Leap Day Should be a National Holiday

Why isn't February 29th a public holiday? It’s a rare occurrence that only happens once every four years. Why not turn it into a little celebration? It could be a chance for a unique tradition to flourish that people will look forward to every four years. Also, it’s giving our corporate overlords a day of free labor every four years and that’s really unconscionable.

Allow me to explain: If you are a salaried employee, such as myself, you enter into an agreement with your employer to work for a year at a fixed rate. That agreement also generally operates under the assumption that you’ll work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year, give or take a few public holidays and paid time off. That adds up to 2080 hours a year. Granted, your boss might make you exceed those hours because they likely don’t understand how a positive work-life balance can actually increase productivity, which ultimately will provide more value from your work while working fewer hours, but that’s neither here nor there.

Now in a Leap Year, there’s an extra day of work which brings your total of hours up to 2088, however you don’t get a prorated paycheck during a Leap Year, so effectively your hourly rate goes down. At best, you are losing value for the work you are doing and at worst you’re donating your time to your company! What could be worse than that? 

That’s why we need to reclaim February 29th! I’m telling you now so we’ll be ready in time for the next one! And it's not like companies are reporting some massive profit spike every four years because everyone in their company worked one extra day in a particular year... unless they are seeing a massive profit spike in which case, these companies are incredibly crooked and we definitely need to demand the day off. We may even need to go on strike, so start getting ready to go on strike in 2028!

However, one could make the argument that this day off could hurt hourly workers, who actually benefit from an extra day of work every Leap Year. Since their hourly rate doesn’t change, only their hours do, they’re gaining an extra day of pay that year, which is nice. So, if we made February 29th a public holiday then a great many US workers would be missing out on some extra money, which they might prefer to have instead of a day off.

Of course, that’s not very fair to the salaried workers, who are still getting ripped off a day of labor every four years. So, maybe to make things truly fair we need to have all salaried workers get an extra 8 hours of pay every Leap Year, which actually doesn’t sound so bad. Wouldn’t you love an extra day of pay every four years? It would be like a reverse holiday! Wouldn’t you feel a bit happier that day knowing you’re getting a little extra cash at the end of the day? Maybe to get even greater buy-in, hourly workers could get time and a half for working on February 29th! More money for everyone.

Well, more money for everyone except for employers who now have to shell out more money that they probably haven’t accrued for, so they’re probably not going to be on board. Plus, it’d have to be voluntary at this point because there’s no legal mechanism that I can think of in the US to create this reverse holiday scheme where employers are forced to give out more money. And I’m certain major corporations will use their powerful lobbyists to oppose any effort to create the concept of reverse extra money holidays, so that might not be a great solution either.

OK, so let’s go back to the public holiday idea because everyone likes a day off regardless of their employment situation. As an added bonus, it occurred to me just now that a lot of hourly workers are in the service industry, so if everyone decided to go out to eat or go shopping or otherwise engage in activities they would otherwise not be doing if they were at work there would be more tips and additional shifts to pick up for those workers, which would provide more money for those people. That’s a win, right? Plus, a lot of retail corporations would ultimately be getting more money out of the deal, so we would have some corporate allies on our side for this day off as well.

I think the public holiday thing is a winner so we just need to make it legal… oh, hang on. The lawyers are going to blow this up. Lawyers thrive on billing their clients and having an extra day to wring another dollar out of them probably does net the legal industry a lot of money. If most people aren’t working that day, law firms probably don’t have anyone to bill, so this could be dead in the water. Even if we can get public support, the lawyers will just tank the whole thing with all their legal maneuvering.

Alright, so we just need to get the lawyers on board and we can make this work. What if the Leap Day holiday specifically involved lawyers taking their most well off clients out to lunch or some fun daytime event where they would get to use the company expense account? Then it’s like you’re billing your client, but you get a free round of golf in the mix. Lawyers LOVE golf. February might be too cold for golf though in a lot of places, but I’m sure there are winter indoor alternatives that lawyers still love.

OK, I think we have everyone on board. I’m trying to think who might still oppose this. Teachers and students will love the day off, so that’s fine. Doctors and nurses might not be thrilled because a lot of them will still have to work and I think they are mostly salaried, but maybe they could get an extra day off later? Plus, hospitals and healthcare companies should support this idea because I’m sure accidental injuries go up on holidays, which means more billing. Additional injuries could mean more claims for health insurance companies though, so they won’t like it, but maybe they could save money by shutting down their call centers for a day. Manufacturing might miss an extra day of work, but it could ultimately drive up demand on various goods if there’s an extra shopping day, so it might ultimately work out depending on the industry. People who are self-employed might be upset if they lose an extra day to bill, but maybe they could use the day to catch up on some admin tasks.

Alright, I think I have safely laid out why February 29th should be a public holiday and how it will benefit mostly everyone. Let’s get on it America!