Americans Work More hours Than Anyone Else in the World

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limitgov Posted: Mon, Sep 24 2012 8:26 AM

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http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=93364&page=1#.UF-qTFG7lAw

more than Germans

more than Japanese

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Bogart replied on Tue, Sep 25 2012 1:00 PM

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Good.  And as usual the article did not mention the most important class of people working: entrepreneurs who spend countless hours starting and running businesses.

The other issue not raised in the article is that the people in other Western countries especially, France and Germany, have lots more government provided incentives not to work and not to engage in entrepreneurial activities than those folks in the USA do.

Furthermore, I hate this later retirement talk,  If the governments of these countries gave people the incentive to save via market based interest rates, then then noone would care about the average retirement age as people would retire when it was conveinent for them.  As it is, in the USA and rest of the Welfare State Western World the retirements are controlled via government fiat.  The results of which are going to be a huge loss in the wealth of older people as governments fail to meet their obligations.

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Clayton replied on Tue, Sep 25 2012 1:27 PM

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@Bogart: I think it's a mixed bag. While I think you're right that the freedom to work may result in greater amounts of work, I also think there is a task-master effect going on within American corporatocracy. I work in a very large corporation and I can attest to the extensive use of peer-pressure and unwritten/unspoken rules by the management to manipulate salaried people into working ungodly hours - easily in excess of 80 hours per week - for no additional pay.

Clayton -

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Bogart replied on Tue, Sep 25 2012 3:30 PM

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You might as well of said The MAN is forcing you to work harder.  Of course THE MAN can't force you to do anything you don't want to do.  You can always leave.  In fact that is my advice to you.  Why not start your own business or change careers?  How about not having all of that nice stuff like health insurance, a nice neighborhood with stolen money funding the school district, fancy automobiles, IPADs, etc.  This stuff costs a lot of wealth that has to be generated by hardworking people. 

As for changing careers, that is not easy because the government puts lots of barriers in the way of individuals starting their own businesses.  The biggest of these is licensing but there are others like just the sheer amount of paperwork that prevents people from choosing to leave the corporatocracy.  So all of this foolishness about people being servants of the MAN is just a cover for the lie that is a regulated economy.  And further more, why change from a corporate job earning some multiple of the median wage for 45 to 55 hours of work per week when you can start your own business and work 75 to 90 hours per week?  I laugh when people speak of the lucky rich who won "Life's Lottery".  It is the rich who do put these hours into their careers so the rest of us can have all of those nice things, amd luck has nothing to do with it.

I have yet to work for someone who does not work at least as hard as I do.

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xahrx replied on Tue, Sep 25 2012 3:38 PM

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You might as well of said The MAN is forcing you to work harder.

Actually you may as well say The Man used the government to ass rape the economy, got his bail out, and expects his employees to work longers hours for lower wages to deal with the aftermath.

No, The Man can't force you to do anything you don't want to do.  But The Man and The Government can collude to make sure you have the shittiest options possible.

 It is the rich who do put these hours into their careers so the rest of us can have all of those nice things, amd luck has nothing to do with it.

Pretending The Rich are somehow pure entrepreneurs is nonsense.  'The Rich" is a wide group which encompasses everyone from entrepreneurs to trust fund babies who let their money be managed productively.  It also includes private and political entrepreneurs.  I work for one of them, and he's all enraged when he hits a government obstacle.  He's also happy as a clam when the government gives him a leg up, or hinders his competition.  Businesses have been colluding with the government for well over a century in the USA alone to get every advantage, it's ridiculous to examin people's choices through the lens of what could be if they were living in anarcho capitalist utopia.

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Clayton replied on Tue, Sep 25 2012 3:47 PM

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You might as well of said The MAN is forcing you to work harder.

