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What Is America’s Hardest-Working Town?

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By PARADE

Americans have never worked harder for their money, but which city is really cranking it? PARADE looked at a range of criteria to determine the top 25 hardest-working towns in our country.

To come up with our rankings, PARADE considered:

Average Hours Worked
The first place to look for the hardest-working town was the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The BLS tracks the number of hours worked in an average week, both nationally and locally. The more hours worked in a week, the higher a town’s hardest-working score.

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Willingness to Work During Personal Time
The 9 to 5 shift can be brutal, but what about working nights and weekends as well? Mediamark Research Inc., in partnership with Claritas, provides consumer lifestyle data that answered these questions. Cities are ranked on answering yes to the following questions: “I must admit, I work most weekends” and “I don’t mind giving up my personal time for work.” Towns that scored higher than the national average on both points scored higher positions on our list.

Number of Dual Income Homes
For some families, two incomes are necessary to support a household. We went to the U.S. Census Bureau to find the amount of households where both parents worked.

Employment Rate
As the economy slowly recovers, some towns are working harder than others to keep unemployment down, through both government policies and private sector opportunities. We used the latest employment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to judge this point.
    
Here’s who made the top of the list:

1. Columbia, Missouri
2. Hartford, Connecticut
3. Norfolk, Virginia
4. Bloomington, Indiana
5. Tuscaloosa, Alabama

After compiling all this data, the results were clear: When the economy got tough, these towns got busy.


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