The United States has always lagged behind the rest of the world in terms of work-life balance. For better or for worse, it’s become sort of a culture statement. So, where does New York stack up with the globe and the country? You may be surprised; I know I was.
MoneyNerd recently performed a study which ranked the best cities to live for both pay and work-life balance. New York City shockingly came in third place. However, if you’re focusing solely on the work life balance part, the rating is a bit of a misnomer.
NYC is ranked third because of the combo of its higher-than-average salary data ($71,401), average number of jobs available across 6 industries ($7,646), cost of living index (100), work-life balance rating (5.2) and happiness rating (7.0) which give it an overall score of 6.1.
But, the work-life balance rating is one of the lowest at 5.2. So, the bare bones analysis of the rating says you get paid a more than decent amount to live in the most expensive city where there are plenty of opportunities and there’s lots to do outside of work However there’s just little free time to pursue extra-curricular activities.
I don’t know about you all but recently I’m feeling like I barely have the time to come up for air; but I also secretly (not anymore) love it that way. And, I kind of feel like we all do, we New Yorkers that is. Isn’t that why we’re all here together in this city? We try each day and each week to pack in as much as possible so that we feel like we’re getting the most out of this city and the amazing creatures that nocturnally live here. And, if we didn’t want that, we would live somewhere else because it would be a whole lot easier!
I’ve never had a job where I felt like work-life balance was a priority. I actually feel like work-life balance in NYC almost has a certain stigma to it. As if you can’t hack it or you’re not willing to work hard. Whatever it is, even Mayor Eric Adams last December said he needed work-life balance when defending his vacation to the press. I’m with the Mayor, we’d all like it, it just doesn’t seem possible with the current structure.
I must say however, I’m extremely intrigued and interested in the four-day work week. If we already have so little work-life balance why not just jam everything into four days and let the balance be a three-day weekend? I don’t know about you but I’d work even longer those four days, just to have some respite on the days off.
Ireland, Spain and the UK are just a few of the countries experimenting with the shorter work week. The “Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act” is in Congress right now. It’s proposing to change the standard work week from 40 to 32 hours. Which seems absolutely incredible to me. And full well knowing that it would never be 32 hours but just 40 hours packed into four days still sounds like a dream.
The 4-day work week experiments in other countries show less burnout, higher rates of productivity, increased employee happiness and it saves companies money. Sounds like a win-win. I don’t see it ever happening here, but it doesn’t mean we can’t dream, right?
