The New York Times has cooked up a neat interactive graphic on how Americans spend their time. It is broken up by hour of the day and by characteristics like employment status, race, and level of education.
Everyone devotes a surpising amount of time to TV and movies, especially compared to socializing. It is also interesting to see that those with advanced degrees seem to spend the largest share of their time traveling, though the graphic doesn’t make clear whether this is intra-city commuting, vacation travel, or both.
I found the graphic via Sightline Daily. There are some interesting observations there, such as: ” Just so, only five percent of men over 15 say they spend any time walking on a given day. Yet for most of human existence, walking was the only form of transportation available to the large bulk of humanity.”
I spent some time exploring the article and found it quite interesting. I also liked the graphic presentation format and the single item facts that were put out.
One of those single items was
“Only one in six unemployed people looks for work on an average day. Those who do spend about three hours on activities like filling out applications or researching jobs.”
It supports the idea that it takes time to find work and also that most people who are not employed are not spending the time to do so. Note: there is a separate category for “Not in Labour force”. Assuming that unemployed people are seeking employment and only only one in six unemployed people looks for work on an average day, one question is how seriously are the unemployed looking for work.