We, as Americans, work too many hours. If you don’t believe so, check out the following data points that compare us to our peers around the world.
American Work-Life Balance
- According to the Center for American Progress on the topic of work and family life balance, “in 1960, only 20 percent of mothers worked. Today, 70 percent of American children live in households where all adults are employed.” I don’t care who stays home and who works in terms of gender (work opportunity equality for all – it’s a family choice). Either way, when all adults are working (single or with a partner), that’s a huge hit to the American family and free-time in the American household.
- The U.S. is the ONLY country in the Americas without a national paid parental leave benefit. The average is over 12 weeks of paid leave anywhere other than Europe and over 20 weeks in Europe.
- Zero industrialized nations are without a mandatory option for new parents to take parental leave. That is, except for the United States.
American Average Work Hours:
- At least 134 countries have laws setting the maximum length of the work week; the U.S. does not.
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In the U.S., 85.8 percent of males and 66.5 percent of females work more than 40 hours per week.
- According to the ILO, “Americans work 137 more hours per year than Japanese workers, 260 more hours per year than British workers, and 499 more hours per year than French workers.”
- Using data by the U.S. BLS, the average productivity per American worker has increased 400% since 1950. One way to look at that is that it should only take one-quarter the work hours, or 11 hours per week, to afford the same standard of living as a worker in 1950 (or our standard of living should be 4 times higher). Is that the case? Obviously not. Someone is profiting, it’s just not the average American worker.
American Paid Vacation Time & Sick Time:
- There is not a federal law requiring paid sick days in the United States.
- The U.S. remains the only industrialized country in the world that has no legally mandated annual leave.
- In every country included except Canada and Japan (and the U.S., which averages 13 days/per year), workers get at least 20 paid vacation days. In France and Finland, they get 30 – an entire month off, paid, every year.
- Then there’s this depressing graph on average paid vacation time in industrialized countries:
The Impact of Too Much Work
I’m not telling you to work less hours. If you genuinely love what you do and are doing it for the right reasons, you are more than entitled to spend all of your waking hours plugging away.
But for many of us, more work leads to more stress and a lower quality of life. Without time to unwind, take care of your home, spend time with loved ones, enjoy our hobbies, connect with friends, and generally live a more balanced life. Stress is the #1 cause of health problems – mentally and physically. And there are few things that stress us out on a consistent basis like work does, especially when it takes away from all of the other things that life has to offer.
Americans are the Outliers
And if all of this data tells anything, it’s that we are the outliers, not the norm. Why are we the outliers?
- Our companies fairly ruthlessly let people go. We want to keep our jobs and not be a ‘low performer’ compared to others.
- The decline of the union has led to less paid time off and other leave benefits.
- Cultural value of money over everything else. We love money, we want more of it, and we think money can buy happiness. And the more we work, the more we get paid.
- It’s been drilled in our heads that we are lazy compared to emerging market counterpart workers in India, Mexico, China, and other parts of Asia. Who isn’t? And what is our mental image of the work environments in those locales? To validate those fears, our jobs are being outsourced to the cheap labor in those countries. In reality, the U.S. trails only Norway and Luxembourg (2 tiny countries) productivity per person.
- Our legislative branch of the government (on both sides of the aisle) has been bought and as a result has shied away from passing laws that protect workers that every other industrialized nation has passed.
- We generally don’t fight for our working rights. We take what is given to us.
What we All Need to Remember
What we all need to remind ourselves is that it doesn’t have to be this way.
- It’s OK to ask to move to fewer hours at work.
- It’s OK to take a week-long vacation if we need to.
- It’s OK to ask to work from home.
- It’s OK to take a month of unpaid leave while you raise a child.
- It’s OK… you get the idea.
Don’t let life pass you by in the name of fear, circumstance, greed, or misguided hopes. Sometimes you just need to draw a line in the sand and say “enough is enough”.
Overworked Discussion:
- Do you think we work too hard?
- Do you like the cultural norm around your workplace on working hour expectations?
- How have you been able to limit unhealthy overworking habits?
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I hate the work place standards in the US. Personally, my workload doesn’t actually require 40 hours per week, but my employer does. Everyday is a struggle to stay chained to my desk waiting for more work to come up. But I also think it’s ridiculous to require those people whose jobs could take over 40 hours a week to actually complete the work in that time. Just because we live in a world where you could work around the clock, communicating with people all over the world, doesn’t mean you should. We are not robots, we need a life.
@ Danielle –
Please don’t take my ‘working mothers’ data point out of context as a statement that I think mothers should stay home. My point was to show that we’ve lost 50% of adults staying home with their children – whether it’s a man or woman. That’s a huge blow to work-life balance, but it’s almost a necessity these days. My point was that nobody is home with the kids anymore – man or woman – and that’s a shame.
Danielle… hush. Miller has a point. Have you actually looked around lately at the youth in america? Kids are growing up with no adults in the house because they’re too busy working 60 – 80 hours a week – some of them with no benefits or any vacation time because they could be contractors. As it seems most companies in the states don’t hire employees, they hire contractors so they don’t have to pay for benefits and vacation. They will however dangle that possibility in your face for years while you pound away 12 hours a day.
Flame me if you want but if you compare our lives with our european counterparts who are getting upwards of 40 bank holidays a year (not counting vacation time)… american life is the absolute suck.
Move…..
Unfortunately William “moving” is not that easy. See, we here in the US let anyone come in because the corporations are always looking for the cheaper labor – since there are laws in other countries that protect the workers (read TAXPAYERS) they aren’t interested in an open borders policy because they don’t want to end up like us.
If the policies in this country change at some future point to where YOU are dissatisfied, is “move…” an answer you’d accept and something you’d do? If so then I would say that’s pretty cowardly of you.
It’s OK to love the country and hate the policies.
I agree with Neil 100%. It’s so easy for someone to say if you don’t like it, just move. Honestly, I would if I could. But my husband and I have married children, our parents, siblings and other relatives. You can’t just expect someone to uproot their entire life. Most middle class Americans in this country are frustrated, fed-up, exhausted, and stressed out. But truly, there is nothing we can do about it. It’s the American way and we are stuck! Not by choice, but by chance.
“This is very important — to take leisure time. Pace is the essence. Without stopping entirely and doing nothing at all for great periods, you’re gonna lose everything…just to do nothing at all, very, very important. And how many people do this in modern society? Very few. That’s why they’re all totally mad, frustrated, angry and hateful.”
― Charles Bukowski
Don’t move, change the playing field. That’s what made America great and that is what corporations pay big money to do to the working class every day. They change the playing field. They hire lobbyists and pay off politicians. We should model corporations to be more like those in Germany, which is what they were like in the 1950’s and 1960’s here in the U.S. CEO’s salaries weren’t as large in comparison to workers’ salaries, and unions mattered. How did unions become synonymous with “Marxism” and being leftist? Its’ a crock of dung that the top 1 percent has all of the assets and representation. It is sad that a conservative, working class person has to apologize for sounding like a leftist, and thinks unions are bad. It’s brainwashing. American corporations think they have rights like people do. They want to hire foreign slave labor and to circumvent all of the labor laws, environmental laws and checks and balances that our families have worked so hard to establish.
I have to leave the house at 6am. I get home at 7 or 8 pm, if I am lucky. I also work some Saturdays.
I have no social life, very little time to devote to hobbies or anything else.
I think it is economic slavery. I am just getting by, and I’ve had some periods of unemployment. So they know they have us over a barrel and can make us do anything. What are the options? None.
Except for this, European unemployment rates have run roughly twice the uS rate moving in lock step together for decades. Sure, it sounds great to have all that extra time, but when you become too expensive to the employer, jobs are lost. o ahead, everyone go work and i’ll do the same
Working less hours should theoretically result in more people being employed. Europe has other other economic issues at play.
Can you please send the source/citation for this statement:
In the U.S., 85.8 percent of males and 66.5 percent of females work more than 40 hours per week.
I clicked on the link but did not see where the information was originally taken from.
Thanks
LHC
Just wanted to point out that a change of “20% of mothers working” to “70% of children having mothers who work” does not necessarily translate to a “more than 50% increase.”
Strictly speaking, it’s entirely possible that the number of mothers who work also have more children (on average) than mothers who do not work. It’s also entirely possible (though unlikely) that the number of children with working mothers has DECREASED, given the available statistics.
It seems impossible to draw the line because employers are strapped and continually demand more. It is much harder to cut back then to push forward. Having the ability to cut your work load is a difficult task especially for a salary employee.
These statistics give me hope that America will continue to be the great country that it already is. I am glad that Americans, on average, work harder than every other developed country in the world. It means that we as a nation will continue to innovate, to create, and to protect the lifestyle we have come to enjoy.
I have worked all over the world, and the level of workplace exhaustion and psychosis I have seen here is unequaled. Also, the majority of the “work” that is done is completed at break-neck speed, with little or no regard for quality. To top it off, the much-touted high standard of living equals, in fact, may hours spent in the car commuting, with no time left for friends or hobbies.
Exactly. The only ones getting ahead are the top dogs. Everyone else is just running on the treadmill. We know it’s a matter of time
before we have stress-related health issues.
The career gurus say to quit your job. Easy to say, but there are so few jobs out there.
The lifestyle that we have come to enjoy? Sure, I live in a comfortable 800 sq. ft. apartment in a peaceful, country setting and have more than what is an absolute necessity for life. Now if only I could find a way to enjoy my home for more than sleeping and 2 additional hours of my day. Working an average of 60 hours a week leaves me with little time for much of anything beyond work. There is little time to spend with my husband, friends, or family, on my hobbies, or even getting my laundry done at some points. I can’t even imagine raising a family with this kind of work schedule. I feel exhausted and stressed out because of the pace of my job. Even when I’m not working, my brain is still on-the-job. How can this be considered an enjoyable lifestyle? Now to top it all off, I am a teacher, which means that I actually get a bit of reprieve from this workload and work less hours during the summer months. I can’t imagine working 60+ hours a week every single week of the year.
I feel like you do. It’s like a trap and there are no options. People say quit and find another job. There are no other jobs, and even if we could find one, it probably would be the same.
I notice the gap between the people who have a lot of time on their hands, and those who are working like we do…is getting greater. So is the gap between those working and not working. And the gap between the intelligent and the unintelligent is getting larger too. The intelligent are doing the work.
The “intelligent” have seen what a joke this all is and got themselves out of the rat race.
You must be an employee of the financial industry! I say this because massive debt offered by the banks coupled by the near zero percent interest rates given those banks by the FED is partly why people have to work 60 to 80 hours a week while our government does nothing – having just returned from a 10 day vacation and taking this Friday off.
Wouldn’t it be interesting if the American people stood together and all chose to go into their offices ONLY when Congress was in DC – and went on “vacation” when they weren’t in session and effectively shut the country down.
Why don’t we see how long we can function when we don’t show up for work en-masse like Congress does most of the time?
Actually, I’m not an employee of the financial industry. Not even close. I’m a public school teacher.
Try working in medicine, where it’s both mentally and physically demanding. 12 hours a day or longer, and lunch breaks are rare. I’ve worked from 7am to 8pm without a break.
Sometimes, it never ends. People think those who work in healthcare are just masochistic about taking care of others. We break down too. We just cannot go on and on. So much is being demanded of us.
And how does being overworked correlate to your assertions? In fact, studies have shown otherwise.
I think we are overworked. I have not work in one company where at least 75% of my co-workers were not addicted to coffee aka the working man’s crack. How come we don’t have a siesta like Spain? I think that would help a lot of people if they were able to rest in the middle of day. Then we won’t have so many people addicted to the working man’s crack. I think we should also restructure idea of work. I hate the 8 hour work day. If we are honest with ourselves, we probably actually work 5 hours a day while at work. The other 3 hours are hours where we are surfing the net or doing something else unrelated to work. I read an article in More magazine about the restructuring the way we work. They gave examples of companies that allowed employees to set their own hours. These companies actually had better productivity rates.
Because they are trying to squeeze every single drop out of us while they can.
That’s how the owners are millionaires.
They don’t care about us, and if one of us falls down, they have someone else waiting in the wings.
Slavery takes many forms.
Argentina is the only country that still has siesta really. They also go back to work until like 7 or 8pm and eat dinner at midnight, start dancing at 2am, and the clubs open seven days a week at 4am. I think siesta is the only time they actually sleep.
As already posted on the comments on the wp source, that graph is wrong. The Uk changed to 24 in 2007, and 28 in 2009, effectively covering the national holidays, so if you get them all off you get a minimum of 20, if you work them you get 28.
This was mandated by EU law (directive).
There’s a few factors at play here. One is salary/wages have stayed the same, while cost of living has exploded, in almost every state. To live on your own, you NEED to make $50-$60K a year to reasonably live, and even then, in some parts of the country, that isn’t enough. And if you are salaried, which the bulk of jobs that pay over $50K are, unless you run your own business, chances are very high that you will work mad overtime, without compensation. If you make less than $50-$60K a year, you could live by yourself, but chances are, you living paycheck to paycheck.
In my opinion, to have the american dream, the same one alot of people enjoyed in the 1950s, you have to work 10-15 times as hard as they did. These days, i’ve noticed getting a house, and making mortgage payments really turns heads in a bar or in any social setting. I wonder if they were
Also, it is very good business practice from a CEOs perspective to have few workers who work 60-70 hour weeks, instead alot doing 35-40. Less overhead means more profits. Think of when CEOs raise their own salaries while doing mass layoffs. The effect at a company is nobody says shit, gets scared, and works much harder to prove they are valuable. I think it’s one of the greatest tactics in increasing productivity in your workers without increasing, and in some cases, lowering compensation.
I totally agree with this guy too, America doesn’t get pissed about workers rights. They get more pissed about tax raises.
But this is a very general opinion of mine, based on what I know, so take it for what you will.
Some food for thought
In Canada (more specifically British Columbia) we get 18 months maternity / parental leave in which both the father and the mother can split between them.
