Great Graphic: Vacations and Holidays in OECD Countries

This Great Graphic comes from the Center for Economic and Policy Research and was posted on the Washington Post's Wonk Blog.    

For all the complaining by the anarchists libertarians and conservatives about the slide toward left wing socialism in the US and the power of unions, the United States is the only high income country that does not guarantee employees paid vacation of holidays.  

European countries offer a minimum of 20 paid vacation days and many have at least six paid holidays.  Canada and Japan mandate 10 paid vacation days per year.  

In the US, these aggregate numbers may be deceiving because high income employees are often given paid vacation and holidays.  In practice, more than 90% high income workers (top 25 percentile) receive paid vacation and holidays for a total of an average of 25 days off with pay.   Of the bottom 25 percentile, only about half have paid time off and then on average of about 15 days between vacation and holidays.