The Hardest Working Cities
When asking a friend or acquaintance about their decision to leave New York, it is common to hear about a desire to “live at a slower pace” or to “leave the rat race.” In other words, they express a desire to spend less time working and commuting and more time on other aspects of life. The purpose of this Economic Brief is to investigate whether workers in New York City maintain more demanding schedules than workers elsewhere and to analyze whether this illuminates other characteristics of the city’s economy and workforce.
The evidence suggests that New York City residents do work relatively more hours compared to residents of other major cities. Long workweeks are especially common among certain professions in New York City. Moreover, New Yorkers have longer average commutes than residents of any other major city. When work hours are combined with unusually long trips to work, the combined workweeks of city residents are the longest in the country. Despite their long workweeks and commutes overall, New Yorkers are not more apt to work flexible schedules or to work from home.
The long work-week schedules of city residents may contribute to some labor force characteristics of the city, such as the relatively low labor force participation rate among women with children. And, although wages in New York City are higher, on average, than other U.S. cities, the longer work-week effectively lowers that wage premium. The fact that demanding work schedules are characteristic of city life suggests that like the more oft-cited high taxes or housing costs, long work weeks
should also be considered as a possible factor in diminishing the attractiveness of city life to many families.
Work Hours and Commuting in Major Cities
The length of the full-time workweek has historically been a central concern of American workers and a subject of state and federal regulation. Beginning in 1868, Federal government employees and workers on federal contracts were limited to 8-hour, 5-day workweeks, but the 40-hour workweek was slow to catch on in the private sector and remained the subject of labor agitation for many years. The infamous Haymarket riots of 1886 began as a rally for the 40-hour week. At the start of the 20th century, the average workweek in U.S. manufacturing and rail transportation was 60 hours, and it wasn’t until 1938, through the Fair Labor Standard Acts (FLSA), that the 40-hour week was codified.
In recent decades, there has been remarkable stability in the overall number of hours worked by American workers. Using Census and American Community Survey microdata1, the Comptroller’s Office calculates that the usual weekly work hours of all full-time, civilian workers averaged 43 hours, 11 minutes in 1990. Ten years later it had risen by five minutes. But in 2013, it was an hour and seven minutes less than in 2000.2 The decline in usual hours worked from 2000 to 2013 occurred entirely since 2008 and almost entirely among men, suggesting that the drop is due primarily to the recession and slack business conditions.