The Typical American Day

In a previous article, I discussed the belief held by many people around the world that Americans are rich. That belief has been voiced in comments for decades, ranging from the classic film "The Quiet Man", in which an American moves to Ireland, to more recent quotes in which an immigrant from a developing country pointed out that America is so wealthy that even people considered to be poor, living primarily on welfare and donated food, can be obese. In that article, I pointed out that while the average income in even rural, less-affluent parts of the United States may be higher than in many parts of the world, this is offset by a considerably higher cost of living. In some parts of the country, such as Los Angeles and New York, one could be earning an income that would be a fortune elsewhere, while being unable to afford even basic housing. In this article, I'll dig deeper into the divide between life in America and elsewhere, but looking at the amount of time typical Americans spend at work and at school.

The average family can be a lot of things

One thing people from other countries often don't realize is that while America isn't the geographically biggest country, or the most populous, overall it's bigger and more populous than most countries. Canada, for example, has more land mass but far fewer people. India is far smaller, but has many more people, while China has slightly more geographic size and far more people. Overall, an easy scale to keep in mind is that there are 50 U.S. states, and effectively any one of the continental states would be the size of a European country. In addition, New York City, the most populous city in the U.S. (8.8 million people in the city limits, 20 million in the metro area) on its own has a higher population than almost half of the countries in the EU. The state of California alone, with just under 40 million people, has more people than any country in the EU except Germany (84.4 million), France (68.2 million) Italy (59 million), and Spain (48.1 million).

With all that space and all those people, the U.S. is very diverse in climate, geography, and culture. Buffalo, in the northern part of New York state, is very different from New York City, which is vastly different from Miami, which is effectively a separate world from Milwaukee, or rural Iowa, or Texas. And how big is Texas? As one Texan put it, "If you started out on the border of East Texas and drove west all day, then stopped for the night, when you woke up the next morning, you'd still be in Texas."

The size of Texas is no secret, but what even most Americans don't realize, much less people around the world, is the size of America's largest state, Alaska. One of the two non-continguous states (the other being Hawaii), Alaska is so much larger than the second largest state, Texas, that if it were split in half, and each half were made another state, each half would still be bigger than Texas, which is bigger than every other state. But, due to its harsh climate, Alaska has a very low population, There are more people living in many American cities than in all of Alaska.

This illustrates the point that there is no "average American family." They're all very different. The statistics for a family in Miami will be vastly different than for a family in Montana. But for the sake of statistics and world comparison, as of 2024, the average American family looks like this:

Average Family Size: The average family size in the U.S. is around 3.13 people.

Childless Households: In 2023, over half of American households were childless, with 29.4% being married households without children and 29.0% being single households without kids.

Family Households: About two-thirds of all U.S. households are family households.

Married-Couple Households: Married-couple households account for about 71% of family households.

Single-Parent Households: Single-parent households accounted for 7.4% of all households.

Median Household Annual Income: $80,610.

70% of mothers of children younger than 18 work.

The median age for a first marriage is 30.2 for men and 28.6 for women in 2024.

Those statistics alone may be a surprise to some of you. Now let's look at the average weekday for an American family.

Waking up

Current studies show most Americans wake up between 6:00 and 6:30 AM. Another significant segment wakes up between 6:30 and 7:30 AM. The simple reason for this is obvious: They have to get to work and school.

To be clear, this isn't a majority of 51% or more. It's roughly 1/4 of Americans, because we are often working different shifts. First shift in the U.S. is traditionally from 9 AM to 5 PM, second shift is from 5 PM to 1 AM, and third shift is from 12 AM to 8 AM. But many first shifters work from 8AM-4PM or from 8 AM-5 PM. One friend of mine works as an administrative assistant. There are 3 people in her office, and there is expected to be constant coverage. So she works from 7AM-3PM, one colleague works 8 AM-4 PM, and the third works 9 AM-5 30 PM. At the same time, some jobs opt to work staff more hours in one day, but fewer days in the week. So 4 10-hour days or 3-4 12-hour days. That was the case when I worked at a printing plant. Each shift was 7 AM to 7 PM or 7 PM to 7 AM, 3 days one week, 4 days the next. I also worked at a call center that allowed for 4 10-hours shifts a week, though schedules could vary depending on company need and employee availability.

Children are also a consideration. Parents regularly get up earlier to make sure their kids are ready for school, which includes making breakfast and getting them there. And for many kids, school starts early.

School time by grade

Typically, school start times are staggered between Elementary School (Kindergarten or 1st grade to 5th or 6th grade), Middle school (5th or 6th to 8th or 9th grade), and high school (9th or 10th grade to 12th grade). Middle school and high school typically start earlier, with class starting as early as 7:37 AM (Louisiana). Overall, the average start time is 8:03 AM, which is what the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommend for children to receive enough sleep, exercise, and education. Almost all schools start before 8:30 AM, though a common exception is kindergarten, which is typically in either the morning or the afternoon.

