bills – even outside of a ‘cost of living crisis’.
At Wagestream, we provide different types of financial support to middle and low-income workers – this group represents the majority of the working population - through their employer.
Last year, we asked more than 2,000 of them what it would mean to their finances, to need to take a significant amount of time (over 2 weeks) off sick. A huge majority (91%) of them said that it would cause them some (39.5%) or significant (51.1%) financial pressure.
Sick pay is so low that when people are off sick, unable to work, they are worrying about money and being able to pay the bills.
In the same survey, 60% of workers said that they had worked through a period of sickness because they couldn't afford to take sick leave. Working through illness, because of worrying about making ends meet, means that people become more unwell, for example, working with an injury that worsens - and can risk spreading illnesses to others.
Our members have spoken – and we believe in using our voice to amplify theirs. They deserve to be able to take time to recover when they need to – so we’re backing the Safe Sick Pay campaign.
It's time for Safe Sick Pay.