There's no need to be a smartass. My circumstances are complex and I am not whining about having to work hard. I'm pointing out a social dynamic within the American corporatocracy that is very real - people put themselves in a situation of virtual enslavement to the corporation by allowing the management to manipulate them through peer-pressure dynamics - a dynamic that goes all the way up the pyramid, by the way.

Of course THE MAN can't force you to do anything you don't want to do.  You can always leave.  In fact that is my advice to you.  Why not start your own business or change careers?  How about not having all of that nice stuff like health insurance, a nice neighborhood with stolen money funding the school district, fancy automobiles, IPADs, etc.  This stuff costs a lot of wealth that has to be generated by hardworking people.

I don't own an iPad, I have no control over where my children attend school, I live in a one-bedroom apartment in a inexpensive part of town and drive a Kia. I legally am not allowed to not have health insurance, so that's a moot point.

As for starting a business, are you insane? We have FDR 2.0 running the economy, promising ever-higher taxes, particularly on small business and the self-employed, and you're suggesting to "go out and start a business"? Doing what exactly? Where is this large, unmet market demand that no one else has yet thought to fill?? Has it ever crossed your mind that perhaps the reason there aren't more entrepreneurs has nothing to do with laziness and everything to do with it being an act of financial/legal suicide at this time in the United States??

As for changing careers, that is not easy because the government puts lots of barriers in the way of individuals starting their own businesses.  The biggest of these is licensing but there are others like just the sheer amount of paperwork that prevents people from choosing to leave the corporatocracy.  So all of this foolishness about people being servants of the MAN is just a cover for the lie that is a regulated economy.

OK, how does that square with your intimations above that it's down to laziness and materialism?? Which is it? The government is hampering entrepreneurial activity or people are just too damn lazy and can't give up their iPads?

And further more, why change from a corporate job earning some multiple of the median wage for 45 to 55 hours of work per week when you can start your own business and work 75 to 90 hours per week?  I laugh when people speak of the lucky rich who won "Life's Lottery".  It is the rich who do put these hours into their careers so the rest of us can have all of those nice things, amd luck has nothing to do with it.

You have an overly romantic view of the wealthy, formed on the basis of the small and rapidly shrinking segment of the wealthy who actually earned what they have. This job has been a lesson to me in just how exceptional the US really was (no longer is, as we are culturally merging with the result of the world back into the Old Order of things.)

In the rest of the world, wealth is held by the wealthy. Period. Common entrepreneurialism is unheard of, or is the occupation of grimy, lower-middle class undesirables and no decent, civilized person would want to descend to that level. The only respectable entrepreneurialism is the large-cap variety, which is of course inextricably entangled with the politicial order where wealth stays where wealth belongs: with the wealthy. Things get done not by virtue of the incentives of profit but by virtue of liability to commands. If you've been told to do it and you didn't do it, your ass is on the line. That's how things get done in the rest of the world. This is the way of thinking of the rest of the world not raised in US culture. And, unfortunately, now that the US has been gutted of its once mighty economy built on the sound principles of capitalism, we are now subject to the tyranny of the global majority. Most people in the world think this way. Soon enough, every American is going to have to get used to this shit.

Clayton -

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grant.w.underwood replied on Tue, Sep 25 2012 3:49 PM

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i dont know.  i grew up in wealthy neighborhood and i can promise you 95% of the people in the working class work their ass off everyday and they continue to work that hard even when they have reached high executive posistion.  Also im from a business city, dallas, so id assume a city like LA would have a smaller percentage of hard work to success ratio.

  A vast majority come from middle income families that were able to afford to send them to college. .A good amount came from nothing.

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Esuric replied on Tue, Sep 25 2012 3:54 PM

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It's because we have the lowest (effective) individual tax rates in the world.

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Clayton replied on Tue, Sep 25 2012 4:03 PM

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It's because we have the lowest (effective) individual tax rates in the world.

