15-20 more federal holidays | Hacker News Reader

15-20 more federal holidays

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48 pointstrevin102 comments

Instead of fixed-date holidays, just mandate 15-20 days of paid vacation. Why is this so politically untenable in the USA? Why would voters (besides the relatively few business owners) vote against this?

The article basically says people like holidays more than vacation. Maybe its the family/friend aspect, or that everyone is off at the same time.

If I had a month off in the summer I could find some family and friends to visit :)

Plane ticket prices go up around public holidays. When taking a vocation one may choose dates when ticket prices are affordable.

> everyone is off at the same time

In Europe it is generally understood that nothing gets done in August. Not much gets done in July. Everyone’s at the nearby vacation spot.

As a kid in Slovenia, going to the seaside in Croatia was always fun. Slovenians would completely over-run the coast and you could barely find any locals. Meanwhile on our coast, everyone suddenly spoke German.

This European vacation is funded by American workers. If the Europeans had to spend in defense what the Americans give them, they would be forced to work more and give up theirs extended vacations and culture of “summers off”.

Before we wrap ourselves too tightly in the flag, let’s not forget the Vietnamese children spending their summer making those Speedos.

This might be overstating it a bit, but Europeans get salty when you note that their generous social safety net is subsidized in part by the fact that most NATO nations don't spend the mandated 2% of gdp on defense.

I often wonder what we could accomplish with even half of the ~ 700B / yr we spend on defense if we actually put it towards the public good. The US has two friendly neighbors and thousands of miles of blue water between us and peer adversaries which have no real ability to project power far from their shores. We could make do with less, but then of course the rest of the world would have to step up responsibility for their defense and not hide behind our coat tails

Let’s not forget that the Pax Americana is very beneficial to USA economically speaking. Yall ain’t doing this out of the goodness of your hearts.

The problem is those 'benefits' are largely going to the rich vs the average man, and voters are starting to wake up to that fact. You can expect the US to shift more isolationist in the future, even with, or maybe because of the troubles of the world

The US defense industry is a public-private wealth transfer mechanism (or "jobs program", if you don't wish to put so fine a point on it) to force taxpayers (and cash-holders, via inflation) to pay billions of dollars, every day, to the military-industrial complex (and implicitly to transfer value to its shareholders).

It has nothing to do with "making do", or protecting anyone. That's a side effect.

That's an exaggeration. The difference in military spending between the US and the EU is less than 2% of GDP. If all military spending was a complete waste of money, with no economic or social benefits at all, that would correspond to about 4 working days/year. But because military spending contributes to the economy in some ways, the actual cost to the American worker is probably closer to 2 days/year.

Is that what your boss told you when you negotiated vacations?

I learnt after my first year living in a Muslim majority country to never schedule anything important during Ramadan. Everything slows down, most offices let people go home early, and then there’s a week off for Eid.

> The article basically says people like holidays more than vacation. Maybe its the family/friend aspect, or that everyone is off at the same time.

At one point, in a moment of supreme rationality, the Soviet Union implemented "continuous production week," which eliminated common weekends in order to increase the utilization of factory equipment and to stamp out religion. Even they failed because of the irrational desire of people to have time off at the same time as their friends and family.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_calendar

Why is it irrational to have time off at the same time as your friends and family?

I read the comment you're replying to as very sarcastic - I'm assuming they don't actually believe wanting time off together with friends and family is irrational.

The Soviet Union had 28 days of paid vacation, which workers were strongly incentivized to take.

Part of the reason the revolution happened in the first place was the normalization of the work week and time off work.

You can blame the Soviet Union for a lot of things, but preventing workers from taking vacation is certainly not one of them. Doing so betrays a large gap in history knowledge.

> You can blame the Soviet Union for a lot of things, but preventing workers from taking vacation is certainly not one of them. Doing so betrays a large gap in history knowledge.

Except I didn't do that. Maybe you should read my comment again. I was talking about weekends, not vacation, and said they staggered them, not eliminated them completely.

I can’t read the rest of the article without upgrading, but federal holidays are basically suggestions anyway for most jobs. People who got Juneteenth off might be in a bubble that didn’t see all the people and industries that ignored it.

