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Our only agenda is to publish the truth so you can be an informed participant in democracy. We need your help. More Info ### I would like to contribute One Time Monthly Yearly Join Now ![](\\" ![](\\" Greg Casar stated on April 24, 2019 in in a tweet: Says one year ago, \"no cities in the South had guaranteed paid sick days.\" ![\\"true\\"](\\" false/33efdb6633e5e2fdc2d4e2f63383a1e0.jpg.\\") ![\\"false\\"](\\" false.jpg\\") * City Government * Texas * Greg Casar ![\\"Austin](\\" Austin City Council Member Greg Casar speaks at a forum about a city ordinance to require paid sick leave in January 2018. (Nick Wagner/Austin American- Statesman) ![\\"Madlin](\\" By Madlin Mekelburg May 3, 2019 # Paid sick leave policies came to Maryland, D.C. before Austin Dallas became the third Texas city to require employers to provide paid sick leave for all employees, after its City Council approved an ordinance slated to go into effect in August. Whether the ordinance will actually be implemented is a different story. State lawmakers in Austin are considering legislation that would kill local mandates like this one and similar policies in Austin and San Antonio. Regardless, Austin City Council Member Greg Casar, the architect of Austin’s policy, celebrated the Dallas news in a tweet. \"Dallas passes paid sick days!!!\" he wrote. \"About 1 year ago, no cities in the South had guaranteed paid sick days. Now, three of Texas’ biggest cities have passed it.\" Casar is right, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin have all passed sick leave policies. But is it true that no cities in the South had guaranteed paid sick days a year ago? Definitions of the South vary Braden Latham-Jones, a spokesman for Casar, said the information came from lists maintained by organizations that advocate for paid sick leave policies that show policies in different areas and when they were adopted. He said the information supports Casar’s claim that roughly one year ago, no cities in the \"American South\" had adopted policies guaranteeing paid sick leave for employees. Looking through the source material Latham-Jones provided, there is no question that when Austin adopted a sick leave policy in early 2018, it was among just a handful of states and cities with such requirements in place. But it turns out that the truthfulness of Casar’s claim depends on which states are considered part of the South. Regional divisions maintained by the U.S. Census Bureau show that 16 states and the District of Columbia are considered part of the South: Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas. This definition stems from before the Civil War, when the Mason-Dixon Line divided slave states from free states and helped establish a clear boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland, with Pennsylvania sitting north of the line and Maryland to the south. But today there are different opinions about which states are in the South, particularly when it comes to Maryland, Delaware and Washington, D.C., which are often classified as being part of the Mid-Atlantic (which the Census Bureau says includes just Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York). Public opinion polls released by FiveThirtyEight and Vox showed that few respondents consider Maryland and Washington D.C. to be in the South. #### Featured Fact-check ![](\\" ![](\\" Facebook posts stated on September 23, 2024 in a Facebook post Photo shows missing couple Raymond Peterson and his wife, Sophie. ![\\"true\\"](\\" false/33efdb6633e5e2fdc2d4e2f63383a1e0.jpg.\\") ![\\"false\\"](\\" false.jpg\\") By Ciara O\'Rourke • September 26, 2024 Kelly Kay, an assistant professor of geography at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the regional divisions outlined by the Census Bureau don’t speak to the culture of an area and are likely based more on population counts. \"They’re the crudest divider,\" she said. \"Regions are not so clear cut and different entities see different distinctions. As a geographer, my expertise is trying to parse the difference between formal boundaries and the way people perceive themselves. Maryland and D.C. are the sort of places that are always disputed.\" Why is it worth squabbling over whether these areas are part of the South? Both areas adopted paid sick leave policies before Austin did in early 2018. Advocacy groups side with Casar In 2008, Washington, D.C., became the second city in the country to adopt such a policy, after San Francisco. Montgomery County in Maryland required employers to give workers paid sick leave before the state adopted a policy of its own in January 2018, overriding the governor’s veto to become the ninth state with a paid sick leave law. But it wasn’t until Austin’s policy was adopted in February 2018, that organizations advocating for paid sick leave policies celebrated what they called the first paid sick leave ordinance to be adopted in South. No other areas included in the Census Bureau description of the South have local governments that have adopted guaranteed paid sick leave policies. \"We did not describe D.C. as a Southern city when the District passed its paid sick days law,\" said Alexandra Nseir, spokeswoman for the National Partnership for Women and Families, in an email. \"We didn\'t compare Maryland and Austin since they are different types of jurisdictions, but we did not describe Maryland as the first state in the South to adopt paid sick days.\" Ellen Bravo, executive director of Family Values at Work, said she agreed with Casar’s characterization and said when Austin adopted its paid sick leave policy it represented a unique political victory. \"Few people saw a state like Texas as a place that would be a pacesetter in a policy like this,\" Bravo said, adding that Maryland is seen as \"more of a blue state\" and lawmakers there have adopted other policies that \"have been more difficult to move in Southern states.\" Our rating Casar said one year ago, \"no cities in the South had guaranteed paid sick days.