As Americans, many of us were raised to believe in a “work hard, play hard” mentality. In fact, workers in the United States work more hours per capita than any other large nation of the same production level.1
But according to some sources, even our extra hours of work each week may no longer be enough. In a recent study, the Manhattan Institute suggested it takes 53 weeks for a male American worker (making the national median wage) to earn enough to cover major household expenditures like housing, transportation, health insurance, and education costs.2
That’s a major problem considering there are only 52 weeks in a year. And considering the ongoing gender pay gap in the US, the situation is likely even more dire for working women.
Long story short: we all need to make ends meet, but no one wants to have to work 60-hour weeks, endure long commutes, or delay retirement to do it. To that end, we did some research to find out which states in the US are the most and least overworked. Here are the results we found.