Kansas among hardest working states, survey says

The personal finance website WalletHub released its list of 2019’s Hardest-Working States in America and Kansas did fairly well.

“Kansas has some pretty hard workers,” said analyst Jill Gonzalez. “It ranked 13th out of all 50 states, especially when it comes to direct work factors, things like, the average workweek tends to be a lot longer in Kansas. The employment rate is very high. A lot of workers are leaving vacation time unused. This might be better news for bosses than for employees.”

High ranking states seem to be rural.

“Agriculture certainly does come into play here,” said Gonzalez. “Other states that did very well include, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas and Nebraska. The Midwest, in general, doing a lot better here than most other states.”

Even when given the chance to not work as hard, many Americans won’t.

“Americans, in general, do tend to be very hard workers,” said Gonzalez. “The average American only uses about 54% of their available vacation time. There is this sense of guilt that a lot of us have, even though that is something that is completely available to us.”

Americans are hard workers, putting in an average of 1,780 hours per year, according to the World Economic Forum.