This. This is it.

If 4th of july is off for everyone I know, you know I'm hosting a BBQ and having a grand time.

If I take a day off and have to coordinate 5 friends trying to take a day off at the same time with some having and some not success... That's different.

Also holidays are better for businesses than pto. Holidays are planned for in advance.

The main issue is that minimum wage workers especially restaurant and retail workers often don't get to partake.

Because most American holidays signify something important beyond a day off. Symbols matter to people.

Also, having coordinated time off makes it easier for people to actually reliably take that time off in practice. Which is important for holidays like Thanksgiving which involves travel and groups of people getting together.

And some people not in the US forget sometimes how BIG the US is. Additionally, a lot of our holidays have tradition and ritual associated with them. My favorite day of the year is a family event the 3rd Saturday of December (just pre xmas).

I think this is because all Americans implicitly know that the "paid" vacation will come out of their salaries. 20 days of paid vacation (double what the average American worker gets) would cost around $2,500 at the average hourly wage. We have decided to structure our economy such that most Americans need that money to survive, which makes added vacation untenable.

I don't see how this is any different than public holidays.

It's not, but you hit the interesting point that we're already at a number of public holidays where employers don't automatically grant all the federal holidays. (I have seen employers make holidays "floaters" and let people choose which floaters they want to take off. Implicit is that they can't take all the floaters without using vacation days.)

So adding another 10-20 would likely not change actual PTO all that much.

US holidays don't apply to private workers. Lots of companies do offer paid days off on those days, but it would be a new thing to make them required paid days off.

And some companies go beyond and -expect- you to take a minimum number of paid days off, even sometimes in excess of giving you all the jurisdictional holidays off.

I used to think that the module in high school where we learned about “How The Other Half Lives” was provided as historical context. As an adult I’ve learned that the US continues to be a case study in two halves. A shame, as it needn’t be the way it is.

Edit: typo

Part of the reason American salaries are so high is because they work so often. Forcing employers to give up an additional 20 days per year is a surefire way to tank the GDP.

Sounds like a good deal!

Meh. You can have both. Plenty of countries do have both, may it be Denmark or Switzerland.

People later in their careers at private employers tend to have both the highest salaries and the most vacation days.

As article notes, people tend to not take time off unless it’s enforced in US. Early in my career I used to joke that my accumulated vacation time was my severance buffer to at will employment. It’s sad to think that it was both true and super misguided.

US sorely needs federal minimums for time off, parental paid leave (that doesn’t exempt people from small employers, who currently get next to nothing), sick leave and minimum compensation/notice period if they are to be let go (unless some egregious cause). Many employers already offer these and if we spread it out with small incremental taxes, it wouldn’t disproportionately hurt small employers either. This will give employees basic stability and reduce anxiety, most likely boosting productivity. Having nothing to fall back on definitely limited me at the start of my career.

Mandatory holidays are a no-go in the US.

They would have to be required, like take them or we will lock you out of the building/cut off network access at the end of the year. People are too worried about losing their jobs. That is why the whole unlimited vacation time scam is so popular. Now whether you take a vacation is completely on the employee's neck. Companies love this.

> That is why the whole unlimited vacation time scam is so popular.

It's a legitimately better choice for some of us. I take more vacation time when I don't have to ration it out like something scarce and precious.

The other reason that unlimited vacation time is popular (with firms) is that accrued vacation is a liability that is carried on the books and, in some jurisdictions, is a form of earned compensation which must be paid out at separation, whereas purely-employer-discretionary vacation (which is what “unlimited” vacation really is) is neither.

Seems like such a sad existence to be looking forward to holidays. My dad told me not to look forward to weekends because it will make life fly by too fast, and it will make your weekdays miserable.

I took it to heart, and maybe its because I found a good career, but I like working. I even like working on side gigs after work. Sure bugs can be frustrating, but so is playing Zelda. I find solving the bugs more rewarding than grinding on BOTW.

I imagine people indulge on holidays, drinking and eating unhealthy foods, of course that is fun. The next day when you are dealing with the hangover and now have to diet/be in pain for ~3 days to make up for the excess calories; is less fun.

