Working hard or hardly working? Apparently, for people living in Philadelphia, Baltimore or Pittsburgh, it's not the latter.
That's because WalletHub, a personal finance website, just named the three cities as top 100 members in a list of America's hardest-working cities in 2022.
In order to find out where people outwork others, researchers at Wallethub analyzed and weighted what they call "direct work factors" and "indirect work factors" in the 116 most populated cities in the U.S. At least one city from every state was represented in the study.
Direct work factors include average workweek hours, the percentage of employed residents and the share of residents who leave vacation time unused. Indirect work factors include employees' average commute times, residents who work multiple jobs, and how much time residents spend on extracurricular activities like volunteering, community groups and leisure.
Researchers graded all 116 cities on every direct and indirect work factor on a scale of 0 (least hard working) to 100 (most hard working). Then, they averaged out the numbers to create a place's total score.
Baltimore, south central Pennsylvania's big city to the south, won the highest ranking for a nearby city at number 71 on the list. Its total score clocked in at 56.81. Meanwhile, Philadelphia ranked 92 with a total score of 50.87. Pittsburgh took the 95th spot at 49.55.
Anchorage, Alaska; Washington, D.C.; and Virginia Beach, Virginia claimed the top three spots in the country, respectively. Detroit, Michigan rounded out the list at number 116.
Although the Wallethub report found nearby cities may work "less hard" than others in the country, researchers noted Americans in general work more hours than many other industrialized countries.
According to the study, "the average U.S. worker puts in 1,767 hours per year – 169 hours more than the average in Japan, 400 more than the U.K. and 435 more than Germany."
