On the first Friday of March every year, the United States celebrates Employee Appreciation Day to recognize employees for their hard work, and to let them know how vital they are to any workspace.
But appreciation days, Employee of the Month placards and Starbucks gift cards don’t make up for the fact that nearly 30% of workers are not satisfied with their current pay.
The top reason given by those who want to make more money for the hours that they put in is that their wages have not caught up with the cost of living, according to a Pew Research survey of more than 5,000 employees in the country.
Around 70% of those not satisfied say that they get paid too little for both the quality and amount of work they do, and the largest group of those who are unsatisfied with their jobs in general is the 18-29 age demographic.
Even following the high inflationary period post-pandemic, wages have not outpaced the increase in prices, leading to an overall 1.1% loss in real hourly wages, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
If the country wants its residents to be satisfied at work, there are lessons to learn from other countries. France, for example, has an average work week of 35 hours, as compared to our typical 40. Working overtime in France not only increases your hourly pay, but allows you to accrue paid time off faster.
If that isn’t enough, full-time French workers are entitled to 25 days of paid annual leave every year. That is a far cry from America’s federal policy, which does not require a single hour of paid time off. Most states put in place rules for PTO, but that comes with its problems, including the majority of states not having any state-required paid sick, family or medical leave.
Even though these policies do not directly raise wages, they allow people to take care of other important things in their lives without the fear of going broke. Nearly half of Americans said they are living paycheck-to-paycheck in a 2024 Bank of America study.
This burden can keep people from changing things in their lives, such as seeking a new job. On the other hand, a large sudden cost can cripple a family or individual if they are in this predicament, such as a big hospital bill. Ultimately, this can leave them more stressed and less happy.
A common critique of those who are unsatisfied with their jobs is that if they want to earn more money they just need to work harder. In a broad view of U.S. workers, this does not reflect reality. Americans were 80.9% more productive in 2024 than in 1979, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics began recording this metric, yet they have only received a 29.4% increase in wages.
To circumvent the crisis of underpaid and overworked laborers, lawmakers need to examine what policies work around the world and how we can implement them here.