How is that possible?? I don't have that high of an income - solidly middle class - but my effective tax load is over 50%. And the purchasing power of what is left in terms of rent, bills, etc. is pathetic. I suspect it's a myth that workers in the rest of the world pays more taxes than the US worker, or at least, it's an oversimplified view of things. The effective tax load in the US is a very tricky business to correctly assess and most punditry on the subject woefully undercounts.

Clayton -

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HabbaBabba replied on Tue, Sep 25 2012 4:15 PM

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We could just use the state as a scapegoat for everything all the time, so we never have to do anything to bring about change but send out free books in pdf form. Who's in?

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.500NE replied on Tue, Sep 25 2012 4:32 PM

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it's ridiculous to examin people's choices through the lens of what could be if they were living in anarcho capitalist utopia.

This times 1000. 

Things need to be analyzed taking into account the limited options real life can present people.  

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Esuric replied on Tue, Sep 25 2012 4:53 PM

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 How is that possible??  

How is it possible that people tend to work more when their expected rate of return is higher? I think you can answer that question for yourself. Also, it's the conclusion that Prescott made after looking at the data. He found a strong correlation, globally, between tax rates and the amount of hours worked. 

  I don't have that high of an income - solidly middle class - but my effective tax load is over 50%

No it isn't. The average effective tax rate for the middle quintile is 14.1%, and that includes individual taxes, payroll taxes, estate taxes and corporate taxes. 

 And the purchasing power of what is left in terms of rent, bills, etc. is pathetic.

Well, this is a separate issue.

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gotlucky replied on Tue, Sep 25 2012 6:26 PM

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Esuric:

No it isn't. The average effective tax rate for the middle quintile is 14.1%, and that includes individual taxes, payroll taxes, estate taxes and corporate taxes. 

I'm curious as to where you are getting your numbers, as this seems highly mistaken. The national median is $44,389. The federal income tax alone for that income is either 15% or 25% (depending upon whether the earner is single or married). Now, there is a nice little chart further down that talks about effective tax rate being 12.7% for the middle quintile, but this is only for income and payroll tax. This completely neglects state income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, gas taxes (built in to the price of gasoline, but it's there nonetheless), and perhaps other somewhat hidden taxes that I can't think of right now.

Clayton's estimate of over 50% may be high, but 14.1% is incredibly low. My bet is that after deductions, most people pay somewhere around 30-40% of their income in taxes. Still quite high imo.

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Clayton replied on Tue, Sep 25 2012 8:54 PM

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Clayton's estimate of over 50% may be high

It's not quite 50% but it's a significant portion thereof. The effective tax burden includes State and local taxes plus Federal payroll taxes. The effective burden is far, far higher than the absurd "Federal income tax rate" which is always advertised as proof of "low American taxes". Also, many of the withholding practices are flatly unfair. For example, I receive a bonus at the beginning of the year. The IRS rules cause this bonus to be taxed at the highest tax bracket as if my monthly income were that amount every month of the year. Plus payroll taxes, plus State taxes. I only see around 40% of the bonus and will not receive an adjustment until over a year later when I file that year's tax paperwork.

While my ordinary paycheck is taxed at a rate less than the 60% effective withholding that the bonus is subjected to, what is unfair is that even though I am earning way, way less than half of the $250k top marginal rate, my effective tax burden is much more than half of the effective tax burden of people at $250k. And this is true of almost anybody who earns around what I call the "middle class sweet-spot", which is around $60K.

The sweet-spot is the income where the number of people earning that income, times the income, is greatest. If you sum up all the dollars earned by $40K earners, it is less than the sum of all dollars earned by $60K earners. If you sum up all the dollars earned by $80K earners, it is also less than the sum of all dollars earned by $60K earners. Hence, the government's "weight" is centered firmly on the $60K bracket and tapers off on either side of it. As you move above it, you have an increasing number of ways to escape basic taxation. As you move below it, the basic income rates drop off rapidly. The worst possible place to be is single, earning somewhere around $60K. You're dead-center in the government's tax-bullseye.

