US employees' annual leave entitlement

Factual Questions
1

During a particularly stressful time at work the other week, I was planning when and where to take the remainder of this year’s holiday. And that made me think of a question that has drifted through my mind since I started lurking on these boards.

How much holiday employees get in the US was something that never really crossed my mind before I became addicted to this place, but every time I’ve seen a passing reference to it on the boards, I’ve got both more confused and more interested.

It seems, from casual reading, that two weeks holiday entitlement is fairly common. The first time I saw this, I nearly fell off of my chair in shock. How on earth could anyone cope with only two weeks away from work? But it seems that some people at least also get something along the lines of ‘sick leave’, which seems to be so much time well, to be sick, in the year. And if you aren’t sick, you can take it anyway. Am I right?

I’m sure I’ve also seen something about Personal Leave as well, for times when you have to wait at home for the repairman to turn up, or take the dog to the vets.

For comparison, I get 25 days annual leave a year. The Working Time Regulations, I believe, gives full time employees the right to 20 days holiday a year. Sick leave is more complicated, and governed in part, I believe, by company policy as well as national standards. When I am sick for a day or two, I just ring in sick. I would be paid for it, but after a certain number of days, I can be asked to bring in a sick note from the doctor to confirm I am actually ill.

So basically, my question is, how much leave do working Americans get, and under what title do you get it?

Am I right in assuming it’s determined on a state-by-state basis? I’m sure I read something in another thread that said Kansas is a ‘right to work’ state, and that there is no guaranteed holiday? Am I correct in assuming this?

2

Not even state-by-state. With few exceptions (e.g. if you work in the public sector), it’s completely at the discretion of the employer.

“Right to work” has to do with union membership requirements, not holiday times.

3

Is there no legislated mandatory minimum holiday time, then, ruadh? Could an employer theoreticall give no time off at all (though presumably the market would make sure this didn’t actually happen)?

4

No there isn’t and yes they could.

And I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that in particularly deprived areas, or in particularly low-wage/low-skill industries, it does happen.

5

Wow.

Contrast that to Ireland - my missus got sick for a week while we were on vacation (part of our mandatory minimum of 1 2/3 days per month), and when we got back, she went to the doctor, who gave her a backdated sick note, that she presented to her employers, who subtracted the days she was sick on holiday from her annual leave. Apparently this is totally legal, though it leaves me open-mouthed.

6

When I worked for local government, I’d actually worked up to getting 29 days annual leave. One of my staff was on 31 days holiday. What with the 8 days bank holiday, he was away from work for almost 8 weeks a year.

Of course, being me, I quit that job just after getting 29 days holiday, and went back to only 22 days.

But I got to keep my sanity, which wouldn’t have been the case if I’d remained in that job any longer.

7

One thing in America - although I think this might vary by state, but it was true in all three states I worked in - is that the holiday time you earn is yours and cannot be taken away. So, if you don’t take any holidays at all one year, you carry over the time you’ve earned to the next year (although the company can set a maximum amount of time any one employee can accrue, so that once you’ve got, say, 30 days in your holiday bank, you have to either use it or stop accruing any more). And when you leave your job you are paid for all your unused holiday time.

8

No theory about it. Many employees in the U.S. who are paid on an hourly basis get no paid leave at all. I don’t. This is most common among unskilled workers (those that do not have a college degree or professional certification).
If I call in sick, I do not get paid. If I want a day off, I don’t get paid.
Many companies pool together paid days off, so sick leave and holidays are both counted together. Many others separate the two.
Many companies require that employees work for a year, or the equivalent (2000 hours), before accruing any vacation time, although usually (IME) this doesn’t apply to sick leave.

9

As stated, time off is up to the discretion of the employer. Every place I’ve worked did have paid time off (PTO), however. Policies vary by company. The “standard” seems to be two weeks off per year; however, there may be restrictions. An employer may specify that the employee cannot take PTO until he or she has been employed at the company for a specified time. This may be six months, or it may be a year. Could be anything the employer decides. In other companies, the employee accrues PTO from the start; say, three hours per week.

