All work and no play makes America a dull country. For some today, the Fourth of July and Labor Day will have to serve as their summer vacation, three days off. Besides honoring the more than one million Americans killed in battle and the people who serve today, Memorial Day also marks the unofficial first weekend of summer. For many a season no different from the rest, one survey shows only 10% of us will take a full two weeks off.
CBS Sunday Morning opened yesterday with the facts, nine vacation days per year for the average American. It was another of those "of the thirty-three richest nations" stats that the U.S.A. comes out on the wrong side of. The U.S. is the only developed nation with no legally required vacation for its workers. Why is America the only industrialized nation that thinks of vacation as a perk, not a right?
For many Americans waiting for an unemployment extension from Congress time off is not an issue but for some who are worried a little getaway might mean the person in the next cubicle getting ahead there's an app for that, good government. Allen Grayson made the segment talking about creating a law here and claimed "Sixty-nine percent of middle class Americans say that their number one desire in life is more free time."
The segment opens with John Schmitt. He is the author of "No Vacation Nation" and you can see his report in this pdf. from The Center for Economic Policy and Research. For a quicker study here is the CBS Sunday Morning transcript.
Or you can watch the entire video where they try to explain why "the rest of the world has a different recipe when it comes to vacation."
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In the video Alen Grayson, the freshman Democrat from the vacation capital of the nation offers a thought.
"We lead the world in science. We lead the world in innovation. I don't think we need to lead the world in people who can't take a vacation."
And John Schmitt has the closing line.
"The bottom line is in Europe, people have smaller cars, but much bigger vacations. And in the United States, we have bigger cars, but much smaller vacations."
I thought the most interesting part was when they pointed out that we can't blame the Puritan work ethic for our tortured relationship with vacation. Because in Jolly Old England, the source of our Puritan work ethic, workers are guaranteed 20 days off. It must be our corporate work ethic where Americans die sooner than most developed nations and our motto is "There's more to life than living."