Yeah you're right, if I had been working instead of procrastinating I wouldn't have read this awful take and I would feel better.

You're getting downvoted, but it's a really bad take. The assumption that not working is just playing video games alone or getting drunk says a lot about the OP.

If I'm not working I'm doing things I truly enjoy, things that don't involve me sitting in front of a computer to subsist and generate wealth for other people.

Like spending quality time with friends and family, sometimes that includes video games and drinks. Video games and drinks alone, not as fun.

I'm a stoic.

Hedonism only led me to disappointment.

I think this is good advice since many of us spend a large chunk of our lives at work.

More generally, just try to be present and experience whatever it is that's happening right now. Always living for the future is a good way to waste a life.

>just try to be present and experience whatever it is that's happening right now

I feel so conflicted by this.

I was decorating a cake for a birthday and I got 100% in the zone. Like "I became the icing". Probably 30-40 minutes went by and it felt like 5. I'm not sure if I was present, but I did good work and I felt content like nothing else.

But I can't say I was present, I almost don't even remember the thing happening.

Perhaps that's because your memory is based on recalling what you were thinking about when you did something? If you "became the icing" then you probably weren't lost in thought, talking to yourself like "I should create a budget, I wonder what my spouse is making for dinner, I need to take out the trash, ..."

> I find solving the bugs more rewarding than grinding on BOTW.

You need to try TOTK. It might change your mind. :-)

I will, I am under Nintendo's cult and must play every Zelda game, even if I don't like them anymore. I don't know why I do it. I have been disappointed since WW.

At least I don't give Nintendo money anymore, I borrow my bro's Switch + Zelda game. He was younger when Nintendo turned on their marketing machine and is a bit more fanatical.

Reviews seem disappointing, but I already knew Nintendo was going to let me down. I have some rock bottom expectations coming into TotK.

Very tangential to your comment but grinding a game when it's not fun (and won't become more fun) confuses me. I have a lot of friends that do that for a sense of accomplishment or a sunk cost fallacy, but if you're not having a good time anymore, just drop it.

BOTW and TOTK hit that once you get to the point where the only thing you can do is Korok hunt for sure.

I really enjoy my work and the feeling of doing great work for 8 hours is an important part of my life. But weekends and holidays are the thing that gives life meaning to me. I get to do the hobbies I enjoy, see friends and family, and enjoy a greater sense of agency. Some holidays or weekends I do indulge in bad food or alcohol but many more I am outside or exercising or socializing or learning new skills.

I don't think it's a sad existence at all to look forward to holidays, at least for me.

I may put my foot in my mouth but is the weekend considered a holiday? You get a 100 days off a year just from that + the 2 weeks or whatever that most professionals get which make up the bulk of hackernews readers.

I know in some other countries like the middle east, they operate more like what the writer of this article suggests. They work weekends but they get many many more random holidays.

Weekends are not holidays and should not be considered at such. It's insane for me, a European, that people in the US are really fine with just 2 weeks of holidays. I get 30 days + I can exchange some of my yearly bonus for 2 extra weeks. There's no way I'd change that into a system where most would be ok with way less.

These European comments are so tiring. You’re lucky that your job has very good time off, but 30 days aren’t a European requirement and people in many countries in Europe don’t get 30 days.

This is offset by wages being 2-3x (or even more) higher in professional fields. Lower income tax generally as well, so US professionals take home much greater pay in lieu of more holidays.

But what percent of the work force is in a professional field? And is that true of all professions or is this another software bubble?

I'd say its true for the majority of engineering work at least.

I saw and ad for a Waffle-house manager with a salary range of 50-55k year.

That's about what I earn as a engineer in Sweden (pre-tax).

Is 30 days including holidays like Christmas, New Years Eve/Day, etc? Or is 30 days in addition to mandated holdiays?

Most people in the US have 2 tiers of vacation days: mandatory holidays (I'd say between 8-14 mandatory holidays is pretty standard at tech companies) plus an additional 3-4 weeks (15-20 days).

For most engineers in the US, something like 10 holidays + 3 additional weeks (or more) can be expected for a minimum total of 25 days. Plus 3-5 "sick/personal" days brings you up to roughly 30 days.

