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Comment by AndrewKemendo | Hacker News Reader

>The United States is the only advanced country that doesn't guarantee that its citizens will get paid vacation time and holidays

I find the reasoning consistently maddening. What they should be saying is that there is no federal mandate for private employers to pay workers during vacation/convalescence/maternity leave.

In point of fact, for government workers there is paid annual/maternity/paternity leave which ends up being "use or lose" and in effect becomes a mandatory leave - something universally omitted in these articles.

I think this just comes back to the classic debate about how the American economy is organized. Our constitution and US Code is not organized such that the government can easily dictate laws to private employers, that is by design.

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> and in effect becomes a mandatory leave

this is a good thing, as the rest of the evidence presented in the OP suggests. People should take all the leave they are entitled to.

Absolutely, because it is the only way the US government can actually by law give American workers mandatory time off.

I've pointed this out in other threads about this subject, but there are actually employers who pay out a bonus to employees who use 100% of the PTO in a given year.

Which, of course, makes it great for the private employers (the 1%), but not so great for the private employees (the 99% that was mentioned in the article)

over half of the 6mil firms in the US with payrolls in this country have between 1 and 9 employees. ('08 numbers[0]).

"employer" != 1%

"policies good for employers" != "policies only good for 1%"

[0]-https://www.census.gov/econ/smallbus.html

A lot of them are "employee in name only" contractors. Doesn't mean much. I've done it myself. There are tax implications when you get 1099'd, as long as you go in eyes open it'll be OK. Don't forget to file your quarterly estimated payments, the IRS isn't amused if you skip one.

There's a lot of talk on HN about the natural evolved tribal size of human orgs being only XYZ people so when we inevitably have a larger than XYZ group its epic fail. Well... it goes the other way too, and its quite possible that natural evolved civilization etc requires more than 2 guys on a "tribe" long term. It doesn't have to be the end of the world or apocalyptic, merely suggesting encouraging microfirms might not be a wise policy decision.

I have operated on 1099 as well; this will definitely cause some skewed numbers on 'employers'.

I believe my point stands, though. Being an employer does not implicitly mean you are part of the 1%; supporting policies that are pro-employer does not implicitly mean you are a neo-capitalist, anti-socialist 1%er.

Having been in a number of 'microfirms' myself, I intuitively think supporting them is wise policy (as a rule of thumb; as with most things, it's wise until it isn't). I may be biased, but I have seen many firms in the US that start this way and grow; low barriers for starting a business is one of the US's greatest assets, from my perspective. It is a foundation for social mobility, stands in contrast to much of the developed world, and is one of the primary motivators for people to chose the US when they 'vote with their feet'.

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