A Record 44 Percent of U.S. Employers Will Give Their Workers Paid Time Off to Vote This Year

A survey from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) estimates that this year 44 percent of U.S. employers are offering their workers paid time off to vote, reports CNBC . That is an all-time high, and last year 42 percent of employers offered paid time off to vote as a benefit. Meanwhile, between 2017 and 2018 the percentage of employers offering unpaid time off to vote fell from 33 percent to 29 percent, which SHRM's Vanessa Hill says is a likely reflection of companies shifting from unpaid to paid time off policies. "Paid time off to vote ticked up slightly from the previous year, while unpaid time off went down by 4 percent, indicating that paid time off to vote is on a slight upswing," she notes. "The big picture view of time off to vote is more complicated than combining our two stats. That's because there are many state laws about time off to vote, and many laws have different requirements. What the stats show is that some employers are going above and beyond their state laws to offer paid or unpaid leave to vote." This change also may signal a bigger trend of businesses making a deeper commitment to helping employees get to the polls.