Overtime (was Re: happy autoworkers)

[Brad De Long]

>Hasn't this discussion of overtime gotten a little ahead of the evidence?
>The BLS reports that workers in "motor vehicles and car bodies" worked an
>average of 44.6 hours a week in May 1998, and earned $982.54 in direct pay
>for it. That's actually down a couple of hours from 1994 (the industry has
>been hiring a bit over the last couple of year, reducing the need for OT),
>and a long way from 80 hours. I agree that American society is sick with
>overwork, but 45 hours is enough to make this claim, isn't it?

Now back in the 1890s (at, say, Homestead Pennsylvania), manufacturing
workers *would* work 72 hours a week...