Americans work 25% more than Europeans

[zenkai]

Why wouldn't you get overtime just because you're salaried? I'm also salaried and if I work overtime I get compensated for it as is my right. But I guess it's different in the states.

That's salary exempt, we have that here, it depends how much you get paid and what you do if you qualified for that.

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I love how its apparently something to mock that Europeans have more free time than Americans.

No, you idiots. Thats not something to mock, thats something to be angry about.

Having less freedom than someone else but the same (or much worse in case of healthcare) outcome is sad for a first world country.

I am not mocking it, I agree, we shouldn't be forced to work so many hours, we need less hours and more family time.

They need to cut back the weekly hours that qualify as overtime because a lot of low waged employees lost full time status thanks to Obamacare.

[prwraith]

Why wouldn't you get overtime just because you're salaried? I'm also salaried and if I work overtime I get compensated for it as is my right. But I guess it's different in the states.

I wish.

I even have a month log during november where I'm mandated to 5 x 10/12 hour days a week. No overtime. And of course no christmas bonus

[Masark]

Why wouldn't you get overtime just because you're salaried? I'm also salaried and if I work overtime I get compensated for it as is my right. But I guess it's different in the states.

Yes. If you are salaried and make more than $47,476/year ($913/week or $22.83/hour for a 40-hour week), you are not eligible for overtime pay.

Prior to this May, it was even worse and anyone who made over $23,660 ($455/week or $11.38/hour) was exempt.

[Docturphil]

Indeed. Americans are raised in a culture that believes this kind of nonsense.

It's not nonsense at all. I thought it was common sense, but I guess not. Kids are more often than not similar to their parents in a lot of ways. They often share many of the same beliefs and values. This usually includes their work ethic.

And again, I said this is generally true. It's certainly not universal, but your environment does have a strong effect on you.

Whether or not that is the primary reason as to why the rich get richer and the poor get poorer is up for debate, but I feel like it at least has to be a contributing factor.

[Justpassing]

I think that has more to do with the culture you're raised in than actually having or not having wealth.

Wealthy people in America typically work harder. They usually work harder because they were raised to work harder. If you work harder you have more wealth.

On the other hand you have poor people. Poor people are poor because they're lazy. They're lazy because they were raised by lazy people.

This seems to be apparent with education as well. More educated people tend to have more educated children. Less educated people tend to have less educated children.

There are exceptions to this of course. Plenty of people who break the cycle for better or worse, but I think in general this is true.

I'm sorry, are you serious? Or just ye olde shitposting? If not, you're a horrible human being dude and you should feel bad.

[hablix]

American here. I put in over 300 hours of overtime so far this year. I've used less than 5 days of vacation.

I love my job. I do kinda wish I had more time to play Warcraft though.

[Karamaru]

I currently have the ability to have half days on fridays and its awesome to have that more time to work on projects I wanna do,

[Caelia]

Yes. If you are salaried and make more than $47,476/year ($913/week or $22.83/hour for a 40-hour week), you are not eligible for overtime pay.

Prior to this May, it was even worse and anyone who made over $23,660 ($455/week or $11.38/hour) was exempt.

At least it's gotten better then

[Deleted]

It's not nonsense at all. I thought it was common sense, but I guess not. Kids are more often than not similar to their parents in a lot of ways. They often share many of the same beliefs and values. This usually includes their work ethic.

It's not common sense at all, especially in a society where you have to pay and sacrifice your firstborn to recieve a good education. Same with healthcare and all that.
It's not about how hard or lazy you are. It's all about the privilege you have while you grow up.

The rich don't get richer and the poor don't get poorer, because the rich work even harder than before and the poor guys are even more lazy than the generation before... seriously. What exactly points in that direction?

You can't judge them like that unless you allow them to start on equal footing, which is never the case, because human beings have needs and unless the goverment pays for them, it's up to the parent and how well he can cater (financially, or time for example) to these needs. And then there are like 1000 more variables that will change a child's life before it can understand or even start thinking about. At that point however, it's too late and it's already inside a "box" where it has to crawl out of, which is - in most cases- impossible due to how things work in a country... for example, how can I go to a university to school myself for better jobs if I have no one to pay for it, when I haveto work 40h a week just pay my rent and *jadjadjada* without killing myself from overwork etc. etc.?