Why are school times staggered by grade? That's easy. Bussing. It's rare to have all grades in one school, except for in very small, rural towns or in small private schools. Most often, grade schools, middle schools, and high schools are all separate buildings that may be miles apart, and while some schools may be close enough for students to walk or ride their bike, and parents my opt to drop their kids off and pick them up from school, buses are a common option. Thus, school start times are often based on cooperation between the school and the bus company. There are only so many buses and drivers available, and it takes a while to pick up and drop off each kid.

Which is another consideration. Travel time. Even in small or medium size towns, the school bus ride may be 15-30 minutes. In fact, the average is 20-25 minutes, for all grades. Given that, if class starts between 7:30 and 8:00 AM, and the bus ride is 20-25 minutes long, kids have to be at the bus stop, ready to get the bus between 7:10 and 7:30 in the morning. Factor in how long it takes to get a kid up, dress, and fed and yep, you're probably getting up between 5:30 and 6:00 AM.

What if a parent has a long commute? The average commute to work in the U.S. is 26 minutes, but that can vary greatly. Some people are lucky enough to live right by work, while others have long, complicated commutes because they can't afford to live near where they work, or there are other considerations, such as safety or quality of schools. It's not unusual for people in metropolitan areas like Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles to live 40 minutes to an hour away, and commute in by a combination of car, train, subway, bus, cab, or ferry. In those cases, parents work out who will get the kids to school and who will pick them up, based on commutes and work schedules.

I recently read a comment on LinkedIn from someone in the UK, who said he didn't understand America's obsession with cars. He claimed we wouldn't have to commute so much if we weren't obsessed with cars, and it wasn't assumed that each American had a car to get around in. He didn't grasp the fact that, as I noted earlier, while there are dense metropolitan areas where cars aren't needed, there are also areas where there is more space than people. Rural areas where your nearest neighbor might be a mile away. Even in the suburb I grew up in, I could walk to my grade school, but my high school was 3 miles away and my middle school was 5 miles away. Sure, you can ride your bike that far as a kid, but do you want to ride your bike in the pouring rain, or in winter when there's a foot or more of snow outside and it's below freezing? No. Maybe, one could argue, the solution would be to build another school closer. Ideally, yes. But where would you put it? Who's going to sell or donate their land to the city in order to build a school on it? And who's going to pay for the school? Cars and buses solve that problem.

Activities

Kids often get out of school before parents get out of work. Now that remote work is an option, the parent working remotely may already be home, or be able to pick kids up at the end of the day. Or, if parents work opposite shifts (one first shift, the other second shift), the one who starts later will pick them up from school while the one who starts earlier will get them to school. While convenient, it can be a strain on marriages because there's little overlap between schedules.

There are also activities. All the things kids want to do, but also things adults want to do. Going to the gym, going to get groceries, church activities, neighborhood activities, whatever people have to do has to be wedged in after school and work because there's usually little time in the morning, though some people get up extra early so they can hit the gym or the grocery store in the early morning hours, as early as 6 AM, to avoid crowds.

Sometimes those activities keep kids at school long enough for adults to get out of work and pick them up. That's convenient. But when kids aren't involved in activities, and they're younger, another solution must be found, and that often means day care, which can be very expensive. The cost of daycare varies, and it tends to be more expensive for infants and toddlers than for older children, with costs ranging from $400-1,500 per month, per child. It can be much more expensive, often wiping out one of the incomes of the two parents.

That may make you wonder if having two incomes is worth it. The answer is still yes, when you factor in insurance and other benefits. In many families, including some of my colleagues right now, one spouse makes more money, while the other has better insurance. "Better" meaning better coverage, or less expensive insurance. Or, the family could live on one income, but that would just be living expenses. There wouldn't be enough money to save for retirement, or emergencies, or college tuition, or weddings when the children grow older. So, both spouses work, though it's unpleasant.

Hours worked per week

Overall, the vast majority of Americans still work 40 hours per week. About 1 in 20 work more than one job, more than 40 hours per week, and some may work about 40 hours per week total, but by working multiple part-time jobs. But as I said earlier in the article, that's an average of all states combined, and states can vary greatly. According to a study by WalletHub.com, in many areas of the country, people are working more than one job, and far more than 40 hours per week.

Overall, their study shows the average U.S. worker puts in 1,799 hours per year – 188 hours more than the average in Japan, 275 more than the U.K. and 456 more than Germany.

