Okay, so we’re not in the habit of quoting facts from the mainstream media nor, for that matter, of trumpeting the work of economists (who already have a pretty solid status in the media, at least as far as social science disciplines go), but the Dec. 5th issue of Newsweek published some facts about work in the United States that seemed important for folks who believe the American work ethic is a thing of the past. These include:

Americans have the fewest guaranteed vacation days and holidays of any major industrialized country;

Americans work more weeks per year than any industrialized country except Japan;

Americans workers work more hours per year on average than workers in any other Western nation;

And the productivity of American workers is top notch–second to none on many important measures.

Published under the title “Who You Calling Lazy?”, these were culled from a report recently published by the Economic Policy Institute.  Perhaps the more general lesson here is that important information comes in all forms and formats—and anything we can do to help get it out there is part of our mission.