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Here's a chart of average hours worked per employed person in the US from 1970 to 2011: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/USAAHWEP http://research.stl

Here's a chart of average hours worked per employed person in the US from 1970 to 2011: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/USAAHWEP http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/USAAHWEP Please point to the part of the graph that backs up your claim that people in the past worked substantially fewer hours, and that people today work substantially more. Don't forget to divide the numbers by 52 for the weekly number of hours worked.

dthtvwls 13y ago
More than possibly those numbers could be from the increased numbers of people who've had to take up part-time work who would've been otherwise unemployed.
- TheCowboy 13y ago
  There is also the conversion to an information economy with a growth in white collar jobs that are usually salaried with hours no longer being tracked. Most employers report a normal 40 hours per week on paper, but that is usually the minimum expected.