Question

Discuss the following paradox: American employees work longer hours than they did a generation ago and work longer hours than employees in most other advanced nations, yet they are among the least protected and often the worst paid. The wages earned by the working poor, in business and in government, in fact, do not lift them out of poverty.

Answer 1

The given statement seems to be quite accurate as if we look at the statistics, we will find that 1/3 of the American workers are forced to work more than 45 hours per week and in fact, more than 9.7 million workers are forced to work for more than 60 hours per week. If we look and compare this figure from the earlier generation then the current generation fo the Americans are working almost 8% more hours than the workers of the late 1970s.

On the other hand, if we compare the working hours in Europe then the average European worker works 1 hr less than the US worker. All these issues are mainly due to the fact that there are very limited work protection laws in the United States and the workers in the USA do not receive a guaranteed right to paid time off during illness or any other events. In fact, most of the workers are forced to work on weekends too.

As far as compensation is concerned, despite working long hours and also no protection in the constitution, these workers have less salary and wages than their European counterparts. This results in fatigue and lower productivity causing them to go down deep in the clutches of poverty