30 days in addition to national holidays, at least in my country. Those national holidays are something like 6-9 days extra paid time off (exact amount varies per year as some can occur on weekends).

> is the weekend considered a holiday?

That was my thought as well. I get ~104 days off a year, not counting other holidays. I honestly feel like that is a pretty good balance. Obviously I want some other days off when I want to do something that takes more then 2 days, but I would rather have those as vacation days then mandated federal holidays.

Aye, in my experience federal holidays are a catch 22. Everything is closed so you can't do anything and if everything isn't closed then people are working. lol. With holidays, you can go do stuff. That said, I usually do nature things on federal holidays. Went offroading this 4th for instance.

Maybe it's different for you, but, for nearly everyone I've ever known, most weekends are not true days off. Weekends are where I work on things in my personal life (yard work, home maintenance, etc) that I can't get done any other time because I've sold the majority of my waking hours to my employer.

Unless something has gone wrong, I generally don't do any work on holidays.

The author said medieval peasants ONLY worked 150 days a year. The average US worker is probably closer to 240-(8hr?) days a year of work. If you work more than 8 then I'm sure this figure would decrease. Additionally there are only so many hours that you can concentrate on a problem before you're useless yet we try to press on.

Only working 150 days a year probably left a lot of time to go fight in one of those wars, peasant uprisings, and the crusades that were going on.

I'll dig into the history of leisure in the medieval period.

In the mean time, though... consider. If you earned the same amount as you do now, but only worked 150 days a year (and even then, only maybe 4-6 hours per day), what would you do with your free time?

I would have a lot more free time? I don’t understand the question. If I didn’t work at all but lived off of passive income due to an inheritance or investments, I would have even more free time.

I could probably live to the same standards of living as a medieval peasant working only 90 (potentially less) days a year for a significant pay cut of what I make currently. A wood stove, no electricity or running water, an outhouse, etc. the tent I could afford today to camp in would be luxurious compared to a peasant’s home.

>The author said medieval peasants ONLY worked 150 days a year.

They worked 150 days on the field. Their other time was occupied with chores.

Historically (in Europe), I think we can count half the weekend... Sunday was generally a day of rest, no?

For me, weekends are a time to get things done that can’t be done during the week after work/school. And from a certain point of view, they are still “work” days, except I’m working for myself instead of a company. Compare that to a vacation where I don’t have those same responsibilities.

> is the weekend considered a holiday

People who got shot by federal troops and Pinkertons while delaying mail trains until the railroad would come to the negotiating table are gonna say "no."

Idk how anyone can be functional on the long term without at least 5 or 6 weeks of vacation each year.

I’d wager to say that 95% of Americans do not come close to 5-6 weeks of vacation per year

My industry mandates like 3 weeks off per year. 4th of july week for a summer shutdown. 10 days around Christmas. Throw in another 10 holidays. Add in a minimum 2 weeks vacation.

Does that count as 5-6 weeks vacation?

Sounds like it! Sounds like you’re working for a decent company

In my experience, people that don’t get that amount of vacation time on paper usually make up for it through slacking.

Or burnout. I feel like "slacking" is inherently negative.

I sometimes take 4-6 and some years maybe 2. I dont see much difference, only it is harder to go back to work after 4 weeks travelling the world…

You don't have use it up all at the same time.

Multiple shorter vacations (with the other extreme being a 2x extended weekend each month) are also an option.

I personally need 25-30 a year, spread out across longer (1 week) and shorter (4-day weekend) vacations (and I do enjoy my work very much).

It's hard for me to fathom getting by on just 2 weeks a year - and compressed into a single vacation at that.

(Disclaimer - European)

I've done 5 weeks off per year and 2 weeks off per year. Basically no change to me.

The vacation is over, and it feels like it never happened.

Holidays are a bit different because the community/family aspect.

I think family time is key. Vacations have their own level of stress inherently, and holiday time does too but it seems less.

I've been doing 1-3 (usually closer to 2) weeks per year since I started my career in 2001. It's possible, but I also enjoy my work.

