30 Cities With the Longest Workweeks

Advertising Disclosure: When you buy something by clicking links on our site, we may earn a small commission, but it never affects the products or services we recommend.

New York City wants the rest of us to know that it has the longest workweek.

A report titled “The Hardest-Working Cities,” which was recently released by the office of the New York City comptroller’s Bureau of Fiscal and Budget Studies, found that workers in the Big Apple spend more hours commuting to and actually working on the job than workers elsewhere.

The survey is based on information from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2013 American Community Survey.

The Bureau of Fiscal and Budget Studies report, which was undertaken to determine whether New York workers have more demanding schedules, begins:

When asking a friend or acquaintance about their decision to leave New York, it is common to hear about a desire to “live at a slower pace” or to “leave the rat race.” In other words, they express a desire to spend less time working and commuting and more time on other aspects of life.

It turns out that perception is reality. According to the comptroller’s office analysis, the cities with the longest workweeks are:

  1. New York: 49.08 hours
  2. San Francisco: 48.58
  3. Washington, D.C.: 48.39
  4. Houston: 48.18
  5. Fort Worth, Texas: 48.01
  6. Chicago: 48.01
  7. Boston: 47.36
  8. Charlotte, North Carolina: 47.35
  9. Baltimore: 47.25
  10. Seattle: 47.23
  11. Austin, Texas: 47.21
  12. Dallas: 47.12
  13. Philadelphia: 47.02
  14. San Antonio: 47.01
  15. San Jose, California: 47.01
  16. Denver: 46.48
  17. Los Angeles: 46.48
  18. Nashville/Davidson, Tennessee.: 46.25
  19. Jacksonville, Florida: 46.10
  20. San Diego: 46.10
  21. Memphis, Tennessee: 46.07
  22. Columbus, Ohio: 46.04
  23. Indianapolis: 46.04
  24. Louisville, Kentucky: 46.03
  25. Portland, Oregon: 45.57
  26. Phoenix: 45.52
  27. El Paso, Texas: 45.38
  28. Las Vegas.: 45.26
  29. Detroit: 45.24
  30. Milwaukee: 44.53

It is important to note that these hours include commute time. The report found that New York workers have a longer commute time than workers in any other city on the list — 6.18 hours. Only Chicago (5.25 hours) and Philadelphia (5.01 hours) come close.

Subtract commute time, and New York workers spend 42.5 hours actually working each week. When looking purely at hours worked, the hardest-working cities are San Francisco (44.01 hours) and Charlotte and Washington, D.C. (both 43.5 hours).

As the report states:

The most obvious implications of this analysis of New Yorkers’ workweeks relate to transportation. The city’s transit system is rightly lauded… But it can also be a source of frustration and discomfort for those who need to commute during peak hours, from the outer reaches of the boroughs, or to workplaces not in Manhattan.

Even flying to New York City can be a source of frustration, a survey recently found. Global Gateway Alliance called New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and the Denver International Airport the least-accessible airports in the world, the Los Angeles Times reports:

Those airports scored only 30 out of 100 points on an accessibility scale that looked at travel time, travel costs, availability of public transit and number of transfers needed to get to the airports.

Like this story? SHARE it with your friends on Facebook.

Get smarter with your money!

Want the best money-news and tips to help you make more and spend less? Then sign up for the free Money Talks Newsletter to receive daily updates of personal finance news and advice, delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for our free newsletter today.