Learn more about the history, fun facts and more about Labor Day

“Labor Day is an opportunity to celebrate you, the American worker!” says the Old Farmer’s Almanac website. “The founders of the holiday envisioned this day as a way to honor workers in the United States — the driving engine behind the most productive economy in the world, and the American work ethic, which resulted in one of the highest standards of living in the world. All of this came out of a belief in economic and political democracy.”

Plus, many do get that sweet 3-day weekend.

Labor Day — an annual celebration of the social and economic achievements of the American worker — is observed each year on the first Monday of September. This year it falls on Sept. 2.

The holiday’s roots are in the late 19th century labor rights movement and the U.S. Industrial Revolution as activists pushed to address serious problems such as long hours, unsafe working conditions and lack of time off.

Imagine being 5 or 6 years old and working in mills, factories and mines for 12 or more hours a day with no breaks. Even as adults, the work conditions in those days were harsh. American workers — most of them poor and many who had just immigrated to the country — had every right to protest.

Activists also worked to protect the quality of life for America’s workforce and wanted a federal observance to recognize the contributions it makes to the nation’s strength, prosperity and well-being.

Labor Day was first recognized by those activists until municipal ordinances were passed in 1885 and 1886. New York was the first state to introduce a bill, but Oregon on Feb. 21, 1887, was the first to pass a law making Labor Day an official state holiday.

Four more states — Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York — passed laws the same year creating a Labor Day holiday. By the end of the decade, Connecticut, Nebraska and Pennsylvania followed suit, with 23 more doing the same by 1894.

U.S. Congress on June 28, 1894, passed an act making the first Monday in September of each year a legal holiday, with President Grover Cleveland signing the act into law.

Labor Day also is often called the unofficial end to summer in many places on the mainland, with kids returning to school, outdoor public swimming pools closing, days beginning to get shorter and the weather starting to get colder — all signs that fall and winter are right around the corner.

Keep reading to learn more about the annual holiday and a few facts you might not have known from sources that include: Finance Buzz, The Old Farmer’s Almanac, U.S. Department of Labor, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Transportation Security Administration, Jettly and the Hawai’i Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.

About 161.3 million Americans were working in July

About 161.3 million Americans were employed in some capacity as of July, up slightly from the roughly 161.2 million in July 2023, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The unemployment rate nationwide jumped to 4.3% last month, increasing by 352,000 to 7.2 million people, compared to a year ago when the jobless rate was 3.5% and the number of unemployed was 5.9 million.

That’s also a 0.2% increase from June’s 4.1% unemployment figure.

The Hawai‘i Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism reports that 651,700 people were employed and 19,250 were unemployed in the islands during the month of July for a total seasonally adjusted labor force of 670,950 statewide.

The state’s unemployment rate did not change from 2.9% June through July.

Private sector non-farm employees make average $1,199.39 per week

The average number of hours a private sector non-farm employee worked as of July was about 34 per week, which is down by 0.1 of an hour from June and July 2023, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

That same employee is earning an average of $35.07 an hour, which is 8 cents better than in June and a whopping $1.23 more than July last year.

Their average weekly earnings were at $1,199.39 at the end of July compared to $1,200.16 in June, 77 cents less than in June but $38.68 more than July a year ago.

Who “invented” Labor Day?

Labor Day is a result of the efforts of labor rights activists and the unions they organized. And it is still somewhat unclear as to who is the originator of the holiday’s concept.

Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America and co-founder of the American Federation of Labor, is often credited with coming up with the idea, although recent research has shown Matthew Maguire, a secretary of the Central Labor Union in New York, might have been its creator.

Peter J. McGuire in 1882 proposed a celebration honoring the American worker. The date he chose was simply “convenient,” with him suggesting it would nicely fall “nearly midway between the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving.”

Matthew Maguire also proposed the holiday in 1882 while with the Central Labor Union. What we do know is that the New York union adopted a Labor Day proposal and made it happen.