PTO varies as well. Some companies will give an employee 15 PTO days per year at the start of the fiscal year, which includes vacation, sick, and personal days. Other companies will allot two weeks of vacation per year, plus five days of sick time per year. My company, as do many or most others, allots vacation time of two weeks per year for the first five years, then three weeks for the next five years, etc. In addition, my company has unlimited sick leave for salaried employees (I think hourly employees get five days) and three personal days. (One employee in my department was “sick” 24 days last year, even though she wasn’t sick for many of those days and even bragged about it to another employee. The HR representative didn’t really care.)

We also tend to have “use or lose” policies. While employees may accrue unlimited sick leave at some companies, others give five days per year. Period. If you’re out ill three days in a year, then you don’t get to use (and you are not compensated for) the other two days. My company has a “use or lose” policy with regard to personal days. Furthermore, since unused vacation days are payable upon termination, many companies have a cap on vacation time. For me, I cannot accrue more than 300 hours of vacation time. If I reach 300 hours, I cannot accrue any more hours until I have dropped below that number.

Termination pay is also lower here than in other countries. Two weeks’ pay in lieu of notice is considered the norm, but it is not compulsory. My company pays two weeks in lieu of notice, plus one week for every year of employment there (plus any unused vacation time, of course). So if I’m laid off, I’ll get 11 weeks’ pay. An employee who is laid off after one year will only get three weeks. And severence pay is often considered a “bonus”, so that it is taxed at about 50% instead of the usual 30% or so. I understand that some countries mandate that a laid-off employee receive 26 weeks’ pay! :eek: Would that we were so civilised! It would certainly remove much of the incentive to lay people off!

We do get unemployment benefits, but these vary by state. In California, I think the maximum amount is $300 per week, for 26 weeks. Not good if you’re used to making $1,500 or $2,000 per week, or if you happen to live in L.A. or San Francisco! And with the economy being the way it is, it might be extremely difficult to land a job in your field within six months.

This is why I wish the U.S. had nationalised health insurance. I don’t believe that a person should lose his or her health benefits just because they are not employed. (I’ve talked to people who have had to go to “clinics”, sign up for state medical benefits, etc., and it doesn’t sound at all pleasant. With a national plan, everyone would have access to more-or-less equal medical benefits and be able to continue to see their own doctor.) IMO the country is made up of its people, and so the government has an obligation to take care of them.

10

The US Military gives 30 days per year of “Leave”, or paid days off to everyone, regardless of rank, which I think is nice. The kicker is Leave counts weekends and weekdays, so departing Friday afternoon and returning Tuesday morning is three days Leave, but only one “day off”.

When I enter the civilian workforce as a salaried employee (not hourly pay), each company I have worked for had similar rules regarding vacation. There are set days off for the compnay, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Independece Day, and the like, numbering about 12 days. Everyone gets those. Then, after the first six months at work, you get five days vacation to be used within one year, no carryover at all. After you have been at the company a little while, maybe a year, maybe two years, you then have 10 vacation days. At five years you get 15 days (three weeks). Ten Years gives you 20 days (four weeks). Those vacation days could not be carried over until you reached a certain number of years with the company, or had extenuation circumstances (extended overseas travel or something). Several companies also have 2 or 3 “Personal Days” per year added to those vacation days, which were taken in the same way, but could NOT be carried over, and were not paid back to you if you were terminated. Vacation days you had earned, but not taken, ARE paid back to you if you are terminated. Sick days seem to have averaged about 5 per year, as I recall.

11

You are not entitled by law to anything except a safe working environment and workman’s comp for on-the-job injuries. Vacation time, sick leave, personal leave, and company holidays are entirely at the discretion of the employer. It’s not an entitlement, it’s a benefit just like continuing ed allowances or retirement funds or health insurance.

In most of the jobs I’ve had over the years, you didn’t get any kind of paid leave. If you wanted to go somewhere, or got sick, or somebody died, you could usually swing the time off, but you didn’t get paid. The last place I worked, we got two weeks of paid vacation per year, and those did not carry over. We also got three days of sick leave, which did carry over. We had no personal days; you either swapped a shift with someone, used your vacation time, or didn’t get paid. The clinic was closed on the major holidays, and we got paid for 8 hours on those days (unless the holiday fell on a weekend, when we’re not open all day anyway), plus double time for whoever came in to do kennels.

