You wake up, commute to work, work for eight hours, go home and zone out in front of the television until it’s time to go to sleep and do it all over again. Sounds like an average day for an average American, right?
The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ annual American Time Use Survey shows that the average American does basically that, but the numbers might surprise you.
Americans work an average of four hours and 32 minutes every weekday and one hour and 32 minutes on the weekend. Not a lot of work for a society that subscribes to the 24/7 workday.
Granted, this survey is meant to find how “average” Americans spend their time. This includes the unemployed, part-time workers, teenagers and retired people, which skews the data a bit.
SEE MORE: The average American consumer spends this much per day to live
When you consider only those people that have jobs, the numbers jump dramatically to eight hours and 37 minutes of work a weekday and five hours and 50 minutes on weekend days.
The amount of time spent working hit its lowest point during the recession in 2009 and 2010, when the average American was working three hours and 30 minutes each day.
As Christopher Ingraham from The Washington Post noted, the increase in working hours shows an increase in employment and a renewed focus on work and, naturally, leisure.
“The rise in work hours is partly explained by the recovering economy — if more people are working, that average number is going to increase,” he wrote. “With that extra work, perhaps, comes a greater need to relax and veg out at the end of the day — hence the boost in TV watching.”
The survey also showed that average Joes watch two hours and 36 minutes of TV each weekday and three hours and 21 minutes on weekends. They spend five and one-half hours each day on leisure generally.
Maybe Americans have more time on their hands than they make it seem, Naomi Schaefer Riley pointed out in an article for The New York Post.
The media makes it seem like Americans are working themselves to death and skipping vacations so they don’t miss out on meetings and workdays, which differentiates them from their European counterparts, she explained, but this may not be the entire story.
“I don’t think that Americans love their families less than German or French workers who take all their vacation time,” John Schmitt, a senior economist at CEPR, said. “Americans have less job security than European workers. That’s why they eat lunch at their desk and work late. And if you’re on vacation, you are likely to miss important meetings.”
However, the above recommended amount of time the average American spends sleeping (eight hours and 32 minutes on weekdays and nine hours and 24 minutes on weekends) suggests Americans may not be as busy — or as stressed about their job security — as they believe themselves to be, Riley explained.
“Time is a little bit like space,” she wrote. “As anyone who has ever moved to a bigger house knows, you’re never going to have the extra space you imagine. Everything just barely fits.”
Check out how else average Americans spend their time by looking at the graphic from the Washington Post below:
Related links:
One-child America: A nation of only children could be smarter, more mature — or conceited
Here’s how long marriages last across the world
The best states in America for balancing work and family
Shelby Slade is a writer for Deseret News National. Email: sslade@deseretdigital.com, Twitter: shelbygslade.