8-hour workday didn’t become U.S. law until 1940

Can you imagine working 12 or more hours a day for 6 or 7 days a week? That was the norm in the 19th century and early 20th century.

So pressure was mounting form labor unions in 1938 for Congress to pass laws limiting workday hours. Lawmakers approved a Fair Labor Standards Act that set the workweek to 44 hours, or 8.8 hours a day.

It was later amended to 40 hours a week in 1940; however, it was first requested in 1866 when the National Labor Union asked Congress to make the 8-hour workday law.

Busiest Labor Day travel period on record

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration expected nearly 20 million people during what likely will end up being the busiest Labor Day travel period on record, from Aug. 29 through Wednesday.

The peak travel day was expected to be Aug. 30, when the agency braced for nearly 3 million people to come through its screeners.

Air travel volumes this summer are the highest the agency has ever seen.

Officials expect passenger volumes to be 8.5% higher than last year during this time. The top 10 busiest travel days in the agency’s history have all happened this year since May.

The agency reached a new milestone July 7, when TSA officers screened more than 3 million people in a single day.

Check out TSA’s top travel tips for an efficient and successful trip through security.

Honolulu airport Jettly’s best for Labor Day travel

To help you make the most of the busiest travel days of the year, private jet platform Jettly analyzed historical flight data to reveal which airlines and airports are the best and worst for Labor Day.

Over the past 5 years, 15% of Labor Day flights have been delayed and 1.54% canceled.

Here are some data-driven insights into which airlines and airports are most likely to experience delays, cancellations and on-time departures.

The top 3 airlines with the highest percentage of on-time flights:

• Hawaiian Airlines (93%)
• Delta Air Lines (91%)
• Alaska Airlines (88%)

The top 3 airlines with the highest percentage of delayed flights:

• JetBlue Airways (21%)
• Allegiant Air (18%)
• Southwest Airlines/Frontier Airlines – tied (17%)

The top 3 airlines with the highest percentage of canceled flights:

• Spirit Airlines (4.17%)
• JetBlue Airways (2.99%)
• Allegiant Air (2.59%)

Click here to see the complete data and learn more about the Jettly survey.

Signs of improvement in Hawai’i’s visitor numbers

Preliminary July statistics from the Hawai’i Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism show total visitor arrivals declined slightly in July but total visitor spending increased compared to the same month a year ago.

There were 925,935 visitors to the Hawaiian Islands in July, down 1% from last July, but total visitor spending was $2.07 billion, a growth of 2.6%. Last month’s total visitor arrivals represent a 93% percent and total visitor spending 22% recovery from July 2019 levels.

The average length of stay by all visitors in July was 8.81 days compared to 9.05 days, a decrease of 2.6%, in July last year and 8.92 days, or a decrease of 1.2%, than the same month in 2019.

The statewide average daily census was 263,281 visitors in July this year compared to 273,051 visitors in July 2023, a decrease of 3.6%, and 286,419 visitors in July 2019, a decline of 8.1%.

“Though our visitor industry is still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic and Maui wildfires, the July visitor statistics showed some reasons for encouragement,” said James Kunane Tokioka, director of the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism. “Visitor arrivals from the U.S. West market at more than half of a million in July 2024 were the highest during the past 2 years. The 66,557 visitors from Japan in July were the third highest since March 2020 for this market.”

Tokioka added that visitation to Maui also continued to improve last month with 237,495 arrivals, the highest since the wildfires, which represents a recovery rate of 79.9% from pre-wildfire levels.

It’s also expected that visitor arrivals from U.S. mainland markets will remain above the 2019 levels for the rest of the year and arrivals from Japan will continue to recover as the Japanese exchange rate has improved during the past few weeks.

Visitors from the U.S. West arrived in droves last month, with 503,378 people showing up on Hawai’i shores, an increase of 0.8% from last July and 8.8% from the 462,676 who came in July 2019.

