To take a sick day or not to take a sick day - that is thequestion for many American workers who are getting little help fromtheir employers. Reuters reports on the results of aneight-year study from Harvard University and Canada's McGillUniversity that found of the 15 most economically-competitivenations (as determined by the World Economic Forum over the last 10years), all but one don't just offer but mandate paid sick leave.Care to guess who the PTO miser is? The United States is the leaderin not offering paid time off for just about everything.

The 15 countries included in the study were Australia, Austria,Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Japan, Netherlands,Norway, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, Britain and the UnitedStates. Of those, 13 guarantee paid maternity leave, and 12 providepaid paternal leave. Eleven provide time off to care for sick kids,and eight extend that benefit to care for sick adults. The UnitedStates doesn't mandate any of these benefits.

Critics argue that not requiring employers to offer time offsaves jobs and protects companies from what would be a financialburden. In fact, one of the countries included in the study,Iceland, saw its financial system collapse last year. Study authorJody Heymann of McGill's Institute for Health and Social Policydisagrees.

"What we found is that none of these policies in any way impedebeing highly competitive or having low unemployment," she said.

A pair of proposed acts might change the U.S. position on paidleave. The Healthy Families Act would require companies that employ15 or more workers to provide up to seven days of paid sick leave.The Family Leave Insurance Act would cover paid leave for care of anew child or ill family member, Reuters reports.

The study findings are available in a book, "Raising the GlobalFloor: Dismantling the Myth that We Can't Afford Good WorkingConditions for Everyone." They include findings from a wider studyof 190 countries.