[Raldazzar]

They are starting to talk about bringing it down to 3,5 work days per week now, so a 28 hour week. I´m actually having more days off than work days per year.

Can´t complain.

I think that's how it should be. I mean, I'd be happy with just one extra day off.

work 4. rest 3. that seems fair.

[Truculentt]

Indeed. Americans are raised in a culture that believes this kind of nonsense.

Overall, european culture is just further advanced than US culture.

Its true that the wealth disparity in Europe is more pronounced than in the US... and the study explains why. Americans work more.

However, the quality of life in Europe is leaps and bounds ahead of middle America. The concept of refinement here in the states is still absent from American culture.



It's going to be interesting how america handles the coming of A.I. My wife is english. I know the talk in england is about cutting hours, but the culture there is capable of handling it. here, such a move would yield 1 result - increased poverty.

[Mistame]

And if they "refuse"... it's over? Strikes? Why won't they tell them to stop working and add pressure? (will you get fired in the US for that?)

In many cases, there's a no-strike clause in which the employees can't strike, but the terms of the previous contract are maintained until a new agreement is made. In the case of a strike, the employer can bring in temps, non-union people, etc.

They are supposed to stop your employer from making a mint, while you slave your way into depression/death/illness without getting the pay you "deserve".

That's the shiny cover and these days, it mostly works out that way. But unions are still for-profit organizations who do a lot of shady dealings in politics, etc. But at least they're not run by the mob anymore.

But to the original point, most of these types of employees are hourly, so them having less hours inherently nets them less pay. Forcing employers to compensate the lost hours would be unfair as these agreements are based on production value.

[Moonstream]

I work 53 every week, thank god I'm hourly and not salary...the overtime is so nice; if only the majority of it wouldn't go to taxes since I'm a single male.

[Docturphil]

I'm sorry, are you serious? Or just ye olde shitposting? If not, you're a horrible human being dude and you should feel bad.

Not shit posting at all. This has been my personal experience. This is what I've seen in my own life as well as the lives of my friends and family.

For example, I'm fairly well off. I'm NOT fairly well off because I have a bunch of money from my parents.

I AM fairly well off because I learned from my parents. Everything I have I earned for myself. I paid for my own education and worked full time while doing it all while living on my own, just like my parents did.

I've seen the same results with many of my friends and family. They have successful people in their lives and so they are successful. Not because they inherit money from those successful people, but because they learn from those successful people.

Why should I feel bad about any of this? And how does that make me a horrible human being? Because I called poor people lazy?

I know it's not always true that poor people are poor because they're lazy, but it is often true. Again, this is from my personal experience. This is from what I've observed in society. The vast majority of poor people are in their situation because they're either lazy or uneducated. Sure, unfortunate circumstances can play a big role in this, but those are still the contributing factors. Laziness and/or lack of education. I'm not saying it is easy to get out of poverty, but it's certainly possible if you have the motivation. I'm also not saying it's easy to just stop being lazy and get motivated, but it has been done.

The real question is, who should be responsible for pulling the impoverished out of poverty? At some point, it has to be up to the impoverished person to pull themselves out of their situation. The government can give them opportunities and we can all contribute to charities that give them even more opportunity, but it's still going to be up to them at the end of the day.

Would you disagree? Have I said something that's just outright wrong?

[Deleted]

it's socialism. socialism is scary. all hail crony capitalism where the poor stay poor for the most part and the rich get richer!!!

Its have nothing with socialism
In socialism we work more for less
Now we work less for more simply because we have not enough ppl
Also for every hour above my isual 40 hours working week my payment per hour is doubled

[PickleballAce]

Global Hegemony takes hard work, of course. It's not accomplished by sitting idle, sipping fairy lattes with your feet up or shopping for the trendiest tracksuit in Prague.

[Docturphil]

It's not common sense at all, especially in a society where you have to pay and sacrifice your firstborn to recieve a good education. Same with healthcare and all that.
It's not about how hard or lazy you are. It's all about the privilege you have while you grow up.

What privilege? Having parents that pay for your education? Because I didn't have that.

