Americans Have Less Working Hours But Their Pay Is Higher than The Poor Countries in Which Workers Have Long Working Hours

There's always a notion going around that the more hours you work, the more you will earn. But how much is this true? Ruben Berge Mathisen made a whole report about the average working hours of Americans and how much they get paid after working. Different people have different kinds of jobs so everyone has different working hours in which they earn different amounts of money. The Current Population Survey being held in 2022 used data from different Americans who were doing different kinds of jobs. This data wasn't about the working hours of the employees on their contract, but it included the hours they worked at their workplace. So extra shifts, side gigs, and other jobs were also added to the working hours for this survey.

This survey showed the comparisons between the working hours of top earners and the working hours of people who earn less. The survey concluded that Americans with the top 10% income worked 4.4 more hours than the people with the lowest 10% income. When this survey was conducted in other countries, the results were similar even though the number of respondents was less. This showed that the norms of working hours are almost the same in different countries but people with high income work almost the same amount of time as people with low payments.

When the average of different countries was taken, it showed that the people with high salaries in the top 10% spot from almost 27 countries worked one hour less than the lower 10%. This was among the people who worked full-time jobs and different other working sectors. The study showed that people who live in poor and underdeveloped countries are more inclined towards working more hours than people living in developed countries. Our World in Data showed the comparison between average working hours in Cambodia and Switzerland. In Cambodia, the average working hours of people are 9.4 hours a day while in Switzerland, they are 6 hours a day.

There are many factors which are involved in working hours and pay. One of the most important is technology or more equipment which increases the productivity rate. In poor countries, these kinds of facilities aren't available. That is why the workers have to do all the work by themselves and it takes more hours. But in rich countries, most of the work is done by tech equipment so the workers do not have to put much of their input. For instance, in America farm production became 16 times more productive in 2011 as compared to 1948. It was all possible because of innovations in machinery and management. That's why the work hours also decreased.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World