On Thursday evening, the night of Juneteenth, Donald Trump took to Truth Social with a classic “old man yells at cloud” complaint: Americans get too much time off work. “Too many non-working holidays in America. It is costing our Country $BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to keep all of these businesses closed,” he wrote. “It must change if we are going to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” For good measure, he also opined that workers themselves agreed with him on this.
The president is wrong. We need more holidays, not fewer, and we need more time off in general.
That Trump is complaining at all is odd given that during the 2020 campaign, he promised to make Juneteenth a holiday. And he never seems to have a problem taking time off work to play golf at taxpayers’ expense. He has now decided — on a day that celebrates the end of slavery no less — that Americans need to work harder.
There’s evidence that Americans now take less vacation from work — not more — than they did as recently as 25 years ago.
True, Trump did not mention Juneteenth in his online rant, but the timing could not be clearer. And it comes as his administration has cracked down on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, targeting universities and federal departments alike, and stopped official celebrations of holidays like Juneteenth and remembrances like Holocaust Remembrance Day and Women’s Equality Day.
We do not have too many federal holidays in the United States; we have, if anything, slightly fewer than many other OECD countries. And the U.S. is alone among its peer countries in not mandating even one paid day off work for workers. That includes not just vacation but federal holidays like Christmas, July 4 and Juneteenth. There’s evidence that Americans now take less vacation from work — not more — than they did as recently as 25 years ago.
We are, contrary to Trump’s assertion, the most overworked nation in the developed world. Surveys regularly show many of us do not take all our vacation time. Higher-paid workers say they fear falling behind on the job, while lower-paid ones say they fear getting the ax if they take too many personal days. If that weren’t enough, increasing numbers of Americans are a part of the hustle economy, taking on — or piecing together — side gigs ranging from multilevel marketing schemes to driving for ride share companies to make an extra buck.
As a result, large numbers of Americans report being burned out and disengaged from their jobs. We need our holidays and other time off work. It’s no surprise, then, that Trump encountered pushback even on Truth Social, where he is largely posting to his own supporters. “Americans are already overworked and in many cases underpaid,” was a typical criticism.
Studies show that vacations — even just a long weekend or an occasional personal day — not only enhance mental and physical health, they improve worker productivity and help combat burnout. Employers, even if they don’t always want to admit it, benefit from our paid time away from the job. We can’t live to work. We need time to recharge our batteries, to take a break and smell the roses.
Not only does slavery’s end deserve celebration, there are many more reasons for Americans to have many more days off. In a world where many Americans won’t use all their vacation time, paid official holidays are even more important. But, again, employers are not required to give them. No private-sector employer was forced to close their doors for Juneteenth. If they offered their employees the day off — as 4 in 10 large employers did in 2024, a similar proportion to those making Martin Luther King Day a paid holiday — they did so voluntarily. (People working for a Fortune 500 company are more likely to get Juneteenth off, with 70% of those firms putting it on their holiday calendars.) Finally, Trump’s post is part of a nasty history of questioning holidays that honor Black Americans. After Martin Luther King Jr.’s death in 1968, civil rights activists including King’s widow Coretta Scott King and musician Stevie Wonder spent 15 years amassing the political support for a day honoring the civil rights leader. When Congress passed a bill in 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed it into law, but he couldn’t resist noting that “I would have preferred a non-holiday in King’s honor.” And even then, it took almost another two decades for all the states to recognize MLK Day. The argument got particularly nasty in Arizona, where the governor, Evan Mecham, rescinded the holiday, claiming it was approved illegally by his predecessor. He then reportedly told a private meeting of Black community leaders, “You folks don’t need another holiday. What you folks need are jobs.” To be clear, Juneteenth should be a holiday regardless of Americans’ workload. Slavery is the greatest moral shame of the United States, and we should commemorate its end. But not only does slavery’s end deserve celebration, there are many more reasons for Americans to have many more days off. It’s a shame Trump can’t see that.
Helaine R. Olen
Helaine R. Olen is the author of "Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry" and a co-author of "The Index Card: Why Personal Finance Doesn't Have to Be Complicated." She has been a columnist for The Washington Post and Slate, and her work has also appeared in numerous other publications, including The New York Times and The Atlantic. 
