Overworked and Underplayed: The Incredible Shrinking Vacation

Huffington Post:

As you trudge back to work after a brief glimpse of freedom beyond the office, your thoughts may turn to what it would feel like to have a few more days off from the grind. The end of May used to mark the unofficial start of vacation season, a time when people took road trips, went camping, roamed amusement parks, traveled and explored their world. Today, vacations are little more than a memory for many of us, a theoretical concept that exists only on paper.

Some 25 percent of Americans and 31 percent of low-wage earners get no vacation at all anymore, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research. This is because, unlike in 138 other countries around the world, you’re not entitled to a vacation longer than the current news cycle. You happen to live in a country that, along with the esteemed likes of Myanmar, the Guyanas and North Korea, has no minimum paid leave law to make vacations statutorily legit. Two years ago, that all could have changed.

Read more: Huffington Post