Do the Wealthy Work Harder Than the Rest?
27th April 2012
‘I could have been Bill Gates, but I didn’t have the working.’
A new study offers evidence that higher-educated (and therefore higher-earning) Americans do indeed spend more time working and less time on leisure than poorer income groups. In fact, while income inequality may be growing, “leisure inequality” – time spent on enjoyment – is growing as a mirror image, with the low earners gaining leisure and the high earners losing.
A red herring — it’s irrelevant whether the wealthy work harder; the work they do is more valuable, in the eyes of the only people competent to judge: Those who are paying for it. Even those who pretend to be in favor of free markets have this inner compulsion to substitute their own judgments about what something is worse for that of the market in cases where what is going on seems massively ‘unfair’, but they need to get over it.
The more surprising discovery, however, is a corresponding leisure gap has opened up between the highly-educated and less-educated. Low-educated men saw their leisure hours grow to 39.1 hours in 2003-2007, from 36.6 hours in 1985. Highly-educated men saw their leisure hours shrink to 33.2 hours from 34.4 hours. (Mr. Hurst says that education levels are a “proxy” for incomes, since they tend to correspond).
That’s because low-educated men tend to be on welfare, be it unemployment ‘insurance’ or whatever. Let’s tell the truth, here, guys.
(The study defines leisure as time spend watching TV, socializing, playing games, talking on the phone, reading personal email, enjoying entertainment and hobbies and other activities.)
I have no doubt. Better add ‘smoking weed’ in there to be complete.