At my current job, we start to accumulate vacation time after six months, at a rate of 40 hours every six months. I have, at this point, roughly 9 hours of vacation time. We do not have paid sick leave at all (unless you’re on workman’s comp, but in that case it’s the insurance company paying you, not the clinic), nor do we have paid personal days. We can swap out as many shifts with other people as we wish, though, provided we swap out even numbers of hours. If I wanted to go out of town for a week, I could do so, but I’d have to work an extra shift a week for a month to pay for it.

12

Actually, I’d get 16 weeks’ pay (minus taxes) if I were laid off and have not taken any more vacation time. Still, that’s a far cry from what I’ve heard about European countries.

13

My current job has the best time off policy I’ve heard of in the states. I get 160 hours vacation a year, 40 hours personal time a year, and 120 hours sick time a year. Vacation time can carry over indefinitely, as can sick time, but the personal time must be used by December 31 of each year. When I leave, I’ll be paid for the balance of any vacation time I have remaining, but will lose any sick time or personal time. In addition, we have 13 paid holidays off per year. The only problem with this is I’m never actually able to take any time off without having to fight for it.

Most jobs I’ve had in the past allowed for one to two weeks vacation a year.

14

I just happened to read in the New York Times that approximately 20% of employees get no paid vacation at all. My first job (part time, when I was in HS), I got paid for my hours worked and not one cent more. In my next job, in the first year, I got one day off for each month worked in the year before June 1. Since I started in July, I assumed that meant 11 days. Since Saturdays were off in the summer, I assumed that meant the whole two weeks. But no, I got docked for the second Saturday, even though there was no way I could have worked.

Even in places that have paid vacation, you mostly get only two weeks, although some give a third week after 5 or 10 years. And increasingly, according to the NYT article, employers are using the growing unemployment to pressure employees to forgo their vacation. And it is certainly not true in NY, that vacation carries over. My daughter works in NY and has to take her two weeks during the calendar year or shortly after. And she is working for a British company.

And then my sister works as a jewelry salesman and nearly all her income (which has been as high as $80K) comes from commission. She can take vacation if she wants and maybe even collect the pittance that is her hourly pay (I don’t know), but she will not earn any commission during that time.

15

New York is one of the states I worked in, so the laws about vacation time carrying over must have changed in the past ten years.

16

According to Bill Clinton’s Labor Secratary the average American worker gets two weeks off per year — that is average and takes in everyone from those with a decent accumalation system and those without paid leave.

http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2001/07/reich-r-07-20.html

----------------------QUOTE-------------------------
The average American works 350 more hours a year than the typical European

More stats from a site with an ax to grind but w. good footnotes

http://www.drummajorinstitute.org/plugin/template/dmi/44/273

17

Do Americans get less vacation than people in other developed countries?

18

Actually now that I think about it I only worked for one actual company during my time in NY, so I suppose it might just have been that individual company’s policy. But it wasn’t a company whose policies were otherwise particularly generous (hint: large retail music store rhyming with “Flower”), so I guess I always assumed they let us carry over because they had to.

19

This is why we have unions.

Local governments have their own rules. If you are a civilian federal employee you start earning “leave hours,” which begins, IIRC, with 2 hours every two weeks for the first year and increases to 4, then 6, and finally 8 (after 15 years). So, after 15 years, 8 hours every two weeks is 26x8=208 hours, divided by 8 gives you 26 days, which is 5 weeks plus one day. That is much generous than many private firms. I worked for one firm over 25 years and got only 3 weeks a year.

With the federal government, there is no carry-over. Use it or lose it, unless you could not use it due to government requirements. I never even dreamed of not using it with the private firm (:)), but I believed it had the same policy.

20

Have you got a cite for that? I don’t think there is a difference between severance pay and wages. Bonuses are not taxed differently from wages. There is no separate section on the 1040 for them. Neither ‘bonus’ nor ‘severance’ appears in the 126 page instructions for form 1040 (2002 version).