We dont get paid our full salary, but you do earn roughly 50% up to a max of something like $45k a year.
I couldn’t imagine leaving a child that young with a care taker.
I think this is deplorable, but it is something we are doing to ourselves. In 1950 the average house size was close to 1000 sq ft. Now it is closer to 2000 sq ft. Also we insist on having two cars and going out to eat regularly and many more extravagances. If we returned to simple living we wouldn’t need two incomes or long work weeks.
My husband and I recently went from a two income household to a one income household when I became pregnant with our son. We downsized our house from 2050 sq ft to 1300 sq ft, got rid of one car, we eat home cooked meals, and cut out most of our consumer spending. Despite living on only 60% of the income (now only 36k/yr) we had before, I believe our quality of life has improved.
Americans’ commitment to long hours reflects our values as a society. People would rather work more and have more things than free time. Until we value free time more than money, I doubt much will change.
Natalie you are acting like the typical family that already has everything. What about the people that say had dental work done that cost 20k and you lost your job and were out of work for almost a year and then play catchup on credit cards. Why sell one of your cars as you will sure as hell lose the value and not get nearly back what you paid for it. These small cutback wont replace a salary. Maybe its because the person you or your spouse made so little it didnt make much a dent. This thinking is very unrealistic for the majority of the working class. I live in a one bedroom apartment both me and my wife work and have no kids. We are stuggling and hardly do anything like go out to eat or go on a trip. Wake up to the reality most americans face.
jm your comment to natalie is totally correct. i dont know what planet shes on. i end up working at Lonestar at age 30 and they make me salad guy for 8 an hr. i bust my ass with no training and then the bosses say i need to do fry station too so i say ok BUT THEY REFUSE TO TRAIN ME IM JUST SUPPOSED TO DO IT?? so i tell the boss that i want to be dish guy and left alone. i tell him that his bunch of assclown cooks are a bunch of pricks and i just want some goddamn peace. i tell him im 30 and have done manual labor bullshit for 12 years and i just want to be left in peace. so what does he do? he makes me do dishes and tacks on sweeping the parking lot,mopping the entire restaurant, cleaning the bathrooms,doing food prep, assisting servers, and then after that help out IF I CAN DOING SALADS AS WELL!!! AND PEOPLE WONDER WHATS WRONG WITH LIFE AND THIS COUNTRY??? ASSHOLES LIKE THIS THAT WORK YOU DOING 5 DIFFERENT JOBS FOR $8 AN HOUR!!! I had a $500 rent to pay and i could never pay it thanks to this Animal Farm society.
I don’t know where you live but where I live the difference between cost of living and wages is extremely high. I actually don’t know a single person who was able to successfully move out of their parents home before 26. My brother’s girlfriend works nearly full time (she is still doing school one or two classes at a time) and can still barely afford her one room apartment, and that’s low income housing! Which is limited, good luck qualifying as half the city seems to need it. People are stuck.
And in my household we do need at least two cars. I take the bus now and then but when I do graveyard shift there aren’t exactly buses running at that hour, and I’m not about to ride my bike 15miles at 3am, especially as a girl and especially in an area that has a growing crime issue if all the tagging and break ins are anything to go by.
Natalie,
I completely agree and have had to reevaluate my free time over money. I always thought I needed more money to survive because I kept hearing that other people made more than me but lived paycheck to paycheck. HOW was this possible? I grew up with a very strong sense of saving and investing. At 13 I worked. By 15 I realized that life was more than the stuff that I owned. Because my parents were immigrants and invested I have what I have today.
By 26 I owned a 1300 sq ft townhome (with my mother). It’s fully paid off because my mother was smart enough to have us invest in this. Both my parents are 56 and have been in the US since they were 18 or 20 making server wages, sometimes just making $60/day. They saved. They invested. They are working 2 to 3 days a week now and do have back problems from serving, but they are ready to retire.
I mention all of this because I had to step back and realize that I don’t need to make as much money as my peers that live paycheck to paycheck because I don’t need fancy sh*t. I paid off my car but it’s a Hyundai. I will take more free time to enjoy my life, have hobbies and more hours in a day spent doing what I want over making more money but having no time to enjoy it.
At the end of the day and my life what will I have to show from all this “work”? Oh, I owned a lot of fancy stuff that I can’t even enjoy because I had to work to maintain them. Doesn’t sound like a life to me. BUT I say this because my parents put me in the position that I am today. Not so well off but you know what, it actually is pretty well off to be so SIMPLE.
Family values! Middle Class wages in the US have been stagnant since the early 1970’s. To make up for wage stagnation women in most households went to work and Americans started working longer hours. But this was not enough. So families started tried to refinance their homes during the real estate bubble or, during rough times, borrow with credit cards. Family costs have increased- for health care, for houses, for child care, college, and retirement. And all this at a time when risk for individual families has increased- where once there were pensions now everyone who is lucky enough to have retirement has it in the volatile stock market or in their now collapsed house value.
While all this is going on for Middle Class families- forget the poor, they are now destitute- the richest 1% increased their incomes 400%. They are now richer then they have been in over 80 years and they pay lower taxes than in any other developed country. In short, all the productivity growth and all the tax cuts over the last 40 years has been done for the benefit of the top 1% of earners.
U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A, We’re Number One! We’re Number One! We’re Number One!
And just think what it will be like in 4 years if the Republicans retake control of the House and the White House!
I’m not going to wait around long enough to see that happen…. Australia, here I come !
They have taken control of the white house. Enjoy the shitshow. Trump scared the hell out of me and I am so glad I kissed that country goodbye before this (family reasons) and am in Europe. I love the US- on my vacations.
But good luck for all of you still in the gutter! Maybe this term will be when people finally demand something better, when conditions get so bad and exploitative that people will not take it any more.
Or just vote democrat next campaign. And live the rollercoaster again, only with some token help like Obamacare.
“There’s class warfare, all right, Mr. (Warren) Buffett said, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
Speaking as one working in an entry-level position doing customer service at a bank call center, wanting to take vacation time is frowned upon, and actually needing to take sick leave actually counts against a person when trying to get a promotion. Part of our statistics is how much unscheduled leave (aka times a person has called in, sick or otherwise) one has taken. Even if a person has the time available for sick leave, if one has to take it and call in, that person is considered undependable and will be passed over for projects and promotions. Personally, I believe such practices are incredibly unfair to those who choose to exercise their right to use their sick days and paid time off. The choice seems to be: further your career or take care of your health. I, for one, don’t like it.
And of course those requiring such rarely apply it to themselves. For years I worked for a boss that was constantly pressuring people to work longer and harder for nothing, of course that was when he himself bothered to show up. And you know those rich assholes at the top probably have more vacation days than working days. Greedy hypocritical assholes.
Yeah. On a side note, I know a person over in Europe who had to take sick leave for months, and… yeah she still has the job. Her employer isn’t happy per se about it, it’s just that if they fired her over it it would be court-fu time.
I remember the first time I ever read that the USA has no Labor Law pertaining to paid vacation time and I thought that what I was reading was inaccurate but upon further confirmation I realized it was a fact.
But then again America worships the climb to the top, even though once you get there you find out it may not have been worth it.
I get 4 paid weeks holidays but I am a Unionized employee working for a private employer. Because my job requires a fair bit of Overtime I also take 2 weeks ‘Leave of Absence’ unpaid, every year. The LOA is easily taken because we have a slow period starting in the first week of Dec until March.
When I was 20 something(and now at the end of 40 something) I had lofty goals but as the years go by you start to realize and appreciate what you have and that life is short so why kill yourself trying to reach some lofty goal that may never come….just make the best of it and try to make the future better for the next generation……….
Maybe one day people will realize what they lost when Unions went away.
I joined a union my first week on the job at the age of 17. Got stuck in that job after college because the economy collapsed. Still there eleven years later. Thanks to the union, I have thousands of dollars less than I otherwise world have. And they still won’t issue my health insurance care card, even though they deduct money from each paycheck. Oh, and I could fill a landfill with all of the Obama and Hillary propaganda that they were nice enough to send me.
i personally have stopped caring about “making it” i used to want the american dream but hell it is an impossibility. im just gonna be like bukowski and get a wine bottle and head off to a country that is worth a damn and the people dont act like materialistic, heartless pricks 24/7 always lieing to you some more and dangling that carrot. i know one boss who was pissed because he only had 1 bonus that year instead of 2 for “not implementing efficient working practices with employees” AKA only giving employees 2 jobs to do instead of 3 for their $9 an hr. this country is shot im out 🙂
I never had much of a desire to climb the ladder, but it seemed out if my hands since where I was at wasn’t paying the bills. My parents were very motivated to climb the ladder just so they wouldn’t have to struggle by day to day. A lot more people would be satisfied where they’re at if they could actually afford to live off of it.
It doesn’t help when your jobs keep getting outsourced to cheaper labor. Illegals are also causing a lot of issues here. Everyone says crap like they do jobs Americans won’t. Not true, it’s merely that Americans can’t afford to compete with someone who will work for half the amount under the table. So many guys we used to know in the roofing business who were doing well for many years making good money and owning their own business, until they could no long compete with the guys hiring only illegals. Half them went out of business, the other had to severly cut back their crew. And then to be told that you’re a lazy American who is unwilling to work hard long hours in the sun is very insulting. I could do that, are you willing to pay me enough to actually have a place to live and food to eat at the end of the day? We had a family down the street that had like at least 8 adults living there and I have no idea how many kids. Well ya I could afford this wages too if I had 7 other people helping with the bills, especially if they’re all related to me. How the hell are others suppose to be able to compete with that?
Very well stated on the immigration issue. Of course illegals willing to do the job at half what you would want are forcing the labor wages down. It’s exactly as you stated. It is not that we are afraid to work but we simply cannot afford to live at those wages. When you have 8-10 adults living in the same house and sharing the load because it is still better then what they came from, so no big deal. That drives wages down and the standard of living with it. People wrongly surmise that illegals are in the farm industry only. They are providing cheap labor for any job that requires muscle.
I swear after reading so many ‘positive’ comments about our situation that there are a number of people who post over and over again using different names claiming this is good for the people or our country.
THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED
Oops, forgot to mention they’re being paid by the RNC.
I came across a page the other day on a ‘weak’ looking Cheney and his wife hosting a discussion and gave up reading the comments after the first 10 mind-numbingly called Dick Cheney ‘an american patriot’ and a ‘hero.’
I do not believe American’s are victims. I choose to work 50 hours a week. It bothers me greatly that you all feel that you are victims. 40 hours a week is nothing!! What the heck can’t you get done in the rest of your time?
You assume everyone should want to work as much as you do. Some of us value time with our family more than money.
brandy when you are lifting 75lb wooden pallets for 10 hrs a day then start talking to me about “work” and “what your capable of” Until then i dont give a shit
im taking a wild guess brandy but i bet when you’re working 50 hrs a week and loving it , that no physical labor is involved. YEAH THAT WHAT I FIGURED!!!
Brandy didn’t answer. You asked a question and then assumed the answer. Just like a leftwinger.
Brandy, your job must consist of sitting on your bum at work all day long. Try physical labor for a change and then talk. People with your mentality are the ones who support this chaotic rat rance in the American Labor Force.
This is the kind of stuff that every American needs to know. We are getting *screwed* in this country by the corporate power system. If the average idiot tea party fool had any idea of what he was fighting for… more corporate power… less worker rights. I mean… what if they realized that they are fighting against themselves?
Demanding all those things that other industrialized countries have will price yourself right out of the market. The US already has the second highest corporate tax rate in the world. If we were to lower it down to the levels of other industrialized countries, we would see a flood of jobs flow into the US instead of out of.
Post WW2, with high union membership, high marginal tax rates, and full employment is not the norm, even though generations have grown up seeing it that way. It is easy to thrive in that environment when you are the only country left on earth with intact industry and literally every country on earth needs your product. However, that is not the case anymore. The American workforce needs to be competitive, and due to the high taxes on companies, we are already starting at a huge disadvantage.
And I’m sorry, I’ve known FAR too many people from Japan. Saying that Americans work more hours than Japanese people has to be a lie.
Expecting those jobs to flow in without Americans accepting the same menial wages is fantasy. Maybe you should look at the taxes acutally paid rather than the tax rates.
I agree with this article. but i still don’t know what to do about it or if there’s anything that i can. if i ask my boss to let me work from home, he gives me this lecture about how it’s important not to loose productivity and that if he let’s me work from home, he will have to do the same with everyone else!
I’m canadian. We receive 1 year of parental benefits. As well, if your doctor allows it, you are entitled to 12 weeks sick leave benefits, for a total of 64 weeks potential parental leave. The dollar amount isn’t that great, only to a max of 55% of $43k, but you can purchase private insurance that will top you up to 90% of your gross.
As for holidays, we have 12 statutory holidays (all employers are required to give) and typical start off at 3 weeks paid per year, 4 if management.
For sick leave, I receive 1.5 days per month worked.
However, with all of the above said, I typically work a 50 hour week (I’m management), I never take sick days because the thought of coming back to my desk afterwards terrifies me. I only took 6 months of my parental benefits because of a private arrangement with my employer that they would top up my benefits to my previous take home IF and ONLY if I came back sooner verses later.
It’s all about an individuals drive for success. I have the benefits, but choose not to use them for the dream. I enjoy the nice home, I enjoy the fact that I have a vacation property. I appreciate the money I can put away for my retirement and my children’s college funds. Do I work hard? Yes, I do. Are the results worth it? Yes, they are. Oh, for the record, I am a single mom to two year old twins. It’s only me, and if I have to sacrifice some personal time to provide my family with the best I can – so be it.
Some of these comments are truly sad. Some people have really drunk the Kool Aid. The average American does not live in a big house or enjoy the plentitude that some suggest. There are many industrialized countries with a higher median standard of living than we have in the US. These statistics are only the tip of the iceberg when you start investigating this stuff. The fact is that we work our asses off not to buy ourselves boats and big cars but to buy them for our bosses, the tiny fraction of the population that have grown hugely rich by dismantling the social benefits that we once enjoyed.
