Re: Re: BLS Daily Report

[Joel Blau <jblau@xxxxxxxxx>]

These figures sound like an underestimate. I thought the figure in the
latest edition of State of Working America was an additional 250
hours a year, with couples in $30,000-$75,000 range averaging 3800 hours
annually. Time pressures like these mean that it is ever harder to maintain
the myth that the family can stand alone, as an autonomous social unit.
No wonder that for the first time in a generation, the U.S. electorate
seems somewhat more receptive to an expansion of social programs.

Joel Blau

Timework Web wrote:

> The average American employee works just 2 more hours a week than in
> 1982, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  But Randy E. Ilg, a
> senior economist at the Bureau, says that figure probably understated
> the problem because women have been surging into the work force, and
> their generally shorter hours appear to have pulled down the average.
> Only in the workweek statistics by households does the increase jump off
> the page . . .

Aside from the 2 hour figure "understating the problem", it is the only
time in -- what? -- over 150 years that average annual hours INCREASED
over more than a decade. It is an unprecedented reversal of what had been
until recently an inexorable trend. Seen in that light, an increase of
"just" 2 hours a week is extraordinary. More light will be shed on
this issue by the forthcoming book _Working Time: International Trends,
Theory and Policy Perspectives_, edited by Lonnie Golden and Deborah
M. Figart, from Routledge in November 2000. I will gladly forward a table
of contents to anyone who's interested.

Tom Walker
Sandwichman and Deconsultant
215-2273