They spent $1.01 billion while they were here, too, 8.4% more than the $932.3 million from July last year and a whopping 50.9% more than the $669.8 million the same month 5 years ago.

There were 66,557 people who came to the islands from Japan last month, a signficant 32.3% increase from the 50,310 visitors in July 2023 but much lower, 50.5%, lower than the 134,587 who came in July 2019.

However, the Japanese guests spent 29.4% more this July at $101.3 million than the $78.3 million in the same month last year. That was 45.7% less than the $186.5 million Japanese visitors spent in July 2019 though.

To see more of July’s visitor statistics, click here.

The first Labor Day “parade” was a protest march

The first “Labor Day parade” was a protest march Sept. 5, 1882, when 10,000 workers left their jobs in New York City and marched from City Hall to Union Square.

Celebrations after Labor Day became a national holiday began with parades to show the public the strength and spirit of trade and labor organizations of the community.

They then expanded to include festivals to provide recreation and amusement for workers and their families. Speeches by prominent union officials, industrialists, educators, clerics and government officials also became part of the festivities.

Americans ate 818 hot dogs per second between Memorial Day and Labor Day in 2021

In a 2021 Labor Day survey by travel advice guide The Vacationer, 54.6% of respondents said they’d be celebrating the holiday by attending a good old-fashioned BBQ or cookout. That makes sense. It’s an American pastime.

It was the most popular response.

WalletHub in a survey of its own the same year discovered that a popular BBQ food is eaten a lot between Memorial Day and Labor Day. And a lot might not even be the right way to describe just how many of these favorite franks are consumed.

The survey found that about 818 hot dogs were eaten every second during the unofficial summer season. That’s right. Per second.

This year, there were 98 days between the two holidays. There are 86,400 seconds in a day. That means, if the number still holds true, Americans have eaten nearly 8,467,200 hot dogs in just a little more than the past 3 months alone.

How many of those were on your cookout plates this year? Gonna add a few more today?

The top 10 most dangerous jobs in the United States

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the civilian occupations with the highest fatal work injury rates in 2022 and the fatalities per 100,000 full-time employees, the last year with available data, were:

• Logging workers: 101
• Roofers: 58
• Fishing and hunting workers: 51
• Helpers, construction trades: 39
• Aircraft pilots and flight engineers: 36
• Driver/sales workers and truck drivers: 30
• Refuse and recyclable material collectors: 23
• Structural iron and steel workers: 21
• Underground mining machine operators: 20
• Miscellaneous agricultural workers: 20

Largest occupations in the United States

Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics from May 2023, the latest available, shows the are the largest occupations in the United States and how many people work in each:

• Home health and personal care aides: 3,689,350
• Retail salespeople: 3,684,740
• Fast food and counter workers: 3,676,580
• General and operations managers: 3,507,810
• Cashiers: 3,298,660
• Registered nurses: 3,175,390
• Laborers and freight, stock and material movers, hand: 3,008,300
• Stockers and order fillers: 2,872,680
• Customer service representatives: 2,858,710
• Office clerks, general: 2,496,370

Can you wear white after Labor Day?

The last tantalizing question tackled on our Labor Day facts list is one that used to be common but might not be anymore. But hey, there’s nothing wrong with getting a little fashion advice.

If you’ve ever heard you shouldn’t wear white after Labor Day, it’s an old-time rule that really has no base now. But where did it start and why was it ever a thing?

The Old Farmer’s Almanac posits it was simply cooler to wear in an age before air conditioning; white reflects sun instead of absorbing it.

Another theory is that the end of summer meant returning to city life and work. Many people of the wealthy variety would “summer,” or take the month of August, to visit the seashore, and going back to an urban, often dirtier, setting meant whites were no longer practical.

Today, however, we have air conditioning, we have lighter fabrics and clothing has become more casual and comfortable, so there’s no need to worry about when and where to don your whites — unless you’re talking about undergarments. That might still be an issue.

Happy Labor Day!