It's amazing how batshit crazy blogs like this pop up to the top of HN so frequently. Imagine the people who are so deluded as to believe that more vacation days is all it takes to cure mental illness. Or that vacation days would offset a culture of overworking, underpaying, underbenefits, underrepresentation, etc. Your shitty work life is still waiting for you when you get back. The bills aren't getting paid any faster. You're still on the bottom rung. But you can sure sit around your house longer worrying about things.

I'll escalate things by saying that even the European standard of say 5 weeks is in no way excessive. It still means working 90% of the weeks of the year.

You could also look at it from another angle and explore what makes work so miserable. More often than not, it's not the hours, it's the intensity of it. Very high-paced, full of thousands of distractions, limited control over outcomes making it not rewarding, politics, the increased speed of change, etc. Modern work has the potential to burn you up much quicker than in simpler times.

As for this last point, I cannot emphasize it enough. A recent study in my country revealed 30% of workers being close to a burnout and the vast majority of actual work disability cases to be burnout related. These dropouts creating even more pressure on the remaining work force.

I truly believe we're at or near the peak of what the human mind can endure, even more so if you expect people to ride this out until the age of 70.

This world is too complicated and too fast.

I'll take being a bit bored or frazzled over being physically broken, which was historically the consequence of most work, at least once agriculture started to be a thing.

15-20 more holidays for whom?

The sort of people who hang out on r/antiwork aren't getting paid time off even for Christmas. They certainly aren't going to get 20 days of paid time off, plus the existing holidays.

For them, would it be a solution to mental health, or would it aggravate even more when it makes it more difficult to make rent? That is, supposing their jobs just don't work through anyway. I suppose legislation could mandate the day off work, but this isn't a net win at all... then they tweak their hiring practices so as to avoid paying this. More part-time workers who are schedule off that entire week/month so as to not be paid for the day off either. In extreme cases, just hiring fewer workers still, skeleton crews, throughout the year, such that payroll stays the same, but that those who still retain a job are more overworked for it than when they didn't have these extra holidays. Is that net gain on any of a) paychecks for those still working b) rest for those still working c) total paycheck across the entire workforce?

I mean, I think this really does increase time off for some large fraction of the workforce, but not in the way that the OP intends.

The article specifies paid holidays, so it wouldn't make it more difficult to make rent. But I agree that business will do what they can to avoid that, and hire only part-timers like you said. There could be laws introduced to help counter that though.

Edit: oops, the article actually doesn't seem to specify paid or not. I'm also guessing the author is used to working salaried positions and not hourly.

Holidays are already tiered - I've never worked anywhere nor know anyone who worked at a non-governmental business who got EVERY federal holiday off. Very few people get Washington's Birthday, Columbus Day, or MLK jr. Day off.

I've also noticed that, again, for non-governmental businesses, the more holidays you get off the less vacation time you get.

I'm noticing that an increasing number of people are taking advantage people's general lack of interest in history as a means ideologically rewrite it.

Just because some nobles and bishops said that peasants had it easy doesn't mean that they actually had it easy. Anyone who has actually tried homesteading or even garden knows that the this lifestyle isn't leisurely even with the wonders of modern technology. This isn't even considering all the chores they had to do by hand: washing clothes, making the soap used to wash clothes, rendering the fat used to make the soap, making the lye used for soap, chopping the firewood used to make the lye, and carrying water that you require for all these other chores. This was what peasants did with their "leisure". It was until the Victorian era when the modern concept of leisure

Some things the author didn't consider:

* In the US, there's no mandatory federal holidays for states and private companies.

* This doesn't include essential employees, who typically get floating holidays in lieu of federal holidays (usually used at a later time)

* Are the differences in happiness actually caused by holiday time - or are there other factors (and what are they) that account for other countries having seemingly higher happiness levels

* Is this happiness or contentment we're talking about - there is a huge difference

* My understanding was that the high and late middle ages the RCC did whatever it could to placate many of the lower classes because of the pressures brought on by the Ottoman and Eastern Orthodoxies

Please note that many european countries have between 30 and 50 days paid leave.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_b...

As European, it's insane to me that American get so little time off. In my country we get 4 weeks leave mandated by law plus public holidays.

The mandate part seems insane to me, an American. If the country wants 42 holidays that's fine - just don't attempt to stop me from getting ahead.

