This Act mandates that employers pay employees at least one and one-half times their regular rate of pay for work performed on federal legal public holidays.
Sarah McBride
Representative
DE
The Holiday Pay Act amends the Fair Labor Standards Act to mandate that employers pay employees at least one and one-half times their regular rate of pay for work performed on designated federal legal public holidays. This new premium pay requirement applies to most employees covered by the Act, with certain existing exemptions continuing to apply. Violations will be enforced using the same mechanisms as existing minimum wage and overtime violations, and the Act clarifies that it does not override any state or local laws that offer greater holiday pay protections.
Holiday Pay Act Mandates Time-and-a-Half for Federal Holidays: 11 Days Now Qualify for Premium Pay
The Holiday Pay Act aims to put more money in the pockets of people working while everyone else is at a barbecue or opening presents. By amending the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), this bill requires employers to pay at least 1.5 times the regular hourly rate for any work performed on the 11 recognized federal legal public holidays. Whether you are a retail clerk on Black Friday or a software engineer pushing a holiday update, if your job is covered by standard federal minimum wage and overtime rules, your holiday shift just got a 50% raise. The list of covered days includes everything from New Year’s Day and Juneteenth to Thanksgiving and Christmas Day.
The Clock-In Bonus
Under Section 2 of the bill, the new 'Section 8' of the FLSA makes it illegal for an employer to pay anything less than time-and-a-half for holiday hours. For someone making $20 an hour, a standard eight-hour shift on Labor Day would jump from $160 to $240 in gross pay. This isn't just a suggestion; the bill updates Sections 15, 16, and 17 of the FLSA to ensure that if an employer stiffed you on that premium, you could sue for 'unpaid legal public holiday compensation' plus liquidated damages. It essentially treats a holiday shift with the same legal weight as overtime, giving workers a clear path to recover missing wages through the Department of Labor or the courts.
Who Gets Left Out?
While this covers the majority of the workforce, the bill explicitly carries over existing exemptions from Section 13(f) of the FLSA. This means if you are in a role currently exempt from federal overtime—such as certain agricultural workers or specific seasonal recreational employees—this new holiday pay requirement won't apply to you. It creates a bit of a divide: while a warehouse worker might see a fatter paycheck for working Memorial Day, a farmhand working a few miles away might not see a dime of that premium pay, even though they are both working the same holiday.
A New Floor for Paychecks
One of the most practical parts of this bill is how it interacts with local laws. Section 18 clarifies that this federal mandate is a floor, not a ceiling. If you live in a state or city that already requires double-time for holidays, or recognizes extra holidays like Patriots' Day or Mardi Gras, your employer has to stick to the higher local standard. For business owners, this means a new layer of payroll complexity, especially for those operating across state lines, as they’ll need to track 11 specific dates and ensure their systems are calibrated to the 1.5x rate to avoid the updated penalties and statute of limitations risks now included in the Portal-to-Portal Act.