Clayton -

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Kelvin Silva replied on Tue, Sep 25 2012 9:14 PM

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If you do what you love then theres no problem.

Gotta do wat u love. I guess some people hate their jobs but need to work to get the dough coming in.....But then in that case wouldnt it better to just train for another job?

In addition to income tax, theres a bunch of other kinds of taxes too.

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SkepticalMetal replied on Tue, Sep 25 2012 9:23 PM

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Never truly understood the mentality of doing something you hate just so you can make the money. I understand it if you have a family to feed, but if you're single and you're not trying to save money for anything except to go on living, why are you living in the first place? You're eating to work, and working to eat. While I'm here on this planet I intend to do what I want.

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Kelvin Silva replied on Tue, Sep 25 2012 10:20 PM

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Clayton! There is hope.

For all those who work, you could be much worse...

You ought to buy a cane also...

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alsdjfalsdjfos replied on Wed, Sep 26 2012 5:06 AM

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Did they count the Foxconn workers in that study?

Or the fact that Greeks work more than Americans, at 2,120 hours a year?

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excel replied on Wed, Sep 26 2012 6:14 AM

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I guess there's a reason american suicide rates are higher than that of foxconn workers. Americans must be overworked

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xahrx replied on Wed, Sep 26 2012 1:30 PM

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There's a difference between being overworked and overworked relative to the standard of living you achieve for your labor.  Individual workers are subject ot the same pressure as any entrepreneur; for example you don't have to be running a business to be essentially tricked into spending more than you really can afford.  Workers, especially in industries that see stimulus, often look around and see their co workers getting 'rich', buyingt flat screen TVs and luxury items, etc.  They're living the life.  Then the economy implodes and the big guys get bail outs, meanwhile Joe Six Pack is stuck with an upside down mortgage and a credit card with a rate that just jumped to 30%.

One of the less discussed but real effects of monetary inflation is that it keeps the wages of labor lagging relative to company owners and financiers, who by nature are closer to new money and credit injections.  I see Austrians making excuses for entrepreneurs as to why they can't forecast a bubble and always seem to get caught up in it.  I see less effort to explain/excuse individuals who get caught up in the same bubble and because of their lack of political clout end up shouldering most of the consequences relative to their employers.

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Luminar replied on Thu, Sep 27 2012 11:54 AM

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"It's not quite 50% but it's a significant portion thereof. The effective tax burden includes State and local taxes plus Federal payroll taxes. The effective burden is far, far higher than the absurd "Federal income tax rate" which is always advertised as proof of "low American taxes". Also, many of the withholding practices are flatly unfair. For example, I receive a bonus at the beginning of the year. The IRS rules cause this bonus to be taxed at the highest tax bracket as if my monthly income were that amount every month of the year. Plus payroll taxes, plus State taxes. I only see around 40% of the bonus and will not receive an adjustment until over a year later when I file that year's tax paperwork.

While my ordinary paycheck is taxed at a rate less than the 60% effective withholding that the bonus is subjected to, what is unfair is that even though I am earning way, way less than half of the $250k top marginal rate, my effective tax burden is much more than half of the effective tax burden of people at $250k. And this is true of almost anybody who earns around what I call the "middle class sweet-spot", which is around $60K.

The sweet-spot is the income where the number of people earning that income, times the income, is greatest. If you sum up all the dollars earned by $40K earners, it is less than the sum of all dollars earned by $60K earners. If you sum up all the dollars earned by $80K earners, it is also less than the sum of all dollars earned by $60K earners. Hence, the government's "weight" is centered firmly on the $60K bracket and tapers off on either side of it. As you move above it, you have an increasing number of ways to escape basic taxation. As you move below it, the basic income rates drop off rapidly. The worst possible place to be is single, earning somewhere around $60K. You're dead-center in the government's tax-bullseye."

Ugh. I can see where tax evasion comes from now.