Yes, hedge-fund managers who work 80 hour weeks are amply rewarded, but they aren’t what drives these stats. Its waitresses and home health aides and meat packers who work two or three jobs and never see their kids and still live from paycheck to paycheck.
George Carlin got it right: Its called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.
finally there is someone on here who has a fucking clue. When are people gonna get the truth and stop kidding themselves. WE ARE GETTING FUCKED PEOPLE!!!! GET IT!!!! WHEN YOUR BOSS GOES ON 5 VACAYS A YEAR AND DRIVES A LEXUS AND JUST SENT HIS 2 KIDS TO PRIVATE SCHOOL AND LIVES IN A GATED COMMUNITY AND HAS MONEY TO SPARE WHEREAS YOU LIVE IN AN APARTMENT AND HAVE A CAR FROM 1992 AND CAN HARDLY PAY FOR FOOD, RENT, GAS, AND THE ELECTRIC BILL, MAYBE THEN YOU ASSCLOWNS WILL GET A CLUE AND UNDERSTAND WHY YOUR POOR AND STOP BEING IDIOTS WHO TAKE IT AND ASK TO GET FUCKED EVEN MORE EVERYDAY. TAKE A STAND ALREADY. FIGHT FOR A LIFE. DEMAND IT.
Damn straight John, well said.
Americans played golf on the moon more than 30 years ago for crying out loud. The Center for American Progress – good Lord. Bottomnline no one asked people in the USA to work longer and harder than they should in comparison to the Euro benchmark. I’m sure the $70 an hr (wages benefit package) that a UAW earns to bolt the door onto a substandard Jeep Cherokee isn’t complaining.
I’m not sure it’s necessarily the right decision (and I don’t think it’s the right priorities), but it should be the parent’s choice, not the state’s. Legally we give wide latitude to parents in how they raise children: what they eat, how they’re disciplined, what religion they are or aren’t taught, which decent school they attend, and so on. I don’t see why this particular instance warrants an exception.
I also suspect there are jobs which are so sensitive to employee absence that they simply can’t tolerate the extended absence of parental leave. Rather than essentially prohibiting such jobs, it seems better to leave it up to employer and would-be employee to mutually conclude that, if there may be a possibility of newfound parenthood in the near future, the would-be employee should accept another position or job. I’d fit the profile for such a job at the moment (multiple years out, perhaps not); others wouldn’t. Some jobs just aren’t for everyone.
The information for France is incorrect. As a general rule we work 217 days a year. Since the work week is 35 hours, when you are not on a per-hour basis you get about 20 days extra (it’s complicated to explain in details). Anyway – the number of days off is about 42 per year (work days). This is a month a a half off, with 10 continous compulsory days (you have to take 2 weeks off in a row).
It is strictly forbidden to interfere with vacations – all have to be taken by June each year.
I have worked for 15 years for a very, very large US company (I was employed in Europe). The US office was empty at 5 PM. People in France go back home about 7-8 PM.
I guess that the numbers provided are more or less random — but that’s fine as “work” also differs from company to company and position to position.
They might go home at 5pm in the American office and 7-8pm in the French, but I am curious what time they come in. My dad comes home anywhere from 4-6pm in the evenings, he leaves for work by 6:30 though, he wakes up at 5:30. He says though he prefers it this way because when he comes home from work he feels like he still has some of his day left to get things done at home or just relax. If he was working from 8:30-8pm instead then he feels all he is doing is waking up to work and then coming home and sleeping not enough hours of free time in row to enjoy.
@Joe: I am not sure your comment is linked to mine?
The 35 hours work week was indeed intended to be a cure for unemployement (it depends what “massive” means – it was about 8% at that time). The idea would be that the remaining 5-8 hours per week would be filled in by the unemployed (in average).
This did not work out (we are at slightly below 10%) but the 35 hours stayed, together with the extra days off.
The problem is that while that might help the unemployed get a job it screws over the person working that many hours and still barely making it by, how is cutting their hours back doing anything but screwing them over unless they raise wages to compensate. Some people are barely making it as is. They haven’t been raising wages properly in all these years and I doubt they will start without their arms being twisted behind their backs.
While I don’t support overworking like this article is talking about, I have think that the French work week numbers might be flawed. Wasn’t France experimenting with mandatory work furloughs because of massive unemployment?
The big “innovation” in the French system is that you keep working around 39h/w, but the official week work duration is 35h.
Each month, the extra 4 hours add up to a certain amount of full days off you can take if you need ever to go and see a doctor, have a sick child or just want to go shopping.
The socialist theory behind it is that there is a set amount of total work hours and that companies would hire to compensate the difference.
Of course this is bu**t and didn’t change anything to unemployment figures.
It’s actually more confortable for people who already have jobs, but most lost any entrepreneurial skill they could have.
The US lives to work and Europe works to live.
The US would have a lot less social ills if we would rebuild the family unit. Can’t do that if you work 60 to 80 hrs a week.
Everyone is working so hard to pay off their debt. I bet you could find a correlation between the time debt became more widely used and when more people in each household started working.
I don’t think we need the Government stomping in telling everyone how often or how long they can work though. You just fine the crap out of the employer that was being abusive to keep him from taking advantage of workers down the road.
We certainly don’t need the Government that can barely handle the responsibility they have now, put more regulations on the table. They’re most of the reason people go out of business or go overseas to run their company. To force a company to pay a woman’s maternity leave for up to 20 weeks is absurd. Some time is needed but not 20 weeks. That’s something that should be negotiated in the hiring process. It’s why they’re called benefits.
A better solution than Government:
GET OUT OF DEBT PEOPLE!!
Brad, I do take some acception to your statement that there is to much government. This has become the montra of the republicans so that they can reduce regulations that protect workers and ship jobs overseas. The deregulation that started in the 80’s is what got us in this mess today. While I do agree that 20 weeks may be excessive there needs to be some type of limit set to help parents of new borns so that they don’t feel as though they will loose there job should they take time off from work. If getting out of debt was only as easily done as we all would like to think I doubt most of us would continue to have some. We need to remember that 50% or more of the work force is just one paycheck from getting behind on payments. We all like to blame government but who is the government? Isn’t it us?
@ Stu/Brad –
I don’t want to make this a political debate, but I think you are both on to something, but I have a slightly different take on it. Brad is correct in that getting out of debt can free us, and it takes a lot of hard work to get there, in addition to living humbly.
At the same time, de-regulation is one of the big reasons that got us in to so much debt in the first place. And had our government protected us more all along, we wouldn’t have to work so hard to get out of all the debt. Business, when not regulated properly, will operate in unethical ways in order to profit. Need proof? Financial crisis. The banks and their political friends spent decades de-regulating the industry and then finding reasons to get people in to mortgages that they could not afford. I work with someone who worked at Countrywide Financial (which went under b/c people couldn’t pay back the gaudy loans they had and the homes had to be foreclosed), who said that underwriters were told to take the attitude to ‘look for a reason to approve someone for a loan’ vs. ‘look for a reason not to approve someone’. He said it was a joke amongst everyone and they all knew it was unethical. Guy has held a steady job for two months? Approved for $500,000! Banks convinced everyone they could afford more than they could, which inflated home prices for everyone, resulted in the foreclosure crisis, and put many banks under. De-regulation (or lack of it in the first place) mixed with a poorly financial educated consumer base are the reasons for the financial crisis.
Credit card companies? Look what de-regulation resulted in there. The onus of responsibility is on our governments to protect us from unethical business practice. When they don’t? We all pay, in one way or another. Businesses won’t do it on their own and there aren’t enough of us who are smart enough to wade through all of the traps.
With all of that being said, I think there are other reasons why we are overworked and being in too much debt is just a small part of it.
its all government, not regulations. our problem stems from the federal reserve lending out 16 trillion in 2008 to banks, effectively crushing the value of the dollar. pay raises do not happen enough to fight the inflation.
and then taxes. we pay a minimum of 40% of all money earned back to the government.
The federal Reserve is not government. It’s privately owned.
is not ok to take a week off, or even a month….they’ll fire ya! Then you’ll be even more depressed as you lose your house, car, and end up living under a bridge.
In a way, it does look like wage slavery. One objective indicator of wage slavery, in my opinion, would be the percentage of workforce actually having two or more jobs or wishing they had. What a second job really means is that people are willing to part with an increasingly scarce resource (quality time, a.k.a worthwhile life) without due monetary compensation in the form of overtime pay.
* That’s supposed to read, “You can’t take advantage of an educated well-informed consumer.”
Thanks again for the discussion.
“You can’t take advantage of an educated well-informed consumer.”
I disagree…or at least question your understanding of a well educated and well informed customer:
All you need to do is throw out loads of BS out that means nothing, and an educated well-informed consumer will stop wasting time trying to figure out what is up, down, left, or right. They will start to make decisions based on personal experience, and BAM.. .all you need to do is keep filling them with BS and they’ll keep using your product.
It’s what advertisers, companies, and politicians have done for a long time. Well-informed is something America does not specialize in.
unless the market is limited and youre the only supplier or a product that is needed.
patents need to be more vigorously regulated, as it stands its a big problem.
there are companies who file for bogus patents, which get approved for whatever stupid reason, who charge small amounts of money to developers to use what they “own”, so its cheaper for the million companies that this effects to each pay the nickle instead of paying for a lawyer to fight against it.
right now there are so called “patent trolls” who do this with just about everything, apple is one, they are trying to say that other companies cant make rectangular phones because they were the.. well maybe not the first, err not the second, but they were there somewhere, and they made a phone, and it was rectangular, and now no one else can make a rectangular phone, or black either, their phones were black, so no one else can make black phones.
and what apples doing is just the tip of the ice burg, i dont know your background (so im not sure how technical i can be, ill assume no knowledge of software development), but many software companies cant make their products anymore unless they get the go ahead from some of these patent trolls: its been said that being a software developer today is like trying to operate a store without doorways, because theyre the one who ‘invented’ doorways, you know the thing that you walk through, ya that thing, you cant use one unless you pay me $10 every time someone walks through that doorway.
just look at how patenting has skyrocketed in the last few years by certain companies and you’ll see who the culprits are, microsoft has something like 15k patents, apple has something like 10k patents, how many do they need to be successful in their business? well lets look at one of the most successful software companies in history, google has something like 600 patents
Speaking of long work weeks, I work in an industry here in the US where they legally don’t have to pay overtime until you reach 60 hours. This rule, in the trucking industry is meant for the long haul, over the road drivers that put in 14 hour days, however the freight companies get away with using it for their dock workers, office workers, and hourly city drivers as well. My company has everyone scheduled for five ten hour shifts a week, and nobody is allowed to go over sixty hours, because their policy is to not pay OT at all.
Sounds like it is time to organize.
Curtis,
Here’s an idea. How about instead of complaining about a job that doesn’t meet your expectations, you find a job that will?
The Fair Labor Standards Act “REQUIRES overtime to be at least one and one-half times an employee’s regular rate of pay after 40 hours of work in a workweek.”
If the company you work for is breaking that law they should be reported.
More importantly, why would you want to change a company policy and still work for the same evil people that were breaking the law in the first place? Why not report them and go work for someone a little more honest.
Also a company is not bad for not wanting to pay overtime, only for allowing people to work overtime and not pay them properly for doing it.
@BRAD… thanks for that great idea. After rereading my post however, I don’t think is sounds like complaining, more like informing. I work for a great company, and they are well within the legal parameters for doing this. It is not so cut and dry, where all employers must offer overtime pay after 40 hours a week. If you go to the US labor law website you will see there are certain exemptions. Furthermore, if they were an OT after 40 company, then they would limit my hours to just that, so I am fortunate for the ability to put in more time some weeks when the extra cash is needed.
I do thank you though for your general concern for my well-being, although I am quite worried about you if your only options for 10:22 on a Sunday morning are to pick fights with random people on blogs.
CURTIS, sorry if you were offended dude. I was certainly not picking a fight with anyone, just stating my opinion based on what I thought was being said.
I saw nothing disrespectful or bully-ish about what I said, I was just making a suggestion based on my experience. Had you actually been complaining about how many hours you worked, it would be completely reasonable for me to suggest the alternative.
I have no idea what’s relevant about what time or day I decided to respond though. What does it matter what day it is? Would Monday at 5:30 sharp be better for you?
Sorry if I misunderstood your post, it seemed like you were complaining about how many hours you had to work without actually getting paid overtime. This post was about needing government to step in and save us and your comment seemed to imply that your situation was an example of why the post was right.
Perhaps I made the mistake of assuming you were responding to the post when you could of been referring to a comment someone made about long work weeks.
For the record, I disagree with any company being exempt from paying someone who worked over 40 hours overtime pay. Sorry about the misunderstanding on my part.
Forgot something:
That our thug managers or whoever is above you in the pecking order is siphoning what you might have made, in a raise you didn’t get or bonus, into his or her bonus. Of course its impossible to prove since its all smeared out in the accounting but being captive what can anyone do about it. “Don’t like it? Then you know where the door is.”
@Brad Chafee:
Brad, I think you’ve made some extremely valid points on the debt problem in this country, however I do think that deregulation and lack of financial education had something to do with it.
Problem 1: The level of consumerism in this country is getting out of hand. We are a culture that needs ‘instant gratification’, and that mixed with the growing level of consumerism is a huge contributor to the immense amounts of consumer debt in this country. For example, if you car is still fully functioning, what is the real reason you feel the need to purchase a brand new car? Beacuse our culture puts a high value on material things.
Problem 2: The lack of financial literacy in this country is unbelievable. A vast amount of Americans do not even know how to create a basic budget. To @Brad Chafee’s earlier point, “You can’t take advantage of an educated well-informed consumer” – those consumers who knew what they could afford, knew what fit into their budgets, and were disciplined enough to stick to that amount, didn’t get ‘conned’ by these shady mortgage brokers (and yes, the problem was perpetuated by the shady mortgage brokers and shady mortgage practices within large mortgage companies). We, as Americans, need to take some responsibility of our hard earned money.
