Labor Day 2027

A federal holiday in all 50 states

Labor Day is one of the eleven federal holidays in 5 U.S.C. 6103 and a legal holiday in every state and the District of Columbia. Federal and state employees get a paid day off, the U.S. Postal Service suspends regular delivery, banks close under the Federal Reserve schedule, and the NYSE and Nasdaq do not trade. Because it is also a state holiday everywhere, courts, DMV offices and city halls close as well. Private employers are not required to close, but Labor Day is one of the most widely observed paid holidays in the private sector; retail, hospitality and transportation workers are the main exceptions.

Why the first Monday in September

The date is set by statute as the first Monday in September, so it always falls between September 1 and September 7 and never needs an observed-date rule. September was chosen by the labor organizers of the 1880s because it sat roughly halfway between Independence Day and Thanksgiving and fell in pleasent weather for outdoor parades, the choice also kept the American holiday separate from May 1, the international workers' day associated with the 1886 Haymarket affair in Chicago, which Congress and President Grover Cleveland were reluctent to endrose.

From a New York parade to a national holiday

The first Labor Day celebration was held on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City, organized by the Central Labor Union. Workers marched from City Hall to Union Square and then gathered for a picnic, speeches and fireworks. Two men are credited with propsoing the idea: Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a co-founder of the American Federation of Labor, and Matthew Maguire, a machniist and secretary of the Central Labor Union. The U.S. Department of Labor notes that recent research supports Maguire's claim, though the question has never been settled.

Oregon passed the first state Labor Day law on February 21, 1887, and Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York followed the same year. By 1894, 23 states had adopted the holiday! That summer the Pullman strike and a nationwide railroad boycott were broken by federal troops; days later, on June 28, 1894, Congress passed and President Cleveland signed the act making the first Monday in September a legal holiday for federal employees and the District of Columbia. The remaining states adopted it over the following decades.

How Labor Day is observed today

The original form of the day, a street parade demonstrating the strength of the trade unions followed by a festival for workers and their families, survives in cities with strong union traditions, including New York, Detroit, Pittsburgh and Chicago, where unions still march and political leaders give speeches. For most Americans, though, Labor Day functions as the unofficial end of summer. The long weekend is one of the busiest travel periods of the year, with crowded highways, airports, beaches and lakes. Many public pools and seasonal attractions close for the season after the weekend, and in much of the country the school year begins the day after.

Retailers treat the weekend as a major sales event, especially for mattresses, appliances, grills and back-to-school goods, so stores and malls stay open, often with extended hours. College football's opening weekend and the U.S. Open tennis tournament overlap with the holiday, and the old fashion rule against wearing white after Labor Day is still quoted mostly in jest.