The hardest-working cities in America

Derek Miller
Updated

Americans love to tout their hard-working natures. In fact, among countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the average American ranks around 13th for most hours worked per year. Of course, people work hard for multiple reasons like securing a stable retirement or buying a home. But within America there are large differences between hours spent working. Below we look through the data to find the hardest-working cities in America in 2017.

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In order to find the hardest-working cities in America, we looked at data on labor force participation rate, average hours worked per week and average weeks worked per year. Read our data and methodology section below.

This is SmartAsset’s second annual study of the hardest-working cities. Check out last year’s version here.

Key Findings

  • Déjà vu – Seven of last year’s top 10 also cracked this year’s list. The three cities to fall out of the top 10 were Chandler, Arizona; Gilbert, Arizona and Plano, Texas.

  • It takes two – Part of working hard means there is something to work hard for. In many of the cities low on this list the lack of available jobs hurt residents’ ability to work hard. For example, in Cleveland – the city with the third-lowest score – the average worker works about 37 hours per week. The problem is that there’s not a ton of work available. Only 65% of residents are in the work force and on average they work 27 weeks per year.

  • Strong economies – Places with stronger economies score well. The newcomers to this list, Seattle, San Francisco and Denver, are all places with booming economies, where millennials are moving.

Data and Methodology

In order to rank the hardest-working cities in America, we looked at data on 118 cities with a population over 200,000. We compared these cities across the following three metrics:

  • Average hours worked per week. Data comes from the Census Bureau’s 2015 1-Year American Community Survey.

  • Average weeks worked per year. Data comes from the Census Bureau’s 2015 1-Year American Community Survey.

  • Labor force participation rate. This is the percent of working age (16 – 64) residents who are in the labor force. Data comes from the Census Bureau’s 2015 1-Year American Community Survey.

In order to rank the cities, we combined all three metrics. We multiplied the average hours worked per week by weeks worked per year to find the average hours worked per year for the average worker. Then we multiplied that by the labor force participation rate to find the average hours worked per year for all residents. We ranked cities by most hours worked per year to least.

Tips for Unique Ways to Earn Money

Many people who have full-time employment still find themselves living paycheck to paycheck and struggling to save money for, say, retirement. If you find yourself in this situation, it may be worth it explore ways to earn additional money, whether that’s taking on a side hustle or just making money in an unorthodox way.

One way to earn extra money if you already own your home is to rent out one or more of the rooms. While living with someone else may not sound great, it can mean putting extra money away into your 401(k) or maybe even retiring early. Another option is to rent out a room on Airbnb or even the entire home when you’re out of town. If you live in an especially popular neighborhood, you can pocket quite a bit. In a past study we found that Houston residents could actually pay their entire monthly rent just by renting out a room on Airbnb.

If you find yourself with tons of time and not a lot of work options, getting in on the gig economy can be a good option. You could become an Uber or Lyft driver, or you could decide to do odd jobs on TaskRabbit.

Another option is to stick an advertisement on your car. Certain companies like Carvertise will pay you to place ads on your car. While using your car as a rolling advertisement won’t mean you can retire right away, it will help you put away a little into your savings account.

Nick Wallace completed the data analysis for this study.

Questions about our study? Contact us at press@smartasset.com.

Photo credit: ©iStock.com/Peopleimages

The post The Hardest-Working Cities in America – 2017 Edition appeared first on SmartAsset Blog.

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