2024 was an election year, and that means that January 20, 2025, will be Inauguration Day.
According to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), federal employees in the Washington, DC area get a holiday on Inauguration Day. This is to help cut down on traffic in the area, so that is why it only applies to federal employees scheduled to work in the DC area as opposed to all federal employees.
The holiday applies to these areas:
- the District of Columbia;
- Montgomery and Prince Georges Counties in Maryland;
- Arlington and Fairfax Counties in Virginia; and
- the cities of Alexandria, Falls Church, and Fairfax in Virginia.
However, 2025 is unique because Inauguration Day happens to fall on the same day as the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. So what will this mean for applicable federal employees?
In this rather unique circumstance, DC area federal employees only get one holiday rather than two. According to OPM:
In year in which a Presidential Inauguration occurs, if January 20th falls on a Sunday, the next succeeding day (i.e., Monday, January 21st) is designated as the public observance of the inauguration of the President and thus becomes the legal holiday of Inauguration Day. In this scenario, the January 21st Inauguration Day holiday will fall on the same day as the holiday for the Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., which falls on the 3rd Monday in January. No additional holiday is provided in this scenario; employees will receive a holiday under the normal rules that apply to the Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday. (emphasis added)
So the bottom line is that the MLK federal holiday and the Inauguration Day holiday will be one and the same for federal employees in the Washington, DC area.
However, federal employees will wind up getting an extra holiday in January 2025 in observance of the National Day of Mourning declared by President Biden to honor the passing of former President Jimmy Carter. Federal agencies were ordered to close on January 9, 2025, to honor the occasion.
History of Inauguration Day
The first Inauguration Day was for President George Washington. It took place on April 30, 1789, however, it was supposed to occur on March 4. According to The White House Historical Association, it was delayed because of a lack of quorum in Congress stemming from travel delays of Members of Congress getting to New York City which was the temporary seat of government.
Presidential inaugurations thereafter took place on March 4. This was the date selected by Congress.
Inauguration Day was held on that date until 1937 when the first Inauguration Day was held on January 20. It was changed by the 20th Amendment to the Constitution which was adopted in 1933.
Among some of the reasons for the change were to shorten lame duck periods in the transition period between administrations and modern transportation methods meant that less time was required to travel to Washington, DC from other parts of the country.
