28% Say There Are Too Many Federal Holidays
Ask Americans about the number of federal holidays, and the answer is – enough is enough.
Twenty-eight percent (28%) of American Adults, in fact, say there are already too many federal holidays, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Thirteen percent (13%) say there aren’t enough of them. But most Americans (53%) say the number of federal holidays is about right. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
Only eight percent (8%) of government employees think there are too many federal holidays, compared to 25% of those who work in the private sector. Seventy percent (70%) of those who work for the government say the number of holidays is about right, a view shared by a plurality (49%) of private sector workers.
The National Taxpayers Union has estimated that a federal holiday costs roughly $450 million in holiday pay and salary for lost productivity, but it’s important to note that our question did not include that information.
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The survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted on February 15-16, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.
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