Breaking it down into hours worked per week, Americans work far more than workers in Germany and the Netherlands, which average about 26 hours a week, or France (30) and Canada (32.5). In order to find workers who on average work more hours than Americans, you have to go to developing countries where workers may be subjected to "sweat shop" conditions, such as India (56+) or Bangladesh 50.4).

Meal time

Breakfast is often an on-the go thing except for on weekends. Commuters eating in their car or on the train, or people eating a power bar or some microwaved cereal at their desk in the morning, though families may have breakfast together before they go out. But lunch is typically somewhere between 11 AM and 1PM, depending on work and school schedules. In school, lunches are staggered, either by grade, or they're scheduled, simply because not all the kids in a school can fit in the lunch room at the same time. For workers, some have a half hour for lunch, some an hour, and that period may be paid or unpaid. At my printing plant job, lunch was 15 minutes. And some may actually leave and have lunch somewhere, or eat lunch in a facility on-site, while others eat at their desk, still working. I've worked with plenty of people who, on a busy day, haven't stopped for lunch at all, or they finally get a break towards the end of the day when they're able to eat something.

After work, people typically have dinner between 5 and 7 PM, with the most common time being around 6. This is in line with some European countries, but a sharp contrast to some countries, like Italy, where dinner is usually at 8 PM.

Some Reddit users have questioned why Americans eat around 6 PM, and how one could prepare dinner for the family in so short a time. Why 6 PM makes total sense, given that most people have to get up early for school and work. Plus, we've been at work and school all day and we're hungry.

The latter question is more poignant, and helps you realize why the two-income household that became more and more common starting in the 1970s, and largely a necessity by the 1980s, led to a high demand for convenience food. Frozen or packaged dinners that could feed a family reasonably well in minutes, rather than hours. More recently, there have been cookbooks and cooking shows by people such as Rachel Ray, who have specialized in "meal prep" or "meal planning," in which one large meal is made on say, Sunday, then turned into leftovers on Monday, and converted into other meals on other days using the same basic ingredients or leftover parts of the original meal, making newer, satisfying, healthy meals, in a fraction of the time. It's definitely a struggle, though, and many turn to options such as take-out, or getting hot, ready-to-eat meals from the deli area at their local grocery store. Some stores even have takeout buffet areas open from around 4-7 PM during the week, where people can grab dinner and bring it home.

Bed time

Overall, the average bed time in the U.S. is at 11:39 PM. Since young kids need more sleep, they're typically in bed much earlier, while college students and adults in their 20s may stay up later. This is in line with many parts of Europe, and a little later than in the UK, but considerably earlier than in Russia, Turkey, Greece, or Saudi Arabia, where people often go to bed at 1 AM during the week. Parts of central and South America also tend to go to bed later, somewhere around 12:20.

Enforced "quiet time"

Given that Americans are typically having dinner at 6, and going to bed by 11:30, many residential areas, from towns and cities to apartment complexes, have regulations about quiet times, otherwise known as noise ordinances, and there may also be curfews regulating when children are allowed to be outside. Common times for noise ordinances are 10 PM to 7 AM, when people are most likely to be sleeping, though exceptions may be made for Friday and Saturday nights, when quiet times may begin at 12 AM. Curfews for children are most common from 10PM to 5 AM, which would allow them to be out for school activities, and at the bus stop early, but would require them to be home, or out with adult supervision.

Why do these ordinances exist? Again, people are getting up, and there's the concern about health and safety. Children are expected to be in school, and schools assign homework, at least an hour per night per child, sometimes much more (schools in some areas assign an hour of homework per class, per day, giving students 3-5 hours of homework a night). If children aren't to school on time, or they miss a significant amount of school, they may be expelled, or suspended, or parents could face fines. And workers are expected to be in the workplace on time, daily. At the printing plant I mentioned, you were expected to be on time, even working sick or injured. If you called in sick more than once, you were likely to be fired. At many workplaces, calling in sick or going home early more than 3 times in a month without a doctor's excuse, or calling in sick for 3 days in a row, is also likely to result in punitive action.

Situations like that have changed somewhat due to the gig economy, and remote work, but there are still harsh realities. Sure, if you're an Uber or Lyft driver, if you're sick, stay home. The entire point of the job is you work around your schedule. However, if you're not working, you're not making any money. And as noted in the WalletHub study, remote work often leads to working more since there's no commute involved. Most of my colleagues in publishing work remotely, and one of them works 6 days, 72 hours a week. Others work an average of 45-50 hours. Friends of mine in IT working remote, or hybrid remote/on-site usually work longer from home, managing global teams and handling problems well into the night.

Overall, the situation for Americans is that we may be paid more than workers in other parts of the world, but the cost of living is higher, and we're putting in more hours per day and per week, with less free time, just to survive.