Mandatory paid vacation may become national law, that is, if Florida Democrat Alan Grayson gets his way. Grayson was at Disney World when the idea hit him that requiring companies with more than 100 employees to give those employees paid vacation would stimulate the economy.
How would that stimulate the economy, you ask?
Grayson’s logic is that someone would have to do the work for those vacationing employees. That according to Grayson will mean more hiring. I have not found any hard evidence to support Grayson’s belief. However, I have found hard evidence that Florida is a major vacation destination that would benefit immensely from an increase in the number of Americans with paid vacations.
Unfortunately for the rest of us, everything has a cost. If the government is going to require employers to provide paid vacations to employees, someone somewhere will have to pay for that vacation time. Businesses will either pass those costs on to their customers or cut costs internally, perhaps by reducing some other element of employee compensation.
None of this will stimulate the economy.
Paid vacation is a nice benefit. However, it seems more likely that Grayson is envisioning financial benefits to the Florida travel industry. No doubt he will advertise those benefits in his Buy My Reelection campaign.
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Here is how paid vacation works, sparky: the employer pays for the vacation [it's not as if the US worker is paid that much to begin with, let's be honest].
The worker gets to take a vacation, paid for by his employer. It’s not necessary to hire a temp in the mean time, but if they want/need to, they certainly can.
In the mean time, the worker on vacation gets to enjoy the benefit of a vacation. A real one. They have money in their pocket, their employer provided those funds [thank you, employer!], they will spend that money. Goods and services need to be delivered, that’s a job for somebody.
Imagine that: a tourist industry arising because of the fact that people actually have money to go on a vacation. Just… imagine that if you can!
The worker comes back to work, they’ve been able to recharge the batteries, they’ve had a great experience, they’ve stimulated the economy.
It costs some money. Really now? And you mind that why? Because it goes to a worker “who is already well-compensated for their job!”, because the employer has to pay for it “out of his own pocket!”? The vacation money is a cost to the employer which helps reduce taxes. The business generated by vacationers may end up stimulating his company because another company needs the goods and services his company provides.
The economy booms. What do you know. Saved by a vacation.
It’s “irresponsible to spend that much money in a depression!”, it is however not irresponsible to spend 10 billion dollars per month prosecuting two illegal wars. There’s nothing wrong with that at all. Money that the US tax payer never sees back, will never reap the slightest benefit from and which only causes more harm and grief with every passing day. That’s not a problem. There is no amount of money that is too much to spend on the effort of war. Whatever the personal costs ends up being for yourself and your family, as long as the money goes to the war effort, you are happy that it costs whatever the government wants to spend on it.
Hey, have it your way.
Holy crap Hank. You mean you support having a reasonable working environment? You must be from Europe or something. Everyone knows the only way to keep your foot on the employees neck and save America from the depression is to provide as little benefits as possible. How else are we gonna make this place look like the third world? Once all jobs are awful work camps we won’t have to do any outsourcing. Problem solved. Next Problem. Next Problem…
I haven’t seen any hard data on vacations and productivity, other than from the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research.
My big concern is here we are again on another slippery slope….government telling private businesses how to act. I’d be more impressed if our elected officials would stop their stupidity and selfishness and actually acted in a way that helps this country. I for one am offended by government intrusion in an area that doesn’t need fixing.
Most companies have a vacation policy; that’s usually disclosed before one joins up. If you don’t like it, don’t go work there; pretty simple concept. Yeah I’d like more than 2 weeks off, but that’s not the game I’m in.
There are issues affecting small businesses (100 employees and then ramping down to 50 employees, from what I’ve read). Would companies stop hiring at 49 employees? Count part-timers as something else? And why would part-timers get such a big benefit? Someone has to pay for employee overhead; usually these expenses flow through to the pricing of the product or service offered. I can’t imagine how one could justify a rate increase due to a mandatory vacation law if it increased expenses. Would the company fire staff to normalize expense levels? Freeze wage increases? (Yeah I know,,,,next up is the mandatory wage increase law).
I think that our elected officials should be able to prove that they were able to be part of a successful and profitable business venture, before they assume that the tab will be picked up somehow.
Nice post Brett, the problem is these people are shortsighted and have forgotten a concept called individual freedom. They shifted the debate from “is the right or wrong” to “does it work or not”. It’s not right even if it works, because it is wrong and infringes on liberty and freedom. This country has forgotten the principles that made us great. Principles can’t be changed for any reason or the cease beng principles.