Roughly 23% of the U.S. civilian workforce receives no paid vacation days at all, and no federal law requires any employer to change that. The United States guarantees no paid vacation, sick, maternity, family, or bereavement leave, joining Papua New Guinea as the only countries offering none. For executives, the gap is now a retention question: research shows paid time off improves employee retention, and the effect increases with the number of days granted.

How wide is the U.S. paid leave gap?

The numbers, compiled by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, tell the story plainly. Among the 10% lowest-paid workers, the share without paid vacation jumps to 43%. Employees who do get vacation time receive an average of just 10 days. Compare that with the OECD: 25 of its 38 member countries guarantee at least 20 vacation days by law.

Sick leave looks similar. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 17% of U.S. workers lack access to paid sick leave in 2026 — and some employers even ban unpaid leave. The Family and Medical Leave Act grants certain employees 12 weeks of unpaid family or medical leave, including childbirth. OECD countries, even counting zero weeks from the U.S., average 18.4 weeks of paid maternity leave.

"Your experience in the U.S. can depend a lot on where you work and where you live," says Cory McCruden, CEO of Best Upon Request, a concierge service focused on employee well-being.

What do state laws actually mandate?

Eighteen states and Washington, D.C., require private employers to offer paid sick leave when an employee or family member is unwell, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Thirteen states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico mandate paid family and medical leave.

The counterweight: the Economic Policy Institute reports that half of all states have passed preemptive laws that prohibit local officials from mandating PTO. Most of these ban any form of mandated sick or family leave policies outright.

Why do employees hoard days they've already earned?

Structure matters as much as totals. Many employers grant paid time off as one chunk covering all leave types. "An issue with this approach is that workers may not use the time when they really need it, either because it is gone or because they must hoard it for another hardship," says Candice Vander Weerdt, a PTO researcher and senior lecturer at Cleveland State University's business department. "Perhaps they used the last of their PTO during a family vacation and now cannot take time off when they catch the flu."

Culture compounds the problem. In a 2023 Pew Research study, 46% of employees reported not taking all of their paid time off. The most common reasons:

• Worrying about falling behind — 49%
• Feeling bad about coworkers carrying extra work — 43%
• Believing time off would hurt advancement chances — 19%
• Fearing job loss — 16%
• Being discouraged by their boss — 12%

Molly Weston Williamson, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress researching PTO, points to insufficient staffing and capability gaps as structural fuel for those fears. Managers, salaried workers, and higher earners were also less likely to use all of their PTO.

"We have an environment in which even workers who, on paper, have access to some kind of paid time off, don't feel secure in taking it," Weston Williamson says. That insecurity hits newer employees and Black workers hardest, she notes. Where leave is required by law, it typically protects workers from repercussions or refused requests.

What can leaders actually change?

For practitioners, the fixes start inside the company. Weston Williamson's instruction is direct: "Create the policy and then make the policy real." That means staffing so people can reliably take leave, and making clear that leadership endorses it: "We want everyone to use all of their leave."

McCruden advises leaders to set precedent by taking time off themselves, arranging coverage, and fully disconnecting while away — a signal the rest of the team can follow. "In America, we tend to associate being busy and available with being committed to our jobs," she says. "Other countries have made paid time away from work a more standard part of working life."

For individuals, Vander Weerdt recommends negotiating PTO before accepting a job offer or promotion, since some managers underestimate how much the benefit matters. Weston Williamson adds a route outside the office: advocacy for paid leave guarantees at the local, state, and federal level, and for well-designed, culturally supported policies inside employers.

"A company can offer plenty of time off, but if people don't feel like they can use it, the benefit only goes so far," McCruden says. For companies competing on retention, that sentence is the strategy brief.