Now – that had noting much to do with G.E’s article. My take on that is simple. Whether or not you agree with the amount of hours that are worked, the amount of vacation that is alotted, etc, the fact of the matter is that working endless hours isn’t actually productive. If you’ve ever read the book ‘The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working’ by Tony Schwartz, Jean Gomes, and Catherine McCarthy Ph.D., you are familiar with the research behind these claims. If you’re not familiar with it, I highly recommend taking the time to read it – if you’re on here reading through these comments, you have at least a slight interest in the subject. Companies that encourage 60/80/120 hour work weeks are not actually getting the best out of their employees, and working longer hours does not make you a better performer. You may be doing more work, but that work is subsequently of lesser quality – our brains don’t have a 10-14 hour attention span.
We all have different priorities in life – whether we ‘live to work’ or ‘work to live’ – they are your personal priorities. If you choose to put work before your family/friends, it’s your choice. If you choose to strive to make more money, to climb the ‘corporate ladder’, etc that’s your choice. That may not be the way that I choose to live my life, but if it’s how you derrive happiness, then more power to you.
its not a choice anymore about working to live or living to work dont you get it. the majority of people are working $9-11 an hr jobs getting absolutely nowhere and HAVE TO LIVE TO WORK. WHEN ASSHOLES START PAYING LIVEABLE WAGE PEOPLE CAN HAVE SOME FREEDOM BUT THIS LITTLE WHORE SOCIETY IS TOO HEARTLESS AND MONEY HUNGRY TO DO THAT!!!
The key paragraph in this article is:
“Using data by the U.S. BLS, the average productivity per American worker has increased 400% since 1950. One way to look at that is that it should only take one-quarter the work hours, or 11 hours per week, to afford the same standard of living as a worker in 1950 (or our standard of living should be 4 times higher). Is that the case? Obviously not. Someone is profiting, it’s just not the average American worker.”
Very few comments here take up this historical perspective.
Now, I read Reader’s Digest back in the 50s (god help my soul) and every number was full of gush about labour-saving devices and the good life these promised. Lighter more enjoyable work, cleaner, healthier environment, more and better leisure. Getting better all the time. And for everybody, of course.
You’d think we’d feel the goodness if all this was the case. But we don’t, cos it ain’t.
“Labour-saving” devices have eaten jobs and increased pressure on their operators.
Work may be “lighter” in some ways, but that depends who you are and what you’re comparing. Some of our deadlier jobs (body and bone breaking, toxic, etc) have been exported, along with some of our worst old working conditions and labour relations. And these conditions of slave labour are used in the most cynical fashion to
threaten us back home.
More enjoyable work? For Google employees, maybe.
Cleaner, healthier environment – for who? In inner cities? Near nuclear waste dumps? Noise pollution, light pollution? Go for a pleasant walk around your neighbourhood, any time you feel like it? Well, the Cuyahoga River doesn’t catch fire as often now, but would you swim in it?
More and better leisure – HA. Someone mentioned better TV… Kids have a real choice out in the suburbs – drugs or the church. “I go out walking, after midnight, in the starlight…” – yup.
Getting better all the time – only today none of us feel we will have a better life than our parents did. And our parents damn sure don’t envy us!
For everybody…
Americans right now are too traumatized and terrorized by the fear-mongering propaganda fed them day in day out to think straight. They imagine that however crappy their own conditions are, everywhere else is worse, hence more frightening. The imagined threats from foreigners – aliens – are just their own fears projected on to others.
It’s a social, economic and political challenge, and needs dealing with outside “official”, established areas of debate and policy-making.
So, good luck America.
And good night.
I am not genius. I will not pretend to be. I simply found this interesting and had a few thoughts:
I think a healthy dose of personal responsibility and a pinch of gov’t regulation would be great. Family values are super important to me, much more important than the material things some use to measure standard of living. In fact, one could argue that those material things that equate to a higher standard of living are the very things that are causing us to be so overworked. It seems like we view more and more things as necessary these days… but are they really? I think this post kind of hinted at that. I also think that some of the reason people are feeling the pinch is that they simply got in over their heads by buying those things and, yea, spending money you don’t have isn’t a great idea even if banks and CC companies are trying to pull you in all the time. We do need to man up about money.
I know that these times are trying, however. As much as people would like to work less or request time off, sometimes that’s just not realistic and that makes me terribly sad, too. I’m ridiculously grateful for the opportunities I’ve had this past year. I’m even grateful for the time I’ve spent below the poverty line because it gave me perspective.
Danielle said, “I see the increase in the percentage of working mothers as positive – women contribute a tremendous amount to their families when they are happy and earning income. When women don’t have enough opportunities, that unhappiness has a huge negative effect on their children.”
Notice how this comment seems to be equating earning income with happiness. As the article states, this is part of the problem in the United States. In fact, I have personally noticed that most children in my community never get to see their parents for any real quality time any more, and instead turn to video games and gang activity. This may not be a trend all over the country, but considering the percentages within my immediate community alone, I’d say that we’re working too damned much.
Mr. Miller, thank you for this article. People can deny it all they want, but that graph is a perfect illustration of just how shafted the working Joe/Jill in America really is.
Stephanie: you are correct about the taxes. I have a PhD, I work in a large international company at an executive level and earn a very good salary. I will be able to afford a reasonable retirement. Nothing fancy but reasonable. In the US I would retire at 50 and live a cozy life.
I had several opportunities to move to the US at an equivalent position with a good salary. I decided not to – just because I prefer to have a family life and long vacations.
As for vacation; the compulsory 3 (your case I guess) to 8+ weeks (my case) are there so that some people are simply not worked out to death. Have a look at a book called “Germinal” by Emile Zola. I am sure you have in the US your fair share of pre-“compulsory paid vacation” stories.
Finally about your last point. In a world where everyone pays for himself and there is strictly no people-subsidized groups (think government, schools, hospitals, …) I agree with you. If this is not the case (and it is not neither in my country nor in yours) YOU should have to pay (a lot) if you do not want to have children. This is because someone needs to pay for current and future expenses of the country. This is your free choice, and it comes with a price tag, like everything else.
Along the same line – if a woman wants to have children, her employer should be heavily payed so that he has the slightest interest to employ women (that is you). Otherwise, in this wild world you describe you would not have a single chance to get employed as you would be more risky than a man, at equal competencies. You may always get pregnant and this would be a loss, isn’t it?
OK, time to go back to family life…
I feel that we really dotn have much to complain about compared to those that live in 3rd world countries with little resources.But I was just reading something about our taxes and how many hours a year we work to pay our taxes it like over 100 days of work .Even the poor felon makes a living wage the problems is that taxes hurt us .If I could work and actually keep that 300 dollars a week I would earn working full time hell Id be better of . I see the logic in paying taxes workmens comp ,SSI ,roads need repairing if we got invaded do you think soilder would defend us hell theyd be running we have to brainwash the youth to be killers for us where captialist god dam it .
We shouldnt die for money or to protect our ant pile .We shouldnt allow religion to flourish ,we should get rid of all that divides the masses . Create equal jobs and more equal oppurtunity .According to this article Europe is giving its women parental leave up to 20 weeks a year Holy cow .I say this is good in America lets give women homemakers benifits ,and extra bonus for cleaning the pots of pans of us men so men can have jobs and also afford to buy prettier hookers.
.
People tend to think that working longer hours will mean more work gets done. This is absolutely not the case. People need to work smarter. We’ve become way to bogged down with bureaucratic crap that we don’t even know what efficient means anymore.
America: The land where we buy crap we don’t need to impress people we don’t know. We then spend more time at work to earn back our crap money so we can continue the endless cycle.
We are overweight, antisocial, depressed, worried and status-obsessed.
Trust me; this is not common in certain parts of the world.
you sound like tyler durden on fight club i like it 🙂
One important factor is missing: commute
I dare to say US workers have the longest commute as well.
No thanks, Asshole boss, for banning work-fr-home!
My dad is a 61-year-old psychologist who works about 7 hours per day, 7 days per week. He takes one day off per month to recuperate and an occasional day off to do something he’d like to do, like go to a gun show or just have time with my daughter and me. He has been doing this for the past 5 years, and up until my mom started dying about 4 months ago, he was also on call every Thursday from 6pm until 12am. My boyfriend (22) and I (21) would be happy to help…if we could just find jobs.
Doesn’t anyone else find it frustrating and depressing that so many people have to work that much just to make ends meet?
sure. hell my dad missed the first 5 years of my life truck driving working like a madman and he had no choice. most people without a degree nowadays are running around like chickens with their heads cut off. they get two jobs, get sick, cant pay bills and all the while the people dont say “damn raise the wage” instead they say “why dont you spend 4-5 years and get 40,000 in debt and then maybe you can make livable wage!” ???? at 30-40-50 years old?? come on people need a time to live and some fucking opportunity. getting in debt to Maybe get a job after graduation is just a pisspoor financial decision. fuck it
@ Joesixpack
What if people have different preferences than you? Why is it about your work values? What if it is OK for some people to have a smaller house/ share with roommates? Why do you find this kind of view threatening? Are you a troll?
@joesixpack: you are obviously ignorant (not stupid, just ignorant) but no worries, though – when you realize that there is a world outside yours you will understand a lot of things.
Like, say, that some people may want to have a life outside work and spend it with their families? And that they are not the super fighter kind of people who will stand up to their management?
Or maybe, like in my case today – there was snow around Paris (lots! at lest 5 inches :)) and I decided to stay at home and work from here (not a normal thing to do)? My employer was happy as people were still working, could take care of their families (children are on one of their many vacations now) and be happy, return hopefully tomorrow happy to work and work more efficiently.
You know, the kind of things we think about when we grow older. And wiser. And think that our children are gone and we actually missed everything when they were growing up?
Listen up to “Cats in the Cradle” and you may understand why I enjoy having 42 days off over the year and spend plenty of time (no tonly “quality time”) with my kids.
@Elizabeth
[b]What if people have different preferences than you? Why is it about your work values? What if it is OK for some people to have a smaller house/ share with roommates? Why do you find this kind of view threatening? Are you a troll?[/b]
It’s not about “my work values”. I never said that it ISN’T OK for someone to have a smaller house or whatever. What this article is calling for is the government to come in and control, among other things, how many hours employees can work. Do you not even realize how detrimental to production this would be? I really don’t care what you do with your life.
@joesixpack
WOW, you are misinformed. I love how you assume that *most* of the people like my father didn’t plan ahead when they were younger.
When my parents met, my mother was already disabled with a degenerative disease called RSD. Despite having a Masters degree in psychology, when my parents got married, Dad was out of work for 16 months because he just could not find work. Despite that, Dad ALWAYS found a way to pay his child support while doing everything in his power to support our family; my biological father never paid child support and owes my sister and me over $46,000 in back child support.
In November 2006, we found out that the medication my mother had to take to control her chronic pain had, in effect, caused her stage IV colon cancer and metastatic liver cancer. She might have lived longer if surgeons didn’t screw up so much that they had to perform six surgeries within eight months time, which destroyed my mother’s liver and parts of her digestive system because of the large amount of scar tissue. She died September 15. We still have medical bills to pay off dating back to her first stay in the hospital almost four years ago.
What happened to insurance? Well, my dad has private insurance, but premiums for my mother went up after her diagnosis; and she had BlueCare, but they dropped her after they found out she didn’t have the “right” kind of cancer (breast or cervical).
You know, joe, I don’t tell you this to try to get your sympathy; I know better than to expect it from people like you. I tell you this to let you know what a self-righteous, presumptive, downright cruel prick you are. Go to hell.
He is not being a presumptive prick. It’s just life. Bad things happen to good people and you just try to do the best you can with what you have been dealt. Nobody ever said that all these things we are going through as a country and as individuals were ever going to be easy. I am sorry this happened to your dad at this time in his life.
I have been in the car business my entire life & now am a single mother of two young children. My son is soon to be 8yrs old & daughter just turned 4yrs old, after stating the above facts about my stupid career choice I soooo much regret more everyday I am fortunate enough to see them. Today is the first time in 7years I have told my employer “NO my son has school activities I must attend & you can pass the deal on to someone else. ” I simply don’t care about the money anymore but at the same time have an overwhelming feeling of guilt about it….. What is worse losing money or disappointing your children? I just miss my kids & this is literally bringing tears to my eyes thinking about everything I have missed out on because….. I was selling a vehicle & more worried about making money than how empty my children felt without their mommy to see them. I want out of the car business soooo bad!
Correction on the above…..Ooops! I meant to say I regret my decision of going into the car business more everyday…. and I feel so fortunate everyday I actually get to see them & spend time with them…..sorry! 🙁
Hello all. Talk about the biggest smoke and mirrors scheme of our time. Now that the economy is suffering, Corporate America, has an even bigger excuse to rape us of our lives. I believe in hard work for a decent wage, but when the expectation is that if your work isn’t done, stay until it is; or suffer the stigma of being a slacker, that’s where I draw the line. Or manage your time accordingly, when management knows there is no way to get it done in a 40 hour work week. The label of being a salaried employee is a curse for the ages. No overtime, working for free after 40 hours; your wages per hour nose dive as you crank out 50, 60, even 70 hours a week. There is also no comp time in the form of time off, or leaving early on a Friday, after working like a dog for weeks on end. I have seen this abuse at several companies I have worked for. My current manager comes in at 6:00 every morning, and leaves after 5:00. I have a co-worker who has taken up running. He is already in self defeat due to, after his first half marathon he will be working too much to keep up the training, and have enough family time. Now we are told just be glad you have a job. It’s insanity bordering on communism. They control our lives, and we allow it. The weird part is, that it is a great company, performing very well in this economy. I am burnt out, always having to try and plan, duck, and dodge, just to stay around 45 hours, as may coworkers give me weird looks when I leave on time. I am not lazy at all; as a matter of fact I work very hard, and skip lunch and breaks to get out on time. The money isn’t worth it, life is too short. I know millions of us are stuck due to the sky rocketing cost of living, and fears of not being able to provide for our families. The fat cats know this, and will exploit it to the hilt. I just can’t believe the apathetic mentality of management. I am just over it. Technology should ease the burden on the American worker, not complicate it, and force us into legalized slavery. I am thankful I have a good job with a great company, but balance is thrown out the window. Please America, let’s embrace true Capitalism, but without the greed and willingness to work our lives away sitting in a sterile cubicle. It’s toxic and is turning us all into unhappy, tired, unmotivated drowns.
