McConnell’s Been on Sick Leave for a Month. US Workers Aren’t Guaranteed a Day.

The US is the only wealthy country in the world that does not guarantee paid sick leave for workers.

By Sharon Zhang ,

Truthout

July 13, 2026

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) arrives for the Senate Republicans' lunch meeting in the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, April 14, 2026.Bill Clark / CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images


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Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) has been absent from his congressional duties for nearly a month, in what he finally explained on Sunday has been an extended period of sick leave.

But McConnell, the high-powered former majority leader in the Senate, has previously worked to bar U.S. workers from being able to have similar benefits at work, such as guaranteed sick leave — including during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

McConnell has been hospitalized since June 14. For weeks, his office provided no explanation on his condition, sparking wild speculation concerning his physical health or even whether or not he was alive. Fellow members of Congress released cryptic statements claiming to have spoken with him, while others said they had no information on his health status.

Finally, on Sunday, McConnell’s office released a statement saying that he’s been in the hospital for weeks after suffering a fall, during which he was “briefly unconscious,” and contracting a case of pneumonia. He described both conditions as minor, and promised to return to the Senate floor for votes soon — though he did not provide a date for when he may return, meaning that he may be absent for weeks longer before his retirement this upcoming January.

“When you elected me to a seventh term and made me our Commonwealth’s longest serving Senator, you did so trusting that I’d keep showing up to fight for you every day,” he said. “But at the same time, I’ve had more than my share of experience with physical vulnerabilities. Surviving childhood polio meant spending my entire life with mobility challenges. They haven’t exactly gotten easier to manage with age.”

Another Republican, Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (New Jersey), has also faced scrutiny for his ongoing absence from the House. Kean has been absent from the House floor since March 5, only reappearing once late last month to explain that he has been struggling with depressionand hasn’t provided an explanation for his absence because he is a “private person.”

Americans facing the same health challenges across the U.S. aren’t as privileged. The U.S. is the only wealthy country in the world that doesn’t guarantee a single day of paid sick leave for workers — in part due to policy positions by McConnell and his party, for which he was a de facto leader for years.

As Senate majority leader in late 2020, just months into the COVID-19 pandemic and as illness and deaths were soaring, McConnell blocked a Democratic effort to extend federal paid family and sick leave benefits, preventing it from being included in Congress’s second relief bill. Ultimately, House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-California) swapped out the provision in exchange for extending a tax credit for businesses paying out sick leave.

In 2022, McConnell was one of many Senate Republicans who voted against a proposal to give railway workers seven days of sick leave amid a faceoff between freight carriers and rail workers, who were threatening a nationwide strike.

McConnell, a champion of anti-union “right to work” laws, has also obstructed pro-union policies like the Protecting the Right to Organize Act that could have given workers much more power in the workplace to demand benefits like sick leave.

The Republican lawmaker has said he has been receiving “excellent care” while in the hospital. But McConnell has worked to obstruct Americans from being able to access that same care, having rather infamously been a major champion of repealing the Affordable Care Act, waging many efforts to do so after its passage in 2010.