What I did have was parents who raised me to work hard, and value education. My parents did not help me financially since I turned 18.

I am now 28, married, have a college degree, and own a home. I have very little debt, go on vacations regularly, and have absolutely no trouble paying my bills.

If my privilege was having a good upbringing, then fine. But I'm going to call fucking bullshit on the whole being well off because your parents pay for your education, or because you inherit money. My personal experience has taught me otherwise. Not that having parents who give you money doesn't help, but it's certainly not required.

In America if you want to be well off and you have the motivation to do so you can be. Period. If you say otherwise, then you simply don't know how to be successful, or are too lazy to try and figure it out.

Don't believe me? Try it. Actually try it.

IMO, people need to stop blaming others for their situation and take personal responsibility. Step one to success is realizing that you are in control of your life and that you are responsible for it. Not the government, not your environment, you. I mean yeah, you could blame other people. Some of that blame might be legitimate, maybe even all of it. But blaming others will never make you better off. That's the truth. Take a spoonful and swallow it.

[Varaben]

I do 43 hours a week and get 7 weeks a year paid holiday leave.

American work culture is strange.

Edit: This was in response to "American work culture is strange." I think this is the nature of some industries where you are heavily rewarded for working more hours.

Depending on your industry, you can make a lot more money working extra hours. For example, if I bill out at $100 per hour, and I make say $30 per hour (~$60k per year), that means my employer has $70 for expenses, benefits, profit, etc. Say they make $10 (10%) on that $100 per hour after expenses.

OK, so in a 40 hour week, they pay me $1200 ($30x40), and they make $4000 ($100 x 40); using the profit as before, $400 ($10 per hour profit x 40).

However, if I work 45 hours per week, I still get paid $1200 (since I'm salaried) and they make $4500. After expenses, that's $900 in profit (since they don't pay me any extra for those 5 hours and their expenses don't change if I work more).

That's a particular example of work that's paid out by customers on an hourly basis (labor hour contract or time and materials contract), but you can see that working a few extra hours reaps huge benefits for the company. They go from 10% profit ($400/$4000) to 20% profit ($900/$4500). So their profit doubles by me working 1 extra hour per day or half a day on weekends or something.

This obviously only works on salaried employees, but you can see why, in this particular type of work, employers would encourage employees to work more, not less. And this type of employee is probably benefiting from this as well. Hopefully their hard work generates a bonus or a bigger pay increase at the end of the year. So it's win win for employee/employer.

It's obviously not that simple; am I as productive at that 44th hour as the 39th hour? Studies show that the answer is no. For some people, their productivity starts to peak at 30 or 35 or 40 hours and anything after is wasted effort due to rework or poor decision-making.

[Deleted]

What privilege? Having parents that pay for your education? Because I didn't have that.

What I did have was parents who raised me to work hard, and value education. My parents did not help me financially since I turned 18.

I am now 28, married, have a college degree, and own a home. I have very little debt, go on vacations regularly, and have absolutely no trouble paying my bills.

If my privilege was having a good upbringing, then fine. But I'm going to call fucking bullshit on the whole being well off because your parents pay for your education, or because you inherit money. My personal experience has taught me otherwise. Not that having parents who give you money doesn't help, but it's certainly not required.

In America if you want to be well off and you have the motivation to do so you can be. Period. If you say otherwise, then you simply don't know how to be successful, or are too lazy to try and figure it out.

Don't believe me? Try it. Actually try it.

IMO, people need to stop blaming others for their situation and take personal responsibility. Step one to success is realizing that you are in control of your life and that you are responsible for it. Not the government, not your environment, you. I mean yeah, you could blame other people. Some of that blame might be legitimate, maybe even all of it. But blaming others will never make you better off.

You personal experience means shit because it's anecdotal. Getting a college degree if you have no money for it is a gamble itself, especially if you fall ill or something happens.
What if you can't work for X amount of time and have to pay expensive hospital bills, on top of study debts?

[Masark]

You personal experience means shit because it's anecdotal. Getting a college degree if you have no money for it is a gamble itself, especially if you fall ill or something happens.
What if you can't work for X amount of time and have to pay expensive hospital bills, on top of study debts?

We're looking at an example of the left-hand column.

http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/th...ord-on-a-plate