Sponsors (2)
The bill increases pay and enforceability for workers on federal public holidays, particularly benefiting low-wage employees, while imposing higher labor, compliance, and litigation costs—disproportionately affecting small and multistate employers and potentially leading to higher prices or reduced hours.
Low-income and hourly workers: receive at least 1.5x pay for work on federal legal public holidays, increasing take-home pay for those shifts.
Employees (especially lower-wage workers): gain a private right of action to recover unpaid holiday pay with FLSA remedies (liquidated damages and attorneys' fees), improving enforceability and access to recovery.
Workers covered by stronger state or local laws: retain any higher holiday-pay protections because this bill preserves more protective local rules.
Small businesses and employers: face higher labor costs for holiday shifts, which may lead them to raise prices, reduce staffing or hours, or cut other benefits.
Employers (especially small and resource-constrained businesses): incur increased litigation exposure and compliance costs from expanding FLSA-covered pay obligations, raising administrative and legal expenses.
Multistate employers and payroll administrators: face added complexity complying with varying federal, state, and local holiday-pay rules, increasing payroll burden and the chance of errors or disputes.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Requires FLSA-covered employers to pay time-and-a-half (1.5x) for work performed on federal legal public holidays.
Official title: To amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to require employers to compensate employees working on a legal public holiday for such work at a rate that is not less than one and one-half times the regular rate at which the employee is employed, and for other purposes.
Introduced May 21, 2026 by Sarah McBride · Last progress May 21, 2026
Requires employers covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act to pay employees who work on a "legal public holiday" at no less than 1.5 times their regular rate. The bill defines "legal public holiday" by referencing the list of federal holidays in 5 U.S.C. §6103(a), integrates the new holiday-pay right into FLSA enforcement and remedies, preserves state or local rules that provide greater holiday pay, and updates related enforcement and statute-of-limitations provisions.