PREACH IT BROTHER!!! I LOVE IT!! TRUTH HURTS!! TELL THESE LAMEASS POSTERS HOW IT IS!!
The solution is called Distributism, and the vehicle for getting us there is called Social Democracy.
Some great comments here. It seems like people are finally waking up to the great hoax known as the Calvinist Work Ethic that’s been plaguing our high-tech civilization for far too long now. This is especially appalling in our current age where we have countless labor-saving devices that functionally SHOULD be relieving us from mass drudgery.
A few of the more mean-spirited (perhaps overworked?) commenters (like JSP) are clearly indoctrinated by the Obsolete Work Ethic to a such degree where they each function as a sort of undying ideological mind slave of that ridiculous paradigm.
It’s time we all embrace the abundance that mechanization and automation provides for us and realize that working ourselves to death is a futile endeavor considering the potential that can be unleashed if we are able to part with many of the old, now useless ways of running society. One we free our minds we realize how much of the “work” out there is really pretty useless in terms of actually important things like human life-support systems and scientific/technological advancement. Most of our “economy” simply goes into churning out more and more cheap crap and subsequent waste just for the sake of ringing up more transactions. That, my friends, is the contradictory nature of a debt-based monetary system and a commerce-obsessed culture that feeds such a beast.
Please take some time to contemplate the greater things and life and become more self-aware. You’ll gain a broader perspective and feel a whole lot better in the end. I’m sticking with the red pill. See you all on the other side!
Does anyone remember the story of the Pied Piper??!!
I just don’t understand why there has not been a single post about educating our youth!
We EARN what we LEARN.
We are not learning. Purposely.
Members of the “Intelligencia” would not put up with this!
America is dumbing down it’s very own future leaders. Our children can’t progress until the whole class is all on the same page. Learning curves, are you serious? 100% right is 100% right fer gawdssake!! My son’s teacher INSISTED that “cupid” started with a “Q”!!
We don’t even make our own FOOD here anymore. Someone please explain the Fair Trade Agreement!
I tire of the instant gratification youth. Are you kidding me?! There is no APP for Real Life. You want something, you have to earn it IRL. And don’t burn company time surfing the Web! If you wanna play, you have to pay. Do your job! You waste Company time and MINE AS WELL because I DO CARE and I have to make up for YOUR SLACK. Is there no pride in work anymore??
Politics are all Hollywood now. Best looking, best speaker, and best media coverage. Occupy Wall Street? I do believe that movement originated in CANADA! What?? (And what do they even want?)
God Bless Us All!
I wish I could be the Pied Piper and teach the children how a life of unbiased, educated and harmonious living can be! Shame on the parents who rely on others to raise a child.
We are raising our future, not just our brood.
A few thoughts:
1) America is over-worked: We AVERAGE about 47 hours per week(for those who work full time). This is simply too much work. The stress,overeating,etc etc that too much work causes is getting too great for us to bear as a nation-we all need to step back awhile and simply relax(and enjoy our live).
2) America is too uninformed: We spend half of our lives in school,only to learn how to become rock-headed,half ignorant pragmatists who deify money,who never question authority and who completely lack creative thought.
3) America is too Greedy: We are simply too money obsessed. We work all day chasing after the “almighty greenback” and “slaving it up” for rich capitalists who use us to gain even more money for themselves-and sharing less each year with the individual worker.
4) America is too Addicted/Dysfunctional: We(Americans)must be one of the most addicted countries in the world with probably 60-70 % of us addicted to substance or another(can it be because of our collective soullessness?) Further,10% of us are alcoholics,30% are obese,5% are drug addicts,15% have diabetes,and 15% are chronically depressed.
5) Americans have too much debt: We(as a country and individually) have too much debt to be healthy. The nation owes 15 trillion dollars-and each American family has 10,000 usd in debt-far too much debt to be healthy.
Finally,We must demand changes now,and get our collective act together-and as individuals,if we are to go forward in any viable way from here.
5)
It’s not so much a culture that values money and work over everything else that creates these problems. People have to work harder for less money just to stay afloat. America is capitalism at its extreme. We have a lot of myths in our society that capitalism is natural and the best possible economic model, but it obviously is not. We need to remove that idea from our minds and empower leaders that are in favor of more market regulations. We need to remove “socialism” from our national list of dirty words. And lastly, on a more individual level, we should buy local and buy small. It’s not that solutions are hard to accomplish, but that nobody wants to try them.
ZEITGEIST:MOVING FORWARD!!!!!!! EVERYONE NEEDS TO WATCH THIS MOVIE AND THEN YOU WILL GET A CLUE ABOUT WHAT A GODDAMN DISEASE CAPITALISM IS .
I feel the author missed a big point: Americans aren’t working that much because they want to, many aren’t doing it because they’re greedy and want $$, but because the price of everything has gone up while wages have come down. That’s the real problem.
More families have both parents working because they can’t afford basic necessities–though this in itself is an argument. An Ipod is not a necessity, but you see them everywhere–even with those who are getting government aid. The system has become corrupt because those who can are exploiting it, both rich and ‘poor’ included.
America and our ancestors worked very hard to raise the standard of living, but now its becoming harder to afford that standard of living. I think we need better price ceilings. And no credit cards. What you can’t afford now, you can’t have now. Simple. We wouldn’t be in this mess if that had been the case.
Oh, and I’d like to point out, most of Europe is in economic turmoil (e.g Greece). Maybe so many paid vacations isn’t the best idea…
The obvious level of poverty between generations is pretty glaring, in the general NY/NJ area.
By way of example,I know more than a few engineers I work for who make a “good” salary and are in fact in the lower 1%. But their parents, lived in larger homes, in better neighborhoods, with better schools and functioning facilities.
As a rule, the generation coming up is largely in significant worse shape economically, with MASSIVE student debt at graduation, or subject to systemic disenfranchisement by not having a degree, what’s most obvious is that glaring difference, between college educated and non-college educated, which has nothing more to do that with society’s bias towards the former.
In that previous generation – the “boomers”, most non-college graduates could afford to buy or build a house and do so without holding 2 jobs per household.
These days, the more relevant question to my mind, is how do we break the cycle of wealth concentration before it breaks the capitalist system entirely.
Have any answers to that question?
Evonomics.com has some good answers to how to fix the economy in general.
In order to fix the system today, we would need to completely reallocate the wealth, put people in fair public debt for intangible assets (education discrepancies, legal assets), Create arbitration for the housing market and remove the middle men that inflate it. But since that’s not going to happen, see below.
We we can realistically do, is create fair labor laws, create mandatory unionization run by the workers, trust bust the large companies (or break them into democratically run coops so they retain some natural monopoly efficiency), we need to tax profits from legal assets (unearned income) such as patents, branding, etc that the government protects (not a free market), we need to create greater availability of public goods (telecom, healthcare, utilities, education, addiction services, and the criminal reform system (and we need to do it in a way that doesn’t feed crony profits)), we need to create at the very least in response to Citizens United, mandatory financial disclosure laws that are at least as blatant as the Side effect disclosure laws on pharmaceuticals, so that money in politics will become essentially worthless. We need to tax corporate lobbying, earmarked so that objective research can be done in addition to the lobbying efforts (though that could fail or be corrupted).
We have a lot of work to do.
AND YET ITS THE SAME BOOMERS THAT ARE 1 RUNNING THE SHOW NOWADAYS AND 2 SAY THAT “WE” ARE ENTITLED!!!! HELL THEIR EVEN THE LAST GENERATION THAT WILL HAVE SOCIAL SECURITY TO RELY ON FOR CRISSAKE!! THAT GENERATION HAS NO CLUE AS TO WHAT ITS LIKE WORKING NOW FOR SLAVE WAGES. WORKING TWO JOBS AND STILL NOT MAKING IT
I would much rather live in Europe where they give a damn about their employees. I wish I had time to spend with my family where I could drive my son to school and get him off the bus…That is a DREAM here, unless you are a stay at home mother with a husband making more than 75,000 a year no matter the economy. Europeans arent lazy…Last I checked U.S. is the fattest country on the planet…now who’s lazy?
Americans aren’t fat because we’re lazy (we’re not any more lazy than anyone else in the world), but rather because our lives suck — which at least 50% of that suck comes from being overworked — and we’ve got too much fast food and other comfort and junk food available for low prices. (The healthier stuff costs more.)
So, since our lives suck, being fat is legal, and junk food costs less, we use junk food as our drug to deal with life. Also, because we’re worked so much, unless an American has a labor job, he has to sacrifice his precious little free time off the job to exercise. Most of us don’t have labor jobs anymore; we work in offices.
most people cant afford to take even a couple days of in a pay period.with low income on full time jobs that use to have wages that allowed for saving but havnt been raised to meet current inflation people are adding hours.there also take on more than one job to come out makeing less than 1 job use to.
You know, I don’t think it’s so bad that we’re like this. We set an example to other countries. Who has harder workers? We do. Who gets more done? We do. Who DOESN’T WHINE ABOUT VACATIONS? We don’t. Greece rioted because the government thought about lessening their vacation time. We don’t even have any. We should be proud to be so efficient
“We should be proud to be so efficient.”
That just sounds a bit…well, _you know_. Yikes.
What was the quote, something like no one ever says on their deathbed they wish they had spent more time at work? Life is not meant to be a slave to. Other things matter much, much more.
With the competitive nature of many people here, I’m wondering if people aren’t actually afraid to take time off? Someone is always ready to step in and take over your job, or there is always someone willing to do it for less. Out of sight out of mind.
I think most people that dont take vacations probably dont feel they have a choice.
This is why a legal requirement to take vacation, whether you want it or not, helps.
In France you have to take 10 consecutive days in summer (from June to September if I remember correctly), you have no choice (the company must impose them to you if you do not choose your slot).
Then you have plenty of vacation you should take or they are lost (the culture is to take them)
I think it’s funny that the author seems to think that 30 vacation days equals a month off from work. Vacation days apply only to actual working days, so 30 days off from work is actually six weeks, which is 1.5 months.
In any case, the numbers given in the chart are not entirely correct. For example, in Sweden (where I live) there are 13 paid national holidays in 2012. This would bring the minimum number up to 38. In addition, all governmental employees (and many private) get a half-day off on the day prior to a public holiday. And if a public holiday falls on a Tuesday or Thursday, then the day in between the holiday and the weekend is also free from work.
The vacation day system in Sweden pretty much follows this rule:
younger than 30: 25 vacation days
30 – 39: 31 days
40 – 49: 35 days
50 – 65: No one knows because these people only show up at work to collect their paychecks… 🙂
In France the calculation goes the other way round: you have to work 217 + 1 days per year (the extra day is a bit special as the company may agree for you not to work and take the charge).
Therefore the number of vacation days changes every year to accommodate this rule.
There are zillions of exceptions but overall this is how it works.
The average is 35 to 40-something working days off per year.
I would scrub toilets with my own toothbrush to leave this country and move to yours. Unlike many of my countrymen, I have lived outside the United States and understand that “greatest country ever” is nothing but propaganda. From the age of 5 we are compelled to stand before our flag and recite a loyalty pledge.
I am sure there are some accommodating countries that would love to have you scrubbing their shitters with your toothbrush. What are you waiting for? I am sure if your really wanted to live in some other country you are talented enough to make that happen/or not?
Silly Americans work, work, work till what, you retire and pay for your overly priced medicines, triple of the actual price of your home, then if you’re lucky you’ll get 5 years maybe (if not retired now) before you kick the bucket, lol what a wasted life, all to be number 1. When I was younger this statement would of pissed me off, as I’ve seen how short life can be I now question, why do we work so hard for what and for who, people who don’t have to work as much?
Yes as a citizen of United States I see this too, actually when I was in the Army I worked less than any civilian job I had. Iraq was a bit different though however I enjoyed the no cell phone thing. When getting out, my platoon sergeant actually said this would be the easiest job ever had are you sure you wanna leave we’ll pin you sergeant today(my girlfriend wife now said please get out. I thought my platoon sergeant was crazy until my 24yr @ss at that time made that transition. Sure I worked before joining the service like at restaurants, construction etc but nothing really making a career out of.
Now I enjoy a super commute since the cities are the only place for decent wages, if you call a take home of 500 bucks a week a decent wage, with two girls, a car, a mortgage, needed improvements etc.
My wife is a teacher in this small town making around the same as me after taxes. I pay the 500 bucks a month on health care with a nice 500 dollar deductible on each person!
I don’t go to the doctor that’s only for rich folks and poor folks, but I do make that 500 dollars monthly payment JUST IN CASE! However if I have to get life flighted my insurance doesn’t cover that. So I could easily enjoy a $20,000-10,000 bill while I’m in some rehab trying to walk again.
When I’m sick its usually too expensive to go to the doctor so I just wait it out, and of course if I take off of work, I’ll just have too much work when coming back and my week is hectic. Not the case in the Army.
The company I work for now fired 400 employees 2 years ago, froze salaries…still a bit frozen all claiming it needed to to survive. Then the investors sold us to a company in Japan making a 500 millions in profit. (Bought at around 500 million and in 4 years sold us for 1 billion.) Nice some got a fat check on the expense of others.
Firing people should never be an excuse to gain profits and for whom, is this really helping our country? C’mon folks wake the hell up…what do the soldiers fight for! corporate corruption? Not everyone is an investor or has the extra money to live this life.
