> people don't actually want to tradeoff their labor time for leisure time all that well. They value consumption too much. We don't actually know that. Most pe

> people don't actually want to tradeoff their labor time for leisure time all that well. They value consumption too much. We don't actually know that. Most people don't have the option. For all but a select few industries, there is no such thing as "work a part time job, and trade the rest for extra leisure" since almost no part-time job can sustainably cover cost of living. (Heck, most full time jobs don't really cover basic cost of living today). > There are plenty of 15 hour jobs out there. But you'd need to have a smaller apartment, an older car, and eat more lentils. The average wage in Michigan is currently $21/hr. ($36k/yr after federal, city, and state taxes). The average basic 1-bed apartment here is about $1300/month or $15k/yr. Minimum income requirement to qualify for an apartment is usually 2.5x to 3x times monthly rent. Math that out and you can quickly see that the vast majority of people simply aren't going to ever afford basic housing on 15hours a week. Or even 30hours a week. -- And on the flip side, when it was actually possible to pull this trick off, more people used to use it. In the 60s and 70s, when you could actually live off a part time 20hr a week job, people routinely did so (and then used their free time to do things like enroll in college and pay for it on the side). You don't see that anymore, because wages have fallen so drastically, and costs risen so drastically. It simply doesn't math out for the vast majority of folks.