A new survey from the Pew Research Center shows only 48% of U.S. workers say they use all their allotted vacation time each year. And frankly, that stinks.

Vacation Time and Office Culture

 The same study that showed roughly half of Americans don’t take all of their time off makes it clear exactly why we’re leaving vacation days on the table.

• 49% of Americans say they fear more time off would make them fall behind at work.
• 43% say they feel bad that their coworkers take on more work while they’re gone on vacation.
• 19% of workers say they fear they’ll lose out on promotions by taking time off while another 16% say they feel their job may be in jeopardy.
• 12% of workers say their managers discourage taking time off. 

Those last three statistics point to what I can only describe as an awful, regressive company culture. But most people can relate to the Americans who fear falling behind or leaving work to their coworkers when they take time off. That’s a downside of American corporate culture, too.

 Ultimately, more and more companies are offering more lenient (and even unlimited) vacation time policies. The national unemployment rate was a super-low 3.6% in February, creating a hyper-competitive hiring market. As a result, companies are starting to offer better vacation policies to attract and retain good workers. Major companies like Microsoft, Netflix, and Salesforce are even offering unlimited vacation policies.

This policy, of course, works better in some industries like tech than others – some doctors and teachers may be rolling their eyes at the concept of unlimited vacation time. But no matter where you work, all the vacation days in the world don’t make a difference if the company, its managers, and the office-wide culture don’t encourage and allow workers to take that time off.

Vacation Days and Travel Costs 

Ready for another depressing stat? A 2021 poll from YouGov and The Economist showed that only 37% of Americans have a passport.

That’s right: Just over a third of U.S. citizens have the documentation needed to leave the country. With record demand for passports leading to long delays, that may be changing. But not fast enough.

Of course, travel doesn’t require crossing international borders: There is so much to see here in the United States. But if you’ve been abroad, you know how life-changing exploring another country can be.

What that 37% number says to me is that only about a third of the people in this country even see international travel as an option, let alone a priority. Some people may have health, safety, or cultural reasons to not leave home, but the data shows that the passport/no-passport divide falls along financial lines.

The same YouGov poll showed that the percentage of Americans with a passport and a household income over $100,000 was 64%. For household incomes between $50,000 and $100,000, 44% of Americans had passports, and for households with an income below $50,000, that number was just 21%.

Think about that: Two-thirds of Americans with a household income of $100,000 or more have passports, and yet the national average is still just 37%. That’s a huge difference. It means lower-income Americans think they can’t afford to travel internationally.

(Sources)

• Pew Research Center Survey: “About Half of Lower-Income Americans Reportedly Don’t Take All Paid Vacation Time” https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/13/about-half-of-lower-income-americans-reportedly-dont-take-all-paid-vacation-time/
• YouGov and The Economist Poll: “Americans with passports” https://today.yougov.com/topics/travel/articles-reports/2019/09/18/americans-passports