Born in a red state I understand the corruption of unions, the freedom to work long hours, and how hard work will get you farther in life…well sometimes, it use to a lot more than it does now
My grandfather born in Czechoslovakia came here with no education, worked hard bought land many of acres simply cause it was much much cheaper than now(actually now you cannot buy land and get your money out of it by farming, cattle etc-it must be family owned by past generations. He also started a business that is still here today on property that was and still is commercial but far far too expensive now for an average joe to buy and start up anything. And considering his education was at a 8th grade level wow… Yes opportunity WAS there and we use to get more out of our hard work.
Hard work gets me far on my land- 20 acres a gift deed from my mother when her mother passed, but not with the company I work for. I’ve searched for other work and its all the same pay, I’ve busted my butt off with this company for 5 years just to get the same ‘ol times are hard speech, pockets aren’t as deep as they use to be.
The oil companies around here are the only ones that really pay but I don’t want to be a life on the road roughneck. I actually like being with my wife and children…I know this must sound weird to some people, but I like life.
I just think more and more personalities are turning severely fakish and this is becoming the norm. Overpopulation, selfish profits, and this bad attitude against anyone who isn’t rich being looked as someone who is lazy, its getting cray.
I don’t mind working all the time, sometimes I feel guilty over the weekend if I don’t do any work on my land or house. I don’t watch TV I can’t stand how weird its gotten over the years. I’m always doing something outside.
I just want work and sweat to PAY more if I’m selling that and my time to a company. For now it just robs my time and with my family, home improvements etc. for a few bucks…not worth it anymore. Companies have got to loosing up and pay more if we want our country back I don’t understand the need for such high profits and low wages, these folks are not true Americans in my book.
A democrat in Texas? What is this world coming to?!
Appreciate the story – I can feel your frustration and completely agree – are values are backwards – and the citizens need to win this country back from the thieves.
This is a great article, but I have to disagree with one part…it currently is not “OK” to ask for less hours at work. Unfortunately, this could get you fired. The general consensus in the corporate arena is that they feel they own your physical person and are free to do with it as they chose even if there is no increase in productivity. A perfect example is during Hurricane Sandy when many places had no electricity, some employees were still made to come into work and sit in the dark doing nothing for 8 hours. Corporations routinely classify all salaried employees as exempt (not due overtime pay) and fire staff so one person is now doing the job of 3 with a 70 hour workweek. I would, however, love to see all this change. I fear though with unemployment at the rate it is now, we wage slaves currently have no pull to affect any change soon.
Maybe if the goverment didnt take all of our money and things were affordable we wouldnt have to work so much. Yea it would be great to stay home and raise the kids but whos gonna feed them? I would love to put in 40 or less hrs per week but I gotta work that overtime just to compensate the cost of getting back and fourth to work at 4.00 a gallon. I work an honest job and dont spent beyond my means but I also dont have much of anything. America is just to expensive to live in and the rich make damn sure the middle class keep working harder so they dont have to.
We pay twice that price for fuel, the average pay is $30k and you roughly get 60-70% of that money into your bank account (after the various taxes). On top of that almost everything in the US is cheaper (housing, food, home equipment).
I am not an economist but I am still happy to live where I live.
If you look at how nasty life can be. We are the most overworked country in the world.
Other workers in other countries enjoy more free time and more family time than American workers. Look what we
have in this country and you tell me that this life is not straight from the pit of hell. We are told to go to school to get
a good enducation and then enter the workforce at age 25 to get a great job with great benefits and work a minimum of
40 hours per week until you turn age 65. So you are working 40 hours per week going through alot of pain at your job with
stress, control, changnes, fear of getting layed off, lack of free time to enjoy other things, pain , suffering, feeling of you are
being left out of what would make you really happy, feeling that the company owners hate your guts and can fire you anytime.
And you are suppose to go through that type of life for 40 years with different companies. Oh and dont forget the IRS and all the deductions
that are taken out. So you suffer the pain and humilation of that also. You are asked to go through all that pain for 40 years until you
are 65 years of age. Think about how horrible that setup is. They are asking you to suffer at your job for 40 years and be exploited
so that the CEO of the company can go and enjoy his free time, travel, raise his kids, fly in a private plan, and relly enjoy the American
Dream. WOW..so people do that for 40 years for 1 company or many companies and retire with 40% less income than what they were making
and end up dead broke or dead from the stress. And if they are still alive they have to depend on the government for a small social security check
that wont even cover a car payment, gas and insurance let alone a great lifestyle. This is the trap 95% of people are in in America. When you know
dam well that there is a side of life outside of that gloom and doom that is so incredible and exciting. That is why the majority of people are depressed
and feel that there is no hope. This system is set up to ring you out like a dish rag and spit you out…WHY IS LIFE IS HORRIBLE LIKE THIS WHEN WE
ALL HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO LIVE A BETTER STANDARD OF LIFE. ….WHY ? IM ANGRY – FUCK THE ASSHOLES THAT CREATED THESE RULES – YOU ASSHOLES WILL BURN IN HELL FOREVER WHEN YOU FACE GOD FOR EXPLOITING HUMAN BEINGS FOR YOUR GAIN. YOU ARE NOT GETTING AWAY WITH ANYTHING…GOD IS WATCHING EVERYONE AND ALL YOU SCUM SUCKERS WHO RIPPED ALL THE HARD WORKING PEOPLE OF THIS COUNTRY FOR YOUR GAIN AND THEN LAYED MILLIONS OF PEOPLE OUT OF A JOB TO THE STREET – YOU WILL BE JUDGED AND YOU WILL SPEND ETERNIT IN HELL FOR YOUR SELFISH HEART AND MOTIVES – BASTARDS. I LOVE AMERICA BUT I WISH THE MIDDLE CLASS WOULD STAND UP AND TAKE THIS COUNTY BACK FOR THE PEOPLE…GEORGE BUSH , REGAN, CLINTON, OBAMA, ALL THE PRESIDENTS, THE IRS, THE GREED CEO’S OF ALL THE CORPORATIONS , ALL WILL FACE GOD ONE DAY AND BE JUDGED AND WILL BE PLACED IN AN ETERNAL HELL FOR ALL THE PAIN THEY CAUSED AMERICA AND OTHER COUNTRIES…PLEASE REPLY BACK TO ME …DONT BE A COWARD ..
I want to apologize to everyone on this thread for getting out of hand and saying what I said about people going to hell. God please forgive in Jesus Christ name. Cross those comments out and those names out and I will let God be the judge ..Amen
love your rant it is totally true and you are one of the few posters on here that really get it unlike everyone else saying “spend less” “work more!!” “get in debt going to college!!” i have spent 12 years so far having my soul sucked out and making shit for it. the most i ever made is 14.87 and i had to go through so much shit that i fucking walked out. im 30 years old now and cant even get a job at walmart. so i feel what youre saying. i feel like my life has never even begun. i busted my ass doing hard ass work and lifting shit for 10 hrs a day for years and now i feel like a fucking 80 year old. i hate this system but what i hate worse is this fucking society. americans are usually the most smartass and apathetic liars on planet earth. Animal Farm was written so long ago and yet still people let it happen. still people let the pigs control things and come up with more useless slogans for the other “animals” i hate this society so much
I’m not going to disagree with you. However, why did you chose not to attend some kind of higher education, even if “just” technical school? You have to have some kind of work-education under you belt to climb the ladder. Is it too late to get some schooling now? How about financial aid?
isnt it interesting how business owners and bosses talk against “socialism and how “they are having there money taken by government policies or too much government” and yet they are only rich because they fucking worked people for min wage and pocketed the excess and yet “they dont want to be robbed”???? fuck them. steal from them like they have stolen from us and see what they have to say next when they have nothing. fucking pigs
Actually, since capitalism is a legalized form of stealing, meaning that the capitalists stole from the rest of us in the first place, then I do not see “redistribution of wealth” as thievery itself but rather as justice.
Amen brother!!!! I up for it!’ I got a steal toe boot for there ass! We are slaves without chains or whips, just threats and empty promises, they give us just enough to live paycheck to paycheck, debt and homelessness is our new retirement package, I have a hell of an idea, let’s ALL say to hell with it and not go to work for just one week at the same time, watch what corporate America does then, would be one hell of a show
The American work life has effected families, for sure. It’s not only mothers joining the work force but from both parents being over worked. The family structure of a homes have weakened because parents have dedicated their time to financially support their family. But easily do we forget that families require more than financial stability, families require emotional support as well. We should not attack those by saying the lack of Jesus in the household is the problem, an attack on non-religious people is not a valid state of argument. Comments calling people “ignorant” or saying “you bastards will burn in hell” fail to state reasons why this article has failed to persuade you. But there are concrete reasons why family life in America is not strong, this article points out key elements that support that argument. Mom and Dad spend too much time at work whether by choice or due to job circumstances, it is our responsibility to balance work and family in order to create a more proficient family structure.
“…an attack on non-religious people is not a valid state of argument.” — Here is my argument, and it is not an “attack”: Without faith in something greater than the material existence that we see with our eyes, there is *no* reason to care about the family, and there is every reason to be purely selfish, just like corporations and capitalism. That is, Ayn Rand’s Objectivism truly is the only rational way to see things, and opposing, non-religious philosophies such as secular humanism are nothing but folly. If we’re all just carbon lifeforms — a higher evolution of animal but nothing more — then there is no reason to care about people above anything else.
That said, can you imagine a greater faith to hold dear to your heart than that of a god (The God) who lowered himself down to our level, made himself into a man (Jesus), walked and talked among us as both God and man, and then sacrificed his own life as the pure and holy God to pay the cost for all men’s dirty sins for all time, to wash us pure so that we can be free from vices such as the greed that powers our corporations and our capitalism? (And then he raised himself from the dead after three days to prove that his is God.) That is Christianity.
Wow… you talk like this in real life as well? This must be quite scary for the people you meet
Boo. (Are you running away yet?)
No, it is just that I am not used to people who get over excited with their religion and who need to show it off no matter the subject.
99% of everything in this life begins and ends with what people do, and 99% of everything that a person does comes from what religion… or philosophy (for the atheists and agnostics)… that person ascribes to. Whether they realize it or not, business people, bankers, major investors, etc. (that is, all capitalists) follow the philosophies of Satanism and/or Objectivism. Satanism says “Do what thou wilt.” (do whatever you want), and Objectivism says that self interest is the only logical goal in life, and one should only do what is logical. Out of all the religions, the religion of Jesus: Christianity, stands for the exact opposite of Satanism and Objectivism: Jesus said to treat others as you would have them treat you, oppose evil coming from other people yet still love them as human beings, forgive those who hurt you instead of taking revenge, and love others just as much as you love yourself.
So, you see, *everything* has to do with “religion”, and if you want true, long-lasting good that is “built on the rock instead of the sand”, you have to turn to Jesus. But… I’m tired of arguing, and I’ve said pretty much everything that there is to say on the subject, so I won’t argue with you about it anymore. You can have the last word; type away.
This is in response to your comment about my comment. If the truth hurts – I dont apologize. All you have to do is look at the facts. America has declined and will continue to decline. Everything that made this country great is being taken away and it will continue to get worse unless people stand up and take it back. It is not being negative – it is the hard cold reality. There are 40 million americans on food stamps in this country. Did you know that? The majority of college graduates in the last 3 years who got degrees cannot even get decent paying job because the unemployment rate is so high and every US company is packing their bags and outsourcing their labor for a cheaper pay. That is just the tip of the iceberg. Things are going down down down for the middle class and poor because that is who is going to eat this not the rich..And as far as my religious views. I am a christian thank god I believe in God and have eternal hope and everyone will stand before god and be judged. No one gets away with anything..thats the great news. You should not be offended that I said the truth because if you read you bible it is already written what is going to happen and trust me — God is not happy with what he sees and he will be just in his judgement…what you think this is for nothing ? You think all the bloodshet, all the pain that people have gone through, all the deception and lies that are going on all around that people are ignoring because they are busy on their Ipads, I phones or watching the superbowl is just going to slide and we should just tolerate it..How do you explain 22% uemployment in AMERICA worse than the great depresion. Things are not good, they are not even ok – they are horrible — lets get real man – dont hide the truth ! and dont tell me its up to me to create a better life because I am not buying that excuse…
The facts you are mentioning probably make sense (I do not know, I do not live in the US but in France).
Your religious views are your private thing and it is up to you to believe or not in something.
It is just that it is scary for me to see, in a thread about which fridge to buy or about the correct amount of work hours, someone jumping up and down with JESUS on a cardboard.
your comment is awesome especially the last sentence. i love how when people talk to the poor they always say that last sentence “its up to you to make a better life for yourself!!” HOW!!! HOW THE HELL DO YOU MAKE A BETTER LIFE FOR YOURSELF WHEN YOURE ALREADY WORKING 2 DAMN JOBS AT MINIMUM AND STILL NOT GETTING ANYWHERE? AND THEN PEOPLE SAY EDUCATION! BUT YOU TELL ME, IF A MAN WAS TO TAKE OUT A 40,000 ON AN “INVESTMENT” THAT NOWADAYS MORE AND MORE IS LIKELY TO NOT PAN OUT…WHAT WOULD YOU CALL THAT?? SMART OR STUPID??? SO THAT IS THE CHOICE PEOPLE ARE LEFT WITH. BE IN DEBT 40,000 AND SPENDING 4-5 YEARS FOCUSED ON WRITING BULLSHIT PAPERS OR TRY TO TAKE CARE OF THEMSELVES AND THEIR FAMILY BY WORKING AS MUCH AS THEY CAN MAKING NOTHING!! nice having these 2 rocks to be stuck between but hey “its all on you!!!” right? WRONG!!!! ITS ON THIS SHIT GOVERNMENT AND THE SHIT PEOPLE WHO ALLOW THIS TO BE. A GOVERNMENT THAT ALLOWS PEOPLE TO BUST THEIR ASS MAKING 7.25 AN HR WHEN HELL 12 ISNT GONNA GET YOU ANYWHERE. PEOPLE NEED REAL MONEY 18 DOLLARS AND UP!! IF A PERSON CANT ADMIT THAT THAT IS THE AMOUNT PEOPLE NEED TO SURVIVE AND LIVE WELL NOWADAYS THEN OBVIOUSLY THEY ARENT ONE OF THE POOR.
