The Bay Area might be among the most expensive housing markets in the country, but the residents there indeed work for their living, according to WalletHub's [1] Hardest-Working Cities in America report.
WalletHub's 2018 numbers find that San Franciscans are the overall hardest-working people in the 116 cities it looked at, followed swiftly by residents of neighboring Fremont. Oakland residents and San Jose residents placed sixth and eleventh overall, respectively.
The rankings [2] are based on “direct work factors” and “indirect work factors.” Direct work factors include average workweek hours, the city's overall employment rate, the percentage of workers not taking vacation time, the percentage of workers identified as engaged in their jobs, and “idle youth,” the percentage of people between 16 and 24 who are neither working nor in school.
Indirect work factors look at average commute time, how many workers have more than one job, annual volunteer hours workers engage in, and how much leisure time residents have in an average day.
Each set of factors totaled 100 points. San Francisco and Fremont each had final scores above 78. Jersey City, Washington, D.C., New York, and Oakland also finished with more than 70 points. Boston, Aurora, Newark, and Chicago rounded out the top ten hardest-working cities.
On the other end of the scale, residents of Columbia were ranked as the least hard-working. That city in North Carolina compiled a hard-working score of just over 25. Charleston and Cheyenne were placed second and third in this category. And despite that California had three cities in the top 10 (four in the top 11 if you include Los Angeles), it also has two in the bottom 10. Fresno and Bakersfield were the fourth and sixth least-hard-working cities the rankings found. Lubbock, Texas, split the two up and took fifth place. Buffalo, Reno, Fargo, and Toledo rounded out the bottom 10.