The principles governing the US labor market are simply completely different from different high-income international locations ultimately. One distinction includes paid day off. Right here’s a determine from Betsey Stevenson, “A federal guarantee for earned paid time off” (Hamilton Mission on the Brookings Establishment, October 2024).
You’ll discover that on this comparability throughout numerous high-income international locations, the US doesn’t have a bar in any respect. Hmmm.
There numerous methods to reply to this desk. One is to level out that the foundations sketched right here apply to full-time, full-year staff, and infrequently solely apply after the employee has been with an employer for a number of years. Stevenson writes:
These estimates report the statutory required variety of paid go away days based mostly on full-time, full-year staff. Many international locations require a ready interval earlier than paid go away turns into out there. Canada and Japan have fewer days required for latest workers with the complete quantity of statutory go away being granted after a number of years of tenure with an employer. Solely international locations that statutorily require public holidays to be paid are listed as requiring paid holidays. Nonetheless, in lots of international locations that don’t mandate pay for public holidays, staff typically obtain holidays off with pay or are compensated with one other time off by customized or collective bargaining agreements.
One other approach to reply is to marvel how these guidelines and legal guidelines about paid trip and paid holidays work together with other forms of paid go away. Stevenson notes that if we put collectively a graph with these sorts of go away, the US would nonetheless be the nation with no bar in any respect on the graph: “In addition to these requirements for annual leave as part of employees’ compensation packages, most advanced economies also require additional amounts of paid sick leave. In addition, all advanced economies have national programs ensuring that people have access to paid family and medical leave …”
Stevenson sketches how a US coverage alongside these traces would possibly work: in her model, paid day off would accrue based mostly on hours labored:
I suggest that earned day off ought to accrue at a fee of 1 hour per 50 hours labored (2 p.c of hours labored per week) within the first two years of the coverage, rising to at least one hour per 25 hours labored (4 p.c of hours labored per week) after two years. Within the first two years, staff should be capable to accrue as much as 40 hours a 12 months; after two years, they have to be capable to accrue as much as 80 hours a 12 months. The explanation for capping the earned go away is in order that employers can merely supply full-time, full-year workers 80 hours a 12 months (40 within the first two years), while not having to rely hours. It’s an administratively simple possibility.
These eager about sorting via particular questions on such a coverage will discover a whole lot of solutions in Stevenson’s article. Right here, I’ll simply be aware that there are roughly a jillion questions one would possibly ask a few paid go away coverage: for instance, it’s not clear the way it works for staff who change jobs continuously. Some high-income international locations have developed an “insider/outsider” dynamic, the place “insider” staff who’ve an attachment to a sure employer obtain plenty of advantages, however companies have an incentive to determine methods of hiring that received’t make staff eligible for advantages, and a bunch of “outsider” staff develops with out entry to the advantages. I might fear {that a} paid go away coverage won’t really be a assure for all staff, however as a substitute will have a tendency to depart out youthful staff, in addition to these with decrease incomes and fewer connection to the labor drive. As well as, labor market insurance policies that work for a lot smaller international locations (within the graph above, Iceland and Luxembourg every have a nationwide inhabitants of lower than 1 million) or international locations with a a lot stronger custom of unionization will not be well-suited for the big and extensively different US economic system. US states, the “laboratories of democracy,” are already experimenting with numerous sorts of paid go away insurance policies.
In fact, one reply to any sensible questions on paid go away is that different international locations have already in actual fact been doing it. However as well as, constructing political assist for a paid go away coverage in the USA can be a cultural concern. The typical American employee places in additional hours annually work extra hours per 12 months than staff in most different high-income international locations; certainly, many American staff don’t take all the paid trip to which they’re at the moment entitled. Stevenson argues:
Individuals work extra hours per 12 months than staff in every other superior nation. Many Individuals view arduous work and lengthy hours as a path to profession development, private achievement, and better incomes. In a aggressive job market, some Individuals worry that taking an excessive amount of day off might jeopardize their job safety. They might fear about shedding wages, falling behind, being changed, or lacking out on promotions and profession development alternatives. Many workers have excessive workloads and consider that taking day off would result in an unmanageable backlog of labor. And, definitely many staff work lengthy hours to make ends meet. Within the U.S. there’s a each a stigma in opposition to taking day off from work and no federal proper to take action. … A nationwide coverage guaranteeing paid earned day off would shift attitudes towards day off from work and make earned paid day off a fundamental proper for staff. In America, for those who work arduous and play by the foundations, it is best to be capable to afford to take a time off and never lose pay.
