Americans vacation a lot less than people in other countries. We're the only Western government that doesn't guarantee paid vacation for workers.

The easy explanation is that we are individualists and hard workers, but a poll shows that most people would rather decrease their work time by 10 percent than increase their pay by 10 percent.

Here's an LA Times oped on the issue.

Here's an excerpt that might surprise older folks.

The average American man today works 100 more hours a year than he did in the 1970s, according to Cornell University economist Robert Frank. That's 2 1/2 weeks of added labor. The average woman works 200 more hours — that's five added weeks. And those hours are coming from somewhere: from time with our kids, our friends, our spouses, even our bed. The typical American, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, sleeps one to two hours less a night than his or her parents did.

(Reuters photo)

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