Depending on where in the United States you live and whom you work for, Columbus Day may be a day off with pay, another holiday entirely, or no different from any other Monday.
Columbus Day, the second Monday in October, is one of the most inconsistently celebrated U. Because federal offices will be closed, so will most banks and the bond markets that trade in U. The stock markets will remain open, however, as will most retailers and other businesses. Beyond that, Columbus Day seems to be fading as a widely observed holiday, having come under fire in recent decades from Native American advocates and others.
Given the continuing controversy over how and whether to recognize Christopher Columbus and his accomplishments, we thought it was time to take a new look at the Columbus Day holiday — our first since We decided to focus on states and territories that observe Columbus Day or one of its substitutes as an official public holiday — meaning that state offices are closed and state workers get a paid day off.
Our main sources for this post were state administrative, personnel and human-resources websites, most of which post lists of official state holidays. We supplemented those lists with news reports about local observances, or the lack thereof, of Columbus Day or its many alternatives.
Based on our review of state human resources websites and other sources, only 20 states, plus American Samoa and Puerto Rico, still call the second Monday in October Columbus Day and consider it a public holiday — meaning government offices are closed and state workers have a paid day off. Since the turn of the 21st century, states have taken several different approaches to Columbus Day.
California and Delaware dropped the holiday entirely in , the latter swapping in a floating holiday for state workers. Maine, New Mexico and D. Colorado — the first state to designate Columbus Day as a state holiday more than years ago — renamed it in to honor Frances Xavier Cabrini , a Catholic nun and Italian immigrant who founded dozens of schools, hospitals and orphanages to serve poor immigrants and was canonized in Write to Nolan Feeney at nolan.
By Nolan Feeney. As Money explained last year : Columbus Day belongs in a category that might be considered second-tier holidays, in which a sizable portion of employees get the day off, but the majority of us are expected to work like normal. In , Slate tried to answer that question : In the early s. Related Stories.
Already a print subscriber? Go here to link your subscription. For instance, rather than risk angering Italian Americans by declaring Columbus Day dead for political reasons, then-California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger blamed a budget crunch for striking the day from the calendar of paid holidays for state employees as of That same year, Baltimore and Philadelphia canceled their Columbus Day parades, though the traditions have since been brought back—typically with the help of increased private funding.
To avoid agitating employees by shorting them of paid vacation days, some states and localities play games with the calendar.
State workers in Tennessee , for instance, generally get a day off for Columbus Day, but the day they get off is actually the Friday after Thanksgiving. Federal workers, mind you, aren't guaranteed that Friday off, even though two-thirds of businesses and organizations nationally are closed on "Black Friday" so employees can enjoy a four-day Thanksgiving weekend. Retail workers, of course, are expected to work on both Black Friday and Columbus Day, though the latter is not the monster sales day it once was—because fewer people can go shopping nowadays since they no longer have the day off!
There are many theories as to why this is so. Massachusetts and Maine are the only states to close schools and government offices to celebrate Patriots' Day in April, while most workers in Utah have July 24 off in honor of Pioneer Day.
Every fourth year, plenty of workers including all federal employees in the Washington, D. Overall, it's a balancing act for employers when it comes to deciding when and how many paid holidays companies should provide. In the grand scheme, granting days off is a cheap and easy way to make workers happy.
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