No offense, but your proof here is purely anecdotal. I've worked for employers who offer less than two weeks. My first STEM job offered 5 days your first year,

No offense, but your proof here is purely anecdotal. I've worked for employers who offer less than two weeks. My first STEM job offered 5 days your first year, with 5 more each additional year, capping at 20. 2 weeks may be thought of as the norm, but since there is no actual law about it, its only a suggestion. For professional jobs in the US, the average paid vacation after the first year of service is 10 days (2 weeks)[1]. Sadly they don't have statistics for 0-1 years so I don't know if your package was atypical. That said, we certainly don't match our European counterparts, but then again, we don't even use most of the vacation time we are given every year[2]. The US simply doesn't have a culture of taking vacations like Europe. [1] http://www.bls.gov/news.release/ebs.t05.htm http://www.bls.gov/news.release/ebs.t05.htm [2] http://money.cnn.com/2012/05/18/news/economy/unused_vacation_days/index.htm http://money.cnn.com/2012/05/18/news/economy/unused_vacation...