This is the attitude that has Americans so stressed, unhappy and wealthy!

Maybe, but not for this HN commenter. I enjoy my work and make good money doing it. I'm certainly not alone.

Besides, it's the mandatory part that I find problematic. If I want to open my doors for business no one should stop me for a holiday of all things.

I think the mandatory part is companies must provide at least that to employees, work all you want, but the lack of paid time off and sick leave for many US workers isn't a good thing

Do you support mandated age limits on workers?

Upper limits - no. If they are fit to do the job I don't care how old they are.

Lower limits - I'm not sure. This is no longer the early days of the industrial revolution so we're not throwing people (children in particular) down chimneys to clean them and working conditions are much better, but at the same time they are children with brains that aren't fully formed so their judgement isn't exactly reliable. If they're working in a family business or similar that seems fine to me.

I think I'd prefer for (some of) the states in the US to make it illegal to work on Sundays (with the obvious exceptions of medical care and emergency services) like we used to have in the West for many centuries in a row (except this time justify it as the voter's will, not God's will). Also make it illegal to make noise a la mowing the lawn on Sunday like Germany does.

I would have always preferred to have had less holidays and more vacation.

I think the benefit to a holiday is that everyone gets it off and that’s maintained at the federal level, whereas more vacation is just a contract between you and your employer. The American work culture also makes it harder for individuals to take work off for a vacation.

I don't see the benefit in that everyone get off. Especially since that is not possible in a lot of cases.

If we are making laws perhaps make more around making it illegal to not use x% of your vacation within y days into the next year.

I want to know what's so special about July 19th that it made this list.

Probably not this:

> 2014 – Gunmen in Egypt's western desert province of New Valley Governorate attack a military checkpoint, killing at least 21 soldiers. Egypt reportedly declares a state of emergency on its border with Sudan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_19#1901%E2%80%93present

Edit:

For real though, this is kind of a strange article once it starts comparing 2019 and after.

> A recent gallup poll noticed a slight downturn in satisfaction with Americans’ personal life during the last 20 years.

> [graph showing a tick down in this poll on satisfaction from somewhere around mid-60s to ~50 from 2019 to 2020]

Gee, I wonder what happened from 2019 to 2020 that caused a dramatic shift in Americans' satisfaction with personal life. Hmm. Let me think...

> Notably, the amount of leisure is one area that people say could be be improved upon.

Changed from 42 up to 43 from 2019 to 2023. Personal health went down from 54 to 41, family life from 76 to 66, community as a place to live from 61 to 51.

I don't know why the article presents this data at all because it doesn't support focusing on leisure. The dramatic tick down is quite clearly people pissed off or affected by COVID-19 and government's response to it (both impacted people negatively). Given that data, leisure seems like a non-sequitur. Leisure definitely is important and has been consistently poor regardless of COVID-19, so why present this particular data? Just talk about leisure.

I'll add that one thing I think about leisure in the US is that without longer vacations, our leisure time is used in a worse way as well. A lot of peoples' leisure is filled with consuming television. It's like the junk food of leisure. Heck, if you're watching TV shows where characters are frequently angry and yelling at each other or committing murder, I'm going to guess that might actually have a more negative impact on the viewer's mental health. To each their own of course, but I find that when I listen to sad or angry music, it makes me sad or angry. It's like the Bill Burr bit on his dog's temper (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnjGyOQ7FcU). Not suggesting we need to regulate how people use their leisure, I just think this is probably another piece of the puzzle when discussing Americans and our dissatisfaction with our lives in terms of leisure.

June 19. Or Juneteenth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juneteenth

The linked article and the source for that data (https://news.gallup.com/poll/180911/holidays-weekends-americ...) both specify July 19.

> Certain weekend days, particularly Saturday, July 19 (63%), also ranked among the happiest for Americans in 2014.

Could be a mistake on both ends though. But June 19, 2014 was not a Saturday (it was for July 19 though) nor do I believe many businesses or localities were allowing employees a holiday on Juneteenth in 2014.

I'm pretty sure it was a mistake. And Juneteenth was not a federal holiday in 2014 - it became a federal holiday in 2021.

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