Friday, June 20, 2025

Actually, the US does not have that many public holidays

That Mr. Trump seems to think that the United States has way too many public holidays, and that this is interfering with American money-making. "Too many non-working holidays", he says.

Of course, as usual, he's totally wrong. The US actually has just 10 public holidays (or 11, depending on which source you choose to use). It turns out that is one of the lowest number of holidays worldwide. For example, most of Europe has between 9 and 16 days. South America has between 11 and 18 (although, for some reason, Chile has just 5 according to one source, or 20 according to another). Countries in Asia generally have between 11 and 20 (although one source shows India with just 3, while another source suggests it has as many as 42!) Maybe it depends on your definitions?

Perhaps even more confusingly, Wikipedia lists public holidays by country, but shows two columns, Maximum Number of Public Holidays and Minimum Number of Public Holidays. For what it's worth, the USA has the 9th smallest maximum number (at 11), and the absolute smallest minimum number in the world (at 6)! India, incidentally, has 21, according to their analysis. This is clearly more of an art than a science!

So, I don't know what to tell you. Really, Trump just wants to get rid of the Juneteenth holiday because he disapproves of anything celebrating Black history. But he wouldn't want to come right out and say that, now would he? Back in 2020, he called Juneteenth "an important event", and even tried to take credit for popularizing it. Nowadays, though, he is in full King mode, and does not feel he needs to ingratiate himself with the Black population any more.

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