tfast wrote:
>
> That should have read: more members of the working class work, but because
> of declining hours the total amount that the working class works is the
> same.
1. How are those hours divided up among different sectors of the class. 3 9 gives an average of 6, an unreal figure. How many households are there in which the total is less than 40? How many households in which the total is more than 90? Where do the former live? Where do the latter live? How do total household hours of labor among voting families differ, if at all, from total household labor hours among non-voters?
2. Are the total hours per week taken up by grocery shopping more, the same, less than during the golden age of u.s. labor? (And it is _only_ the golden age, whenever that was, that is a relevant standard of comparison.) Are these total hours of shopping about the same in all sectors of the working class or are there significant differences? Travel to and from work? Time spent on child care? (If current social standards require more or allow fewer hours per day in 'hands-on' child care?)
In short what counts is the total of the week in a given household spent on reproducing that household, whether in travel, paid labor, household tasks, shopping, delivering kids to 'playdates' (a new concept since my day as a parent), looking for a parking place, sitting in a physician's waiting room, etc.
Carrol