Speaking of our inability to focus the conversation on non-economic goods like vacation days, this new report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research is upsetting stuff. After reviewing the paid vacation and holiday policies of every advanced country you can think of and a couple you can't, they find that we're the only industrialized naton not to legislate any paid time off and holidays to our workforce. And these aren't small differences: Austria gives workers 4 weeks paid vacation (5 for shift workers), the UK gives 4 weeks, Denmark gives 30 work days, Switzerland gives 5 weeks for young workers (which is an interesting distinction), and so on. We give...none.
Wait...what's that? You want to see it represented visually? Well I got just the thing!
It took me a moment to figure out this graph, as the final two values are a bit confusing. That last line, the one marked 10? That's Japan. There's no line for the United States because we don't legislate any vacation. That's our country. Aren't you proud?
