It’s Leap Day — Are You Working For Free?

Seeing as today is Leap Day -- the extra day in February the only happens every four years -- does that mean that we're all working for free today?

When you think about it, it's not just a quirk of the calendar, Leap Day IS an extra day. There are now 366 days in 2016 instead of the usual 365. So, if you divide your yearly salary by the number of days in the year, wouldn't there, in fact, be an extra day in there -- one for which you're not being paid?

Well, yes... and no. According to this CBS-Minnesota story, while there IS an extra day to the year, if you get paid every other week -- as many of us do -- then you're not really working for free. The story says, "If you get paid on set days, twice a month (like the 5th and 20th) then you are technically working an extra day if the 29th of February falls on a weekday."

So, a Leap Year means we ARE working an extra day then? Well, not so fast. The story continues, "Look at the total weekdays in a year. In 2012, a leap year, there are 261 weekdays. In 2011, there were 260. But in 2010 and 2009 there were the same number of weekdays as there are this year: 261. That makes it hard to argue that you’re losing a day of pay in a leap year," the story concludes.

So overall, it would appear that even on a Leap Day like today, we're not really working an extra day without getting paid because as most salaried workers here in Minnesota are paid per year, with that amount evenly divided up between pay periods... I think. Here's more on the phenomenon of Leap Day: