Five years after President Joe Biden signed legislation making Juneteenth the 12th federal holiday, its adoption as a paid day off for public employees remains uneven across the United States, with state and local governments setting their own observance calendars.
Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865 — the day news of emancipation reached enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law on June 17, 2021.
As of this year, 33 states and Washington, D.C., recognize Juneteenth as a paid holiday, with state-level offices closed, according to data from the states and the Congressional Research Service. Additional states, including California, offer Juneteenth as a floating holiday option. Federal employees are offered an official paid day off, while state employees have a paid holiday only where it has been adopted by their state.
Texas became the first state to recognize the day — which it calls Emancipation Day — as a holiday in 1980, but the state marks it as “skeleton crew required,” offering paid time off to some, but not all, state employees, according to the Office of Personnel Management.
On the county, city and municipal levels, public employees depend on local policy, which sometimes differs from that of state and federal policies, according to the Wall Street Journal. The most populous cities in 46 states observe Juneteenth as a paid day off, creating a gap between state and city government calendars. For example, while Arizona is open on a state level, Phoenix closes all city offices for Juneteenth.
Some states, such as New York and Virginia, follow federal guidelines and are closed from the state level down to the local level.
The uneven adoption of Juneteenth mirrors the observance of other federal holidays, including Columbus Day, Presidents Day and Veterans Day, which are also inconsistently observed across states.