I agree. Back in the 1970s, you could make $5 an hour as a babysitter, so that’s basically your $8 bucks an hour now, before taxes.
The wages now are appalling. I make a good rate…when I am working. But there is a huge revolving door, and if I get a boss who doesn’t think I am submissive enough, or decides they don’t like something about me, I am gone. Doesn’t matter how much work I do, or how productive I am.
There are idiots running things.
The French built the guillotine.
Right on, Gus, that is the sad reality in North America 🙂
As long as people remain subservient, and trade ( or as you folks call it labour) unions are wihout any clout, bosses will do as they please, too much power is concentrated in the wrong few hands.
ABSOLUTELY MAN THESE POSTERS ARE A BUNCH OF FEEBLE MINDED BASTARDS WHO EAT SHIT AND ASK FOR A SECOND HELPING NO WONDER THIS FUCKING COUNTRY IS FUCKING SHOT TO HELL!!!! THEY WONT EVEN FIGHT FOR A LIFE OR A LIVEABLE WAGE???? WTF KIND OF SAD GENERATION DID THE BOOMERS CREATE!!!! WAKE UP PEOPLE!!
you have 10 bananas and 10 employees. 2 are bosses. the 2 bosses take 5 bananas and leave 8 people fighting for 5 bananas.5 of those people get 1 banana and 3 dont get anything. WELCOME TO FUCKING CAPITALISM!!!!! YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY PEOPLE ARE HOMELESS AND WHY REGULAR WORKERS ARE POOR? HERES WHY! BECAUSE A BIG COMPANY(my last job that i quit) will make 254 million but work you as a temp for $9 an hr!! they will hire you two years later starting at $10 and they will work you to death doing 3 jobs and talking about productivity and make it seem that the business if faltering and you may be canned at any time if you dont keep doing a fine job. then they make their profits from your hard work, pocket it in personal bonuses or raises for themselves, and then tell you that the company isnt doing well and you cant have a raise. but then a week later you are being told you will have to work on Christmas because demand for your product is so high. BUT THEY THINK YOU ARE TOO STUPID TO NOT HAVE A CLUE THAT IF THE DEMAND FOR YOUR PRODUCT IS HIGH THE BUSINESS IS DEFINETELY NOT FALTERING AND THERES NO REASON TO NOT BE GIVEN A RAISE!!!!! BUT THEY DONT CARE THEY ARE ALLOWED TO LEGALLY STEAL FROM YOU BECAUSE THIS CORRUPT GOVERNMENT ALLOWS IT!!! SO THEN ALL THE LIBERALS CRY ABOUT “REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH” AND SAY THAT POOR PEOPLE “WANT THEIR MONEY!” NO ASSHOLE!!!! POOR PEOPLE WANT THE MONEY YOU STOLE FROM THEM THROUGH CORPORATE THEIVERY YOU HEARTLESS SCUMBAGS!!!
Yes, we who work are being taxed more and more. No raises, no merit increases, no cost of living increases, no better job to move up to…
This it it. The land of opportunity is for those who get all of the handouts. That’s why your utility bills are so high. You pay for those coming in here. Same with college tuitions. Same with your insurance. You are paying for them.
We are slaves. We are paid, so we can put roofs over our heads, and food in our mouths, but we are just there to make the rich richer.
We are told if we go to college, and learn a profession, we will have a good life. We are told if we “work hard”, we will have a good life. It is all just talk to get us to be part of the machine.
Thats why I started my own company. Today I worked for 2 hours and made $500. Last week I worked 20 hours and made about $7000. I have had a total of 8 weeks off in the past 6 months. Thats 33% of my time on vacation. How do I do it? I am the bar-none BEST at what I do. I charge LOW rates so I get lots of work. I never miss a deadline or break a promise so I am basically a saint to my clients. I have zero overhead. I dont need an office. Instead of sitting around crying like a 10 year old girl about the economy and capitalism and obama and bush and fox news, I ruthlessly hunt down new clients and enroll them in my program. I do freebies now and again for honest clients who pay on time. I dump a client like a load of bricks at the first sign of dishonesty on their part. I let my clients know gently and artfully that they aren’t going to get a better deal anywhere else. I let them look. They come back. I am a no-bullshit business person in a land of bullshitting phonies who doesnt suffer fools. Most Americans think business is about being liked. F**k that. Its about EXECUTION. How well you do what you do and in what period of time. In this day and age everyone needs everything yesterday. You better be able to deliver the goods or you’re out of the game. F**k being liked. I’d rather deliver impeccable work products on time or ahead of schedule and under budget. Being liked gets me a friend. I dont want more friends. I have enough. I want more PAYING clients and whislt you cannot trapse around being a total dick to your potential clients you sure can let them know what you can and cant do, how much it costs, and your timeline. If they mess with those in a way you truly dont like…. ditch em. Its a globalized world. There will be another.
What we All Need to Remember
What we all need to remind ourselves is that it doesn’t have to be this way.
It’s OK to ask to move to fewer hours at work.
It’s OK to take a week-long vacation if we need to.
It’s OK to ask to work from home.
It’s OK to take a month of unpaid leave while you raise a child.
It’s OK… you get the idea.
Wow, good advice on how to get fired!!!
Hey !
Stop crying . I came to this country a few years ago . Im working as a carpenter earning 70k/year . 5 day a week paid extra for o/t only 10 day paid vacaction . Capitalism is great . When I was kid in comunism Pol#nd we have no toilet paper . Thats y I know that you have no idea what you talking abot .
Remeber kids comunism always ends with lack of toilet paper and other GOODS!
Maybe you should focus more on the Average days of PTO (Paid Time Off) aka “Vacation Time” provided to American Workers without a law mandating it…20. So that to me says that Japanese and Canadian companies suck, and provided 10 days of PTO because it is REQUIRED BY LAW…Yet the big bad companies in the US AVERAGE 20 days of PTO for “exempt” employees (salaried not hourly) all without a federal law. Not to mention, the average number of holidays added in is 6. So a total of 26 days of “paid days off” between holidays and vacation time. Wow how the US sucks. They dont have a federal law requiring these big bad companies to do this…Yet it still happens!
Way to spin things for a false case of Big Government…Only to spend more on taxes, and get nothing in return…
Ok, IF I had any Sick, Personal or Vacation time off, I still CAN NOT take off because that means less money and most likely like I would LOOSE my job! Employers don’t give a *rap about the employees and so everybody, even those married and with kids have to work 60+ hours a week! Sick, Personal and Vacation NEED to become mandatory!
The title of this irks me. I agree with the fact that Americans work a lot, but I would disagree with whether they work the most. There are several third world countries in the world where people work long hours every day, and mostly do labor work. Some even work for 14-18 hours daily. Many children work, who are under the age of 18.
I find this title very misleading.
Never mind, I just realized that he had the word “Developed” in there.
I am 30 and I have been unemployed for the first time and it’s been about 2.5 months. However, unlike most people, I have enough saved to not have to work for 1 to 2 yrs. With that being said I’ve learned a lot and it’s been a great 2.5 months. I am applying for jobs and I’m not saying the reality of I SHOULD find a job and make income and it’s quite HARD finding a job does not make me depressed here and there, but I have enjoyed my life.
I obviously don’t do much or spend a lot of my money, but what I have been doing is focusing on my family (spending more time with them), personal hobbies and above all my health (working out and cooking healthy). Something so simple has probably added 5 years to my life of not having to stress, go through traffic hell and work for an unfulfilling and empty job just to pay the bills.
With all this being said, I realized even more so that saving is vital because I really don’t want to work in this rat race forever. Yet a part of me also wants to just find a closer job even if it pays less because there just aren’t enough hours in a day. I am trying to find a balance and yes, the reality does suck, but I guess it is how your outlook is on life. Be bright. Be happy. GOOD LUCK.
Every single one of these surveys has something similar to 59+ hours. The upper limit needs to be extended upward – at least in my experiences.
Many of my co-workers and friends work from 60 to 100 hrs a week. When I was crunching numbers for a Big Four Accounting firm – we had employees who averaged 100 chargeable hours a week over a period of one year. These hours do not include Admin or Training time – usually around 10 to 30 hours a week. So overall these employees were working from 110 to 130 hours a week.
From my experiences, the overall hours seem reported seem to be very low and I have noticed a tendency for many employees to under report the number of hours they actually work.
As a Canadian after reading this I thought the US compared to many other developed countries has so much entreprenual spirit and innovative prowess , yet if you look closely you will see underneath a thin veneer that the overwhelming majority of Americans are barely getting by on hunger wages – having to moonlight like crazy and really being afraid of loosing their jobs ( regardless of how bad the working conditions and pay may be). Have enough friends in the US experiencing this.
I strongly believe this loopsided approach of making ordinary people work more and harder for declining pay, so those who run the show, ” the corporations” or fat cats can grow fatter day by day, is non sensical, dehumanizing and doomed to fail eventually, and you don’t have to be a Socialist-Communist to see this ( so I do want to hear any ignorant person uttering non-sense i..e claiming Canada is a socialist haven, because we ARE NOT!!!, We are a half way house, something in between the United Kingdom and USA!!!)
Look at the Scandinavians, they haven’t been bankrupted by their tax funded progressive social democratic systems with an emphasis on reconciling “work life balance” and the “common good” with economic prosperity, thus corporations haven’t packed up en masse and left for cheaper places in Asia. Why ?
Because their governments don’t serve the rich. Actually they care about their people ( i know that is a bizarre notion in Politics, but Scandinavians are that way real outliers in this world), and understand that productivity is best achieved when people are not stessing out – in social misery- but enjoy the benefits of state intervention and good relations with companies.
Both Canada ( to a lesser extent) and US base too much emphasis on “individualism” ” confrontation” and an uncritical admiration of the “god” like “corporation”, this and the fact that ordinary people got indoctrinated to be believe that their role is to remain subservient to the demands of influential fat cats is the main reason why people keep working themselves to death for less pay, without much respite and little or no recourse.
I’m a auto tech. I work 11 hour days, mandatory Saturdays, and usually every other sunday. My wife stays at home but she works from home as well. We have one child. We would’ve wanted more but because of the rising cost of so many things in this country (USA) we will never have another. My social life has suffered. I leave at 6:30 in the morning and come home around 7pm. I sometimes go the gym but my body aches with pains so much from the labor I do. Most nights I am too tired to even do anything else (I’m only 34). My wife gets depressed at times because she hardly sees me because of my hours-and when I come home I spend most of the time sleeping-which leaves her to be like a single mom at home while trying to work from home herself (cleaning the house, running errands, cooking, working). She wishes we can just do normal family things on weekends but because I work weekends it’s hard. I do get a few weeks paid vacation but I lose money because I work on flag rate hours so I lose a pay cut when I do take vacation. Either way our society is screwed. To make a decent living you have to work as a slave and have no social/family life. But if you don’t work as a slave, you risk living in poverty around high crime and fear your life (although many people who slave 2-3 jobs at minimum wage STILL suffer in poverty and high crime which is just as unfair). I’m sick and tired of seeing the Elite 1% make all the money while doing nothing compared to what the working class and working poor have to do just to stay afloat. (And no I am not a Democrat OR Republican-I do not take sides on either because they are both flawed and really just a way to distract everyone from the real problems going on in our evil world). There is nothing wrong with working for a living, but when it becomes where your life is living to work rather than working to live-then all quality of life is suffered.
Consider changing to an employer who can give you better working hours. You are headed for a short life, it’s not worth it.
As a U.S. citizen, I must say that people need to leave their personal choices and circumstances out of this. These statistics are way more comprehensive than your minute focus groups of family, friends, and “people you know”. To yield any results from this knowledge requires not just a global mindset but, most of all, humility… not these petty stories from nimbies. It’s all this bitterness and inability to work together that keeps us in denial of our own mass suffering in exchange for the success of the few. The rest of the modern world realizes this and demonstrates adoption of fairer and more equal laws, but the U.S. continues to brainwash workers to belittle or fear change. I imagine all the passive-aggression and pessimism stems from people’s dissatisfaction with their own overworked lives that amounted to nothing… but that shouldn’t deter the betterment of humanity, YOUR children’s future. The pursuit of happiness doesn’t stop at you or your generation. If you’re not content with your life, seek guaranteed content in improving the lives of your fellow man. Great nations are built on this premise; only then will we move forward.
We live in a culture of materialism! You all contribute to it. Your jobs don’t mean shit it doesn’t matter if u have an MBA or GED you all work to make some Corporation rich and in one way or another pollute and destroy the planet its all Greed! 90% of the things we buy or manufacture or sell are unnecessary.Walmart,Christmas tree shops,Target,Costco, Dunk in donuts,Burgerking….. The list is endless all unnecessary waste! The minute your boss asks you to (work late) or work on a holiday and You say yes you are contributing to the problem! Wake up! Fools “Lambs to the slaughter” That is what we All have become…. So tragic is the state of humanity.
