The People With The Most Free Time Live In These States

Photo by Nicolai Berntsen on Unsplash

Feel like you have no free time? Perhaps you are living in the wrong state. Coleman Furniture conducted a survey of all 50 states to see which workers have the most free time and they came out with some rather interesting findings.

Coleman used data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and American Community Survey to gauge how much time each week jobs were taking up, based off of time spent commuting and average hours in a work week. They also factored in how much vacation time workers used (something American workers are notoriously bad at), represented as a percentage of the total allowed vacation hours from the latest Bureau of Economic Analysis data. Then they ranked each state by these three elements and totaled the rankings.

First of all, the survey found that more average hours worked a week is correlated with worse economic outcomes. This is interesting considering Ladders recently reported on the outcomes of a New Zealand company after they tested out a four day work week with their employees and found they were more productive.

So which states are full of happy people with plenty of free time? Check out the rankings below.

The top 10 states with the most free time

1. Maine
2. Wisconsin
3. Alaska
4. Michigan
5. Utah
6. Ohio
7. Indiana
8. Iowa
9. Oregon
10. Arkansas
And here are the people with the least amount of free time.

The top 10 states with the least amount of free time

1. Virginia
2. Maryland
3. New Hampshire
4. Texas
5. Mississippi
6. Georgia
7. Oklahoma
8. New York
9. Wyoming
10. West Virginia

As you can see on the map, the workers living on the coasts as well as the middle of the country tend to have the least amount of free time.

States where people work the most hours spend the most money on housing

It makes sense that states with a higher cost of living have more expensive housing, but it will probably surprise you to learn that states with the lowest housing costs work more hours than others.

The survey also found that in states where workers take the most allowed vacation time they tend to have higher rates of unemployment and lower senses of financial well-being. Not surprisingly states with shorter commute times love their jobs and have cheaper houses but the feel less of a sense of purpose.

This article originally appeared on Ladders written by Meredith Lepore.