\" Maryland, a Maryland county and Washington, D.C., adopted policies requiring employers to offer paid sick leave to employees before Austin did. Advocates agreed with Casar, saying they don’t consider Maryland and Washington, D.C., to be situated in the South. The Census Bureau, however, classifies them both as in the South. Given that opinions vary so greatly about which areas are in the South, we looked to the Census Bureau’s divisions in evaluating the truthfulness of this claim. Those boundaries may not account for cultural or political regionality, but they are the most formal regional descriptions that exist. We rate this claim False. FALSE – The statement is not accurate. Share the Facts 2019-05-03 15:50:42 UTC PolitiFact ![\\"PolitiFact\\"](\\" 2 1 7 ![\\"PolitiFact](\\" false.jpg\\") PolitiFact Rating: False Says one year ago, \"no cities in the South had guaranteed paid sick days.\" Greg Casar Austin City Council Member ![](\\" a tweet Wednesday, April 24, 2019 2019-04-24 Read More info #### Read About Our Process The Principles of the Truth-O-Meter ### Our Sources Support Paid Sick Days, Current Sick Days Laws (as of June 2018), accessed April 26, 2019 Email interview with Braden Latham-Jones, spokesman for Casar, April 29, 2019 Family Values at Work, Paid Sick Leave Wins, accessed April 29, 2019 A Better Balance, Overview of Paid Sick Time Laws in the United States, Oct. 26, 2018 U.S. Census Bureau, Census Regions and Divisions of the United States, accessed April 29, 2019 FiveThirtyEight, Which States Are in the South?, April 30, 2014 Vox, Which states count as the South, according to more than 40,000 readers, Sept. 30, 2016 National Geographic, United States Regions, accessed April 30, 2019 U. S. Department of Labor, Sick Leave, accessed April 29, 2019 National Conference of State Legislatures, Paid Sick Leave, May 2018 Montgomery County Maryland, Employer\'s News and Information, accessed April 29, 2019 Email interview with Alexandra Nseir, spokeswoman at the National Partnership for Women and Families, April 30, 2018 Phone interview with Ellen Bravo, April 30, 2019 Phone interview with Kelly Kay, geography professor at UCLA, May 1, 2019 ## Browse the Truth-O-Meter ### More by Madlin Mekelburg ![](\\" ![](\\" Michael Burgess stated on September 19, 2020 in a tweet: “In the last 10 years less than half of adults in the U.S. received a flu shot.” ![\\"true\\"](\\" ![\\"true\\"](\\" By Madlin Mekelburg • September 25, 2020 ![](\\" ![](\\" Greg Abbott stated on August 18, 2020 in a press conference: Says crime is on the rise in Austin and a new study showed that it “is the No. 1 city in America in the year-to-year percentage increase in murders, with a percentage increase of more than 64% for the first half of this year.” ![\\"half-true\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"half-true\\"](\\" true.jpg\\") By Madlin Mekelburg • August 31, 2020 ![](\\" ![](\\" George P. Bush stated on August 13, 2020 in a tweet: Says a video shared to his social media shows vehicles with broken windows in a parking garage used by state agencies in Texas on “the same night the City of Austin voted to cut $150 million” from the police department.” ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Madlin Mekelburg • August 24, 2020 ![](\\" ![](\\" Gene Wu stated on August 7, 2020 in an interview: Says in Texas the “average age of the Republican voter is like 20 years older than the average Democrat.” ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Madlin Mekelburg • August 14, 2020 ![](\\" ![](\\" M.J. Hegar stated on July 22, 2020 in a speech: Says 1 in 5 Texans did not have health insurance coverage before the pandemic, and now “nearly 1 in 3 Texans under the age of 65 don’t have access to health care insurance.” ![\\"true\\"](\\" ![\\"true\\"](\\" By Madlin Mekelburg • July 30, 2020 ![](\\" ![](\\" John Cornyn stated on July 9, 2020 in an interview: Says “no one under the age of 20 has died of the coronavirus. We still don’t know whether children can get it and transmit it to others.” ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Madlin Mekelburg • July 10, 2020 ![](\\" ![](\\" Lloyd Doggett stated on June 22, 2020 in a tweet: Hays County in Central Texas has seen an “incredible 845% increase in (COVID-19) cases since June 7.” ![\\"mostly-true\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"mostly-true\\"](\\" mostly-true.jpg\\") By Madlin Mekelburg • June 26, 2020 ![](\\" ![](\\" Dan Patrick stated on May 24, 2020 in an interview: Says a new law adopted in Texas means property tax bills “are no longer really dependent on your values, it is on (local government) revenue growth.” ![\\"barely-true\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"barely-true\\"](\\" barely-true.jpg\\") By Madlin Mekelburg • June 8, 2020 ![](\\" black/4590875651af69b2c789ceab409664dd.jpg\\") ![](\\" black/72988380e8c8bd188dc360d11552e4a0.jpg\\") X posts stated on May 31, 2020 in a tweet: Says police officers in Austin, Texas, have been “authorized to use LIVE ROUNDS, and lethal force” against protesters. ![\\"half-true\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"half-true\\"](\\" true.jpg\\") By Madlin Mekelburg • June 5, 2020 ![](\\" ![](\\" Chip Roy stated on May 6, 2020 in an interview: Says Wisconsin has not had a spike in coronavirus cases that was “statistically significant related to the fact that they had voting.” ![\\"mostly-true\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"mostly-true\\"](\\" mostly-true.jpg\\") By Madlin Mekelburg • May 18, 2020 ![](\\" ![](\\" Greg Abbott stated on May 3, 2020 in a tweet: “Texas ranks 3rd highest among states for the number of people who have recovered from” the coronavirus. ![\\"half-true\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"half-true\\"](\\" true.jpg\\") By Madlin Mekelburg • May 8, 2020 ![](\\" ![](\\" Veronica Escobar stated on April 22, 2020 in an interview: Says Texas “either is near the bottom or at the very bottom when it comes to testing per capita.” ![\\"true\\"](\\" ![\\"true\\"](\\" By Madlin Mekelburg • April 24, 2020 ![](\\" ![](\\" Louie Gohmert stated on April 7, 2020 in an interview: Says a powder has been developed that, when mixed with water, “is being used in Germany as a mist. 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Says one year ago no cities in the South had guaranteed paid sick days