I am 45 and live in Southwestern Pennsylvania. I remember the days of making a decent (livable) wage working 40 hours per week and having a CHOICE to work more hours for overtime/time and a half. Thanks to the gas and oil industry laws have been changed to suit them because all the politicians and ‘upper crust’ are making billions off of all the wells around here all the while the workers are making (typically) low wages and working 80 – 100 hour work weeks. Let that sink in. I’ve worked 100 hour weeks and after all the taxes Pennsylvania has…which includes county taxes, city taxes, ambulance tax…yes if you work in Pennsylvania you pay ‘privilege’ taxes. They (Pennsylvania law makers) say “you have the privilege to work in these towns/citys/counties so you are going to pay for that privilege”….but back to the point, after working 100 hours per week and all the taxes you’re lucky to net/bring home/actually get paid a little better than half of what your gross pay was. To top that off, these gas and oil companies now have a law working in their favor….they do NOT have to pay overtime/time and a half! It’s a FEDERAL law made to suit them, certainly NOT the worker. These young people working all these hours think they are making “great money”. There are more twist and turns to what these gas and oil companies are allowed to do concerning workers is unbelievable! There USED to be a federal law saying how many hours a person could work per day….gone thanks to the gas and oil industry. As I already said, time and a half for hours worked over 40 hours…gone thanks to the gas and oil industry. Even the people making money off wells being on their property are being ripped off. The government (local and federal) have made ‘laws’ to where these gas and oil companies do NOT have to tell these people why they are now losing more and more money from the wells. The companies have FEDERAL and STATE non-disclosure laws, in other words when the people receive money from the well on their property their checks show deductions in large amounts YET when they ask why that money was taken, these ‘fee’s’ have certain names and new ones keep coming, these companies do NOT have to tell them! How crazy is that?!?!?! These fee’s are just a way for the oil companies to keep more money, why wouldn’t they abuse that FEDERAL and STATE “law”, they know they don’t have to explain anything, they can make up a new name for some new ‘fee’ and don’t have to explain or prove that it’s a real fee. The people around here…and keep in mind, these wells are coming to your state too, give it time, Iowa is next…are stupid to the point of 100 hour work weeks and low wages are normal, because as the media propaganda says “It brings jobs to the area”….yea, low paying jobs that you HAVE to work 80 – 100 hours a week to make a decent living.
…Yada Yada Yada! …..hey everyone lifes a beeetch! get over it already …… I’m a widowed 58 yr. old wage slave too..I raised my son alone for 12 yrs until he got on his own …gave up my shoe repair business in rural Ca. due to failing economy .. got back to work working for next to nothing (11$ per hour) for Maselli brothers Shoe Service in S.F bay area….but I enjoy my craft and thats the sacrafice I make for doing what I love….. I wake up at 6 A.M… commute to work one hour each way in a 1997 Saturn… I think of myself as a kind of worker monk who pours his heart and soul into repairing footwear and leather goods which intern betters the quality of life for my fellow man …. call me delusional but at least it gets me through the day ……;)….
It’s disgusting how hypocritical this Nation is!
We TALK about how free we are yet we are a nation of wage slaves.
The American People don’t even get time to raise their own children when the time comes for it! This is an outrageous notion; Yet, we want to liberate 3rd world countries when we don’t even have decent worker’s rights for ourselves.
This week I came back from a 2 week Christmas and New Years company closure (AWESOME). This Monday after work however, I started vomiting in the parking lot and developed a fever. I still came in to work on Monday and Tuesday even though I was running a fever and sweating/vomiting. I Still didn’t improve much at all on Wednesday and I opted to take a sick day, I decided I wouldn’t be very useful in my state of health and my boss asked me if I was coming in today on Thursday and I told him. I’m still running a fever I don’t think I would be of very much use. He proceeds to tell me he needs me to fix an issue at work and would prefer that I come in. I told him I would bring a doctor’s note. It’s upsetting that even though I’m legitimately ill right now, I still have to “prove that it’s happening” and that in my attempts to use my sick days are met with resistance or pretty much any elongated and legal absence from work is looked down upon.
When did we become slaves to our jobs?
My Work week looks like this:
8 Hour Days + 1 Hour Lunch MANDATORY +1.5 Hour Commute Time = 52.5 Hour Work Week. There is no work life balance for the American worker. It’s mythical like Good Politicians. If I’m going to work 60 hours a week you better be damn sure it will be for my OWN business and encourage other people to do the same.
Don’t be a wage slave.
Trust me when I said that Americans are considered very2 lazy compared to the Japanese, Korean, Singaporean, Chinese, etc. Against European they might be more hardworking. Against the yellow skin race not at all. There’s something about the yellow skin race there are so feisty and diligent. The Americans works more then Japanese based on the report because it doesn’t include all those unpaid ‘overtime’ that the Japanese work. Do note in mind that in America a lot of the worker are paid for overtime wherelse the Japanese majority workforce are not paid for overtime eventhough its against the law. So, if u don’t pay for overtime how can the OECD concluded that Americans work more hours then the Japanese. Where do they get the data? Don’t even bother looking at the office hours in Japan. Because no employer even follow the working hours regulations. The same case also applies to other developed Asian countries. The government are strict in implementing rules but when in comes to Labour rights they are not so strict all, in fact lenient. So, this report is a total full of crap. Try working in Japan for a month and you’ll know the difference between haven and hell.
A reason why I would NEVER want to move to the USA! Before all you people say “Good, then stay out!” let me tell you I am not that desperate – after all I live in Asia, where the future of the world’s opportunities actually lie! And there are many other rich countries around the world that I would rather move to than the USA if I decided to give leaving Asia a try!
If it doesn’t apply what are you commenting on it for Realist? Nobody wants you to move here anyway. Why must we always think we know better than everyone else? Live your life at your speed, if you decide to quit your job then quit. There isn’t really a reason to think that you have the solution for everybody else. If you did you wouldn’t have even read this blog.
Ahhh yes, all the “opinions” about what it should be and what it ain’t. The bottom line here ladies and gents is that we have ALL become debt slaves to the American Dream machine. Opinions now a days are like assholes, and everyone has one. It’s only going to get worse, not better. I mean think about it where the hell does it end….40 hours a week, 50 hours a week, 60 hours a week….set up a cot and sleep in the office to only come home on the weekends….cost of living just keeps sky rocketing, all the while your stagnant wages either stay the same or keep dropping. And I love how the government just keeps taxing my checks( legalized stealing) and takes whatever the hell they want out of it…ever ask yourself where in the hell is all that money going exactly??? The fight to survive is just ridiculous to say the least! College education right?! Yes, 500 dollars a credit hour so you can get yourself into thousands of dollars of debt, to finally get a job that you work 60 hours a week to pay for that college debt and then compound that debt with a mortgage, marriage, and kids. Wow! What a life…sign me up! Don’t sound like such a dream anymore does it…
I’m from France and have been working here for almost 3 years now. Yes i am horrified when I see how many hours people spend at work here, there is no paid maternity leave, no paid vacation ( just a week, wow.),…yes it sucks. In France we all get 5 weeks paid vacation a year no matter who we work for, and paid sick days, and paid maternity leave etc.
We worship work and careers in the USA. It’s a sickness really. Oh and we love to answer “busy” when someone asks us how we’re doing. It’s like a badge of honor. Dumb! Maybe one of the reasons we work so hard is because pay is so low and our social safety net is lacking. I try not to fall into the overworked lifestyle even if that means having less money.
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are you kidding me. Americans should live in Japan and you’ll know what hardworking really2 means. In Japan the term karoushi, death related to overworked is really2 common. In fact it is one of the highest cause of death in Japan. In America, sure, there are people who work to death but definitely not one of the most common cause of death. Plus, any research regarding working hours, are so not accurate because most of them doesnt take into account unpaid overtime. In Japan, the practice of not paying your employee for overtime is prevalent. So there’s no way you could detect how many hours they usually works. In most western countries, overtime are paid and if you are not paid, the workers would definitely report it to the labour union. In Japan they just dont do so, I dont know why, but I believe its a culture thing. Which is a shame.
Well, boys and girls, I guess we’re at an impasse. Work long hours and stay afloat – like the US, China, and Japan – or don’t work long hours and sink through the pothole (like Greece and Argentina).
The society is currently structured to have slaves so someone else can stay sane. Two centuries ago it was the coloured people. Now it’s an average college graduate.
But don’t go looking at the next door and whining “they have it better!”, because they don’t. France is in such financial trouble to the point they make dummy companies so that people won’t “feel” useless. It’s sham company, no profit no payment, but somehow people see the need of it. England’s social welfare’s going down the drain (10 quid for 5 medications on co-pay?! No, it wasn’t some fancy med, it was a migraine med from Glaxo).
You can’t have life quality and consumer quantity. When I came back from England I was astounded at the sheer wealth US has to offer. The supermarkets were spilling with food, brand-name handbags were offered at a fraction of the original price, and if my PC broke down I could just go out and buy a new one without a pause, and if I had a headache at 2 AM I could run to the nearest chemist and get aspirin. These are all conveniences that the Americans take for granted, but that means someone’s staffing the chemist at 2 AM, the farmers are working that much harder to keep food cheap. In England, shops close at 10 PM, good luck getting any bargain for any name brand, if your PC broke down you probably have to wait until the month after, and it’s 3.20 dollars (GBP = 1.60 USD) for about half a pound of the worst kind of ground pork. My friend’s mother was working three jobs to keep herself afloat. Forget about leisure and hobbies, they didn’t have the money to spend on hobbies.
Slave labour’s still around. It’s just that instead of Frederick Douglass, it’s now you and me.
Yet another reason why we out produce every country on this list. I should be surprised that China was left off (I am not)as I guess the world’s fastest growing and 2nd largest economy is not developed. Or, it dilutes the authors argument on just how terrible the U.S. is. Couldn’t help but notice that Greece and Spain are both on this list as “Developed Nations”. Now that is actually Funny!
The system of GREED in USA is failing at an alarming rate…(capitalism is not the problem–but greed with it is) — no system, capitalism, socialism, communism, or dictatorship can survive large economic greed. No system! It’s become all about working too much for too little in return. Great if you are making a lot of money for the hours put in, but most can’t pay the bills and are being worked to death (literally as in getting sick and unable to perform their jobs.)
I read through a few comments and truly cant believe how far off topic the discussion posts go. The article is simply stating that Americans compared to other cultures are living less family centered lives and working far more hours than other countries. No one could deny that Americans regardless of why you are working, are probably working too many hours. No one can deny that our children do feel the affects of the lack of time we spend with them. No one can say that more time as a family would be bad. The article simply points out that perhaps we need to refocus our time to our families and less time to our work that will reap less long term benefits.
there are some very brainwashed sheeple on this board–the edward bernays USA propaganda master and horatio alger myth of hard hard work…all BS. wake up. You’re screwed, this modern day slavery. USA is a cesspool mainly.
What scares me is the dull life I see at work. My boss (female) rather work all Saturday than be at home with her 7 & 5 year old kids and husband. The VP’s in my company do not travel to interesting places, do not possess any other quality or show any other interest besides work. I feel sorry for them, and starting to feel sorry for myself as they force me to stay. I am a person full of curiosity, I want to travel, learn other languages, dance, be more flexible, have pets, etc.
I thought that what separated professionals from people who didn’t have a degree was that less hours needed to be worked since you got paid more. HUGE misunderstanding.
I hate this about the US. I also feel is our fault by rendering our souls freely to the company we work for.
How do we start making a change?
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This is truly a good piece but I am surprised to see that USA does not have paid maternity. What kind of country does that? A female employee after having a child, when costs goes up by leaps and bound, is not getting paid not even for the recovery period. That’s the time when she should be least bothered about finances and take care of the new born. I understand the concept of unpaid 12 weeks leave for attending to ailing family members but unpaid for maternity? Even countries like India has 3 months fully paid maternity. And the graph on leave was truly depressing. No vacation and sick leave. Are these the signs of a developed country? Hopeful of future amendments.
An example – if gross income including income tax is $150 and spending is $50, the spending rate is 33% / available to save is 66%. However, if income taxes are $10 in the above example, the spending rate becomes 36% / available to save is 64%. The latter seems more precise, at least to my mind.
DO YOU ALL BELIEVE THAT A PERSONS/PERSONS CAN CHANGE THE AMERICAN WORK SYSTEM? I DO. IF YOU DO TOO ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS: (PREFERABLY IN A VIDEO TO THIS EMAIL ADDRESS – PNKTWTY123@GMAIL.COM
Overworked Discussion:
Do you think we work too hard?
Do you like the cultural norm around your workplace on working hour expectations?
How have you been able to limit unhealthy overworking habits?
RIGHT NOW THIS IS AN IDEA TURNING INTO A STUDY SO PLEASE LET ME KNOW.
THANKS ALL!
Maybe because parental leave is discriminatory and forces coworkers who are actually doing work to subsidize the personal pursuits of those who aren’t, with no trade off. Instead of making it familial-based, we should have a sabbatical available to everyone, not just people who didn’t use protection. Of course, if we had adequate vacation in the first place, this wouldn’t even be necessary.
I am paid (on salary) for 30 hours per week. In reality, I work anywhere from 40 to 120 (yes, 120) hours per week, depending on the time of year. Is it fair? No. However, that’s (one of) the ways that America gets away with it…that excuse called “salary”. It means that you’re at your employer’s beck and call…and it happens all of the time, to millions of Americans every week. I’ve had a total of 20 days – and that includes weekends! – off of work since the summer of 2015. If I want to take a three day weekend, it means that I have to work uber-overtime the week before and after to get my work done so that I’m able to take the time off. My husband and I are about to embark on our first vacation together this coming Wednesday. We are planning to take a 4-day vacation. In order to make this possible, I’ve been working, little by little, for weeks to get my work done ahead of time at my job, in addition to being awake working and stressing out so that I can have everything at work done so that I can leave without having a panic attack since Thursday (today is Sunday, btw).
Don’t even get me started on maternity leave! When I had my kids, I worked at a different job, for a large employer who employs more than 1,200 people. In order to keep my job, I had to come back to work within a week both times. I literally got called in by my employer to work because they were short-handed and couldn’t afford to let me take the (unpaid, I might add) time off, even though it is required by law in the FMLA. This is the reality of most employees in the US.
Many of our health problems stem from the stress of being overworked. Many family issues stem from work-related stress. Most US fathers don’t get any kind of paternity leave. For example, my husband was required to go back to work the DAY AFTER each of our three children were born (and he worked for the hospital they were born in!). Welcome to the life of the American worker.