Sabrina Westfall, owner of J. West Electric, evaluates progress at a job site at St. Louis University in 2018. Photo by Cristina M. Fletes, cfletes@post-dispatch.com.
Joe Holleman
Joe Holleman is a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
We're working in St. Louis, but not all that hard.
In a look at the "Hardest-Working Cities" from personal finance website WalletHub, our fair burg clocked in at No. 65, out of the 116 largest U.S. cities.
The good news is that this is an improvement from last year's ranking, No. 76, which was better than our 2019 place of No. 80.
The study looked at two major categories:
"Direct-work factors" include average work-week hours, employment rate, unused vacation time and the unemployment rate of youths (16-24) who are not in school. We finished at No. 71 in that category.
We were No. 21 in "indirect work factors," which include workers with multiple jobs and annual hours given to volunteer work.
The bad news is that the majority of our major-city neighbors finished higher: Nashville (28), Kansas City (37), Indianapolis (43) and Louisville (64).
Finishing below us were Chicago (83), Cincinnati (92) and Memphis (102).
The hardest-working city in the U.S. is Anchorage; the least, Detroit.
Joe Holleman
Joe Holleman is a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
