Thursday, April 24, 2014

It's official: America's middle class now earns less money for more hours of work


One crucial factor left out of the NY Times story "The American Middle Class Is No Longer the World’s Richest" -- that would mean American income inequality is even worse (if you can believe it) -- is that Americans work longer hours than Europeans or Canadians too (probably more family members work those hours for more years).  

Now, if the per capita income of our middle class (defined as median income) is barely equal to or lower than that of other modern middle classes -- and --  we work more hours to get less ...

... Holy Cow; it's time for some very big changes!
  * * * * * *

From the book "The State of Working America 2006/2007", Chart 8.7 on page 334:


Average hours worked in the OECD
in 2004 (just hours per worker, no count of more American family members working those more hours for more years)
United States...............1824
Japan............................1789
Germany......................1426
France..........................1441
Italy..............................1585
United Kingdom..........1669
Canada.........................1751
Australia.......................1816
Austria..........................1550
Belgium........................1522
Denmark.......................1454
Finland..........................1736
Ireland...........................1642
Netherlands...................1357
New Zealand.................1826
Norway..........................1363
Portugal.........................1694
Spain.............................1799
Sweden..........................1585
Switzerland....................1556

 

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