South Dakota Ranks High in Hardest Working States

It is that time of year again- - when the American worker is celebrated, which of course we all are! Monday, September 4, is Labor Day, and to find out in which states Americans are working the hardest, those curious researchers at Wallet Hub crunched a whole bunch of numbers.

This year, South Dakota came in 3rd out of our 50 states, which when you think about it, really isn't much of a surprise. People in our plains state are notoriously hard-working.

What is surprising to me, is that nationally Americans average 1,811 working hours per year, and yet Americans took less than half of the vacation time they had coming.

The factors they investigated included: average workweek hours, workers with multiple jobs, commute times, volunteer hours, and leisure time spent. South Dakotans came in 5th for the number of workers toiling at multiple jobs.

There is another downside to this good news about hard-working Americans. Yes, Americans are notoriously industrious, but working more hours does not necessarily mean we're more productive. Unfortunately, it's quite the contrary according to research which indicates we lag behind our global counterparts in many ways.

Americans work more hours, take less vacation time, and retire later than the working populace in most other countries. So while it is flattering that we're being recognized as the hardest-working humans on the planet, maybe we should start taking a break here and there.

For more information, or to see the complete report, just check out Wallet Hub.