After President Joe Biden made Juneteenth a Federal public holiday in 2021, many states, and employers in the private sector, now mark it as a paid day off or plan to do so next year.
At least 28 states and Washington, D.C. have legally recognized Juneteenth as a holiday with government offices closed for the day.
Juneteenth was marked to celebrate Black emancipation from enslavement. Its history dates back to 1865 when enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas, learned they were free, which came more than two months after the Civil War ended.
“We are not celebrating the history of Juneteenth. We are celebrating the symbolism of Juneteenth,” said Leslie Wilson, professor of history at Montclair State University in New Jersey.
“The symbolism of Juneteenth is the transition from slavery to freedom”, he explained.
More people are beginning to recognize the day as a paid day off. According to a Randstad USA surveyof 1,030 American workers, 43.5% will get a day off for Juneteenth.
Bloombergalso reported that it was an 11% increase from 2021. However, half of the workers said they weren’t paid for the day off.
The awareness of Juneteenth has also spiked. According to a Conductor, a marketing platform, Before 2020, about 3 million people searched about Juneteenth every June of every year. But now, over 32 million people search about Juneteenth – an increase of over 870%.
we might see more companies giving the day off in the coming years. There wasn’t enough time for many businesses, including the U.S. Postal Service and stock markets, to mark the day last year, because Juneteenth became a federal holiday a few days before the d-day in 2021.
“It’s kind of like this is the first year a lot of employers might have had the opportunity to make changes if they wanted to,” Julie Stich, vice president of content at the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans, said in an interview with Axios.
“It could be something that does grow as we move forward like Martin Luther King Jr. Day when that was made a federal holiday,” Stich continued. “People didn’t adopt it immediately but that adoption grew over time.”
Juneteenth became a public holiday this year for Connecticut, Minnesota, Nevada, and Tennessee.
In California, state workers can take it off “in lieu of receiving a personal holiday. The day is included as part of “cultural or religious importance,” and some state workers can only take one paid day off in that category.
Alabama and West Virginia have authorized Juneteenth as a temporal state holiday.
In the private sector, 39% of private employers have made Juneteenth a paid company holiday, as against 32% in 2022, according to Mercer.
The consulting firm also found that 63% of employers now provide paid time off for the day, according to a survey of 721 organizations checked this year, while another 7% said they are considering making Juneteenth a holiday next year.
The U.S. stock markets, banks, and the U.S. Postal Service are closed Monday to observe the public holiday.
