The stereotype is that Americans live to work. One description written for foreign visitors explains that Americans are “known as ‘workaholics,’ or people who are addicted to their work, who think constantly about their jobs and who are frustrated if they are kept away from them, even during their evening hours and weekends.” This myth, based on a minority of Americans, may help to explain why the US is the only wealthy country in the world without federally mandated vacation pay or holiday pay, along with weak overtime protections. Nevertheless, the entrenched image of the workaholic American is wrong. Most workers want more free time.
I learned this when I interviewed scores of US job seekers in a wide range of occupations, both hourly and salaried, during the slack labor market following the Great Recession. We discussed what they looked for in a job and how they thought about the place of work in a good life. As I explain in my new book, What Work Means: Beyond the Puritan Work Ethic, although most participants I spoke with embraced the moral value of hard work, they practiced two ways of being a good worker. Some had a living-to-work ethic but far more had a diligent 9-to-5 work ethic.
Work is central to the identity and interests of those who have a living-to-work ethic, and they willingly devote long hours to their job. For them, to be an excellent employee means working nights and weekends if necessary to complete their assignments at a high level; they do not work long hours simply to earn more money. Most of those I spoke with who lived to work were small business owners or managers and professionals exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act’s requirements for overtime pay; however, others had lower-level positions, like a loan processor who took work home even though it was not expected in her job.
Hard work is important to those with a diligent 9-to-5 work ethic, too, but their priorities are different. Although they take pride in doing their job well, they want to keep working hours from intruding on the rest of their life. (“9-to-5” should not be interpreted literally; their work hours could be different.) I found this alternative work ethic when I asked whether their work was central to their identity. Several echoed an auto parts store worker who said immediately, “I’m not a workaholic, but I do believe in hard work,” or the construction worker who said he does not mind hard work, but he wants to avoid long hours so he can spend more time with his wife and children. Many exempt employees agreed. For example, one human resources manager who had two children under the age of three was fired when she refused to attend company events after hours. She was angry about the company’s expectations: “Just because they thought, you're in a salaried position they can abuse you and [you] can work ten hours, twelve hours?” She argued that employees are less productive after an eight-hour day. When my interviewees rejected workaholism, they spoke confidently, as if they expected most people to agree with them. Their assessment of public opinion is correct. In a 2023 survey, 95% of American workers said it is important to them to work for an organization that respects the boundaries between work and nonwork time.
Among my participants, just under a fifth lived to work—and many of them later re-evaluated their priorities. They told me that they realized that working long hours had given them too little time to be with people they cared about and caused them to neglect their physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. One administrator estimated that previously she had devoted 85 percent of her waking hours to her job, but later realized, “I’d let work become too big a part of who I saw myself to be.” While she was out of work, she exercised every day, ate better, and spent more time with friends and family. Even after she found another job, she wrote me that she had learned, “Family first and asking for help is OK.” The loan processor stopped bringing work home.
If most Americans want to protect their nonwork time, why does the misconception persist that the typical American is “addicted to their work”? One answer is that successful entrepreneurs who work long hours are better known than the quiet majority who want a more balanced life. Another is the lasting influence of the famous sociologist Max Weber’s early 20th century description of the Protestant work ethic, which is an irrational drive to work far more than necessary to sustain a living. Weber argued that the Protestant work ethic is the core of the modern capitalist ethos and is particularly prevalent in the United States. However, Weber’s influential description focuses on business owners, not ordinary workers.
Another explanation may be that observers assume that working time policies in the US reflect shared values. They may believe that because there are meager protections regarding overtime hours in the US compared to most member countries of the European Union, which mandate an average workweek of no longer than 48 hours, most Americans are happy to work long hours. Because the US has no federally guaranteed vacation or holiday pay, Americans do not care about taking vacations. However, those assumptions are wrong. Researchers have shown that public policies reflect the interests of powerful lobbyists more reliably than the public’s desires. A recent survey found 66 percent of American adults want companies to adopt extended vacation policies. Although many Americans do not take all the paid time off that they are given, nearly half of these workers forgo vacation days due to a variety of reasons related to fear of failing to meet expectations at their workplace. It is no wonder workers resort to quiet vacationing instead.
Exaggerating Americans’ workaholism has harmful consequences. For example, during the Trump administration, the president’s Council of Economic Advisors began a report with the statement, “The American work ethic, the motivation that drives Americans to work longer hours each week and more weeks each year than any of our economic peers, is a long-standing contributor to America’s success.” The report used that observation as a springboard to their recommendation of work requirements for nutritional assistance, rental assistance, and Medicaid.
Those who embrace the view that “true Americans” live to work would say that no further working time protections are needed. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 proposes rolling back the threshold at which salaried workers are no longer entitled to overtime pay to its Trump administration level of $35,568, at least in low-cost parts of the country. By contrast, the Department of Labor under the Biden administration increased the salary threshold for overtime to $43,888 beginning July 1, 2024, and to $58,656 beginning January 1, 2025. Lowering the threshold above which workers are no longer entitled to overtime pay would be a huge step back. In 2022, only 15 percent of salaried workers were eligible for overtime pay, compared to over 60 percent in 1975.
Lasting misconceptions about the American work ethic undermine worker power. The image of an ideal worker who puts success at their job above all else glorifies individual achievement on management’s terms. Instead, we should honor the diligent 9-to-5 work ethic, which recognizes workers as people beyond their value for their employers. Protecting nonwork time requires collective action.
A key recommendation of The Global Commission for the Future of Work is greater time sovereignty for workers. Time sovereignty includes scheduling flexibility for workers to the extent possible consistent with the organization’s needs. Currently, flexible schedules are one of the few perks of working in the platform economy, but in the future, it could become an important bargaining issue for employees. American workers could also demand the same protections from long hours without additional pay that their parents and grandparents took for granted. Finally, we should fight for the paid time off that is guaranteed to employees in every other wealthy country.
What Work Means: Beyond the Puritan Work Ethic is available through Cornell University Press.
