Congress moves to guarantee time-and-a-half pay for holiday work
H.R. 8980 — Holiday Pay Act · Filed by Sarah McBride (D-DE) · 4 cosponsors · Introduced May 21, 2026 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill amends the Fair Labor Standards Act to require employers to pay employees time-and-a-half (1.5× their regular rate) for any work performed on federal legal public holidays (like Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Day). The bill applies to all employers covered by the FLSA and creates enforcement mechanisms through the Department of Labor, allowing workers to sue for unpaid holiday compensation just as they can for unpaid overtime.
Why we flagged it
The bill's sole operative mechanism is a wage floor for holiday work — a straightforward labor-standards amendment that increases compensation for a defined class of work. It is not a tax measure, subsidy, or deregulation; it is a protective labor standard.
What the text implies
- Holiday pay is excluded from overtime-compensation calculations under Section 7(2), meaning an employee working 50 hours in a week that includes a holiday does not receive double-time for the holiday hours — only time-and-a-half. This may reduce the effective wage premium for holiday work in high-hour weeks.
- The bill defers to state and local laws that set higher holiday-pay rates, creating a patchwork of standards. Employers operating across multiple jurisdictions will face compliance complexity and potential wage-rate variation by location.
The full analysis lists 4 implications of this text.
Who stands to gain
hourly workers and salaried employees covered by the FLSA; labor unions (increased wage floor strengthens bargaining position); employment litigation firms (expanded private right of action increases demand for wage-and-hour cou