How Americans Spend Their Time

How Americans Spend Their Time We've collected data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) about how Americans older than 15 spend their time. Here's a look at the surprising and interesting ways that Americans pass the day! Hour-by-hour Eating and drinking Household activities (cooking, housework, etc.) Work and work-related Sleeping Purchasing goods and services Watching television Other activities 12 AM 1 AM 2 AM 3 AM 4.9% 7.8% 2.3% 4.2% 1.2% 2.6% 0.7% 2.0% 1.5%. 0.1% 1.5%. 0.1% 0.3% 0.7% 1.8% 0.1% 83.5% 91.0% 94.0% 95.1% 0.2% 0.3% 0.3% 0.2% 0.7% 0.6% 0.4% 0.3% 3 AM 4 AM 5 AM 6 AM This is the hour of night when the larg- est percentage of Americans are 0.7% 3.7% 1.2% 6.6% 16.4% 2.2%. 0.1% 91.9% 3.6%, 85.6% 66.3% 0.2% 0.9% 1.7% 1.8% asleep. It also hap- pens to be when the percentages of people watching TV, study- ing, doing homework, and doing work-related activities declines. If you're looking to take a nap during your all-night study session, 3-4 am is when you're most likely to do it! 0.5% 1.1% 7.5% 0.4% 4.4% 3.2% 6 AM 7 AM 8 AM 8 AM 23.9% 42.4% 26.1% 24.6% From 6 am to 8 am, there is a 3.1% - 4.3% - 7.5% Just like the conventional saying, 6 am is when the percentage of people sleeping drops sharply. People begin waking up, eating breakfast, reading the paper, and checking work emails at this hour. 15.7% sharp increase in the number of people working. The same is true for the percentage of Americans doing educational activities. This percent- age will later peak at 11 am. 10.7% 0.9% 7.7% 6.3% 24.8% 2.0% Sleeping Eating and drinking Work and work-related activities Watching television Household activities Purchasing goods and services Other (cooking, housework, etc.) 9 AM 10 AM 10 AM 11 AM 5.0% 6.1% 7.6% 5.4% 28.2% 13.8% 30.4% 29.5% 6.7% 13.9% - 14.0% Have you been watching the percentage of people eating and drinking? It hasn't spiked yet. In fact, it hasn't even gone over 10%! Lunch and dinner see much higher spikes than breakfast does. - 13.0% 7.1% 5.8% 5.7% 3.8% 6.9% 8.1% 28.8% 29.9% 30.3% 12 PM 12 PM 1 PM 2 PM 3.5% 4.1% 4.3% 27.5% 16,5% 28.2% 11.3% 6.1% 30.5% 11.7% -12.0% -12.9% - 7.3% Here's the lunch rush! The percentage of Americans working takes a dip, but corrects itself at 1 pm. That makes 12 pm a very popular time for a sandwich and a break. The percentage of people watching TV will steadily climb throughout the afternoon, too. 8.0% 7.6% 9.3% 7.8% 10.5% 23.8% 27.5% 29.6% 3 PM 3 PM 4 PM 5 PM 4.1% 3.6% 4.8% 3.0% 9.0% Shopping, which first 4.4% 32,5% 32.6% 32.7% 11.7% 12.9% 14.7% spiked as an activity H-7.1% around - 6.9% - 6.5% 10 am, is still a popular pastime at this time in the afternoon. The percentage of people shopping peaks around noon, and doesn't fall below 5% again until 7 pm. After that it quickly declines as people settle in for the evening. 11.5% 28.7% 13,4% 25.8% 14.9% 19.2% Sleeping Household activities (cooking, housework, etc.) Watching Eating and drinking Purchasing goods and services Work and Other work-related television activities 6 PM 6 PM 7 PM 7 PM 2.5% 2.8% When does the work day end? Well, the biggest decline in the percentage of Americans working happens between 5 pm and 6 pm. Some people never quit though! People who either work from home or pull late nights in the office ensure that the percentage of Americans working almost never falls below 5%. It's more common for your average American to be working than it is for them to be eating or socializing at almost every hour of the day. 15.6% 14.3% 32.5% 34.4% -10.7% -14.1% Besides the 4.1% middle of the day, the late evening is also a popular time that Americans choose to spend their time volunteering and helping their commu- 5.2% 8.4% 18.1% 12.0% 25.3% nities. 9 PM 8 PM Woah! What's with the 8 PM 9 PM 5.1% 15.1% big spike in "other?" It's one of the biggest categories-hardly a miscellaneous entry like it was earlier at 10 am, huh? People aren't just doing the things we've chosen to highlight here. Besides watching TV, socializing with others is the most popular leisure activity among Americans. The most popular time to "hang out" is between 6 pm and 9 pm. 9.1% 35.0% 32.5% 4.8% 7.5% AAAAA 5.0% - 2.9% -1.7% -6.8% 9 pm is when we see the first spike in Americans heading off to sleep. If you want to go to bed early, feel free to join your fellow Americans and turn in at 9 pm-or - 5.8% 33.6% 35.1% get ready to party like the night-owls! 9 pm is also when the highest percentage of Americans are watching TV. 10 PM 11 PM 14.7% 25.1% 38.2% 12.7% 3.4% 2.3% 0.4% 3.0% 1.5% 86.2% 0.8% 25.9% 4.7% 1.1% - Watching television Sleeping Eating and drinking Household activities Purchasing goods and services Work and Other (cooking, housework, etc.) work-related activities 100 90 60 40 + 30 20 12 AM 1 AM 2 AM 3 AM 4 AM 5 AM 6 AM 7 AM 8 AM 9 AM 10 AM 11 AM 12 PM 1 PM 2 PM З РМ 4 PM 5 PM 6 PM 7 PM 8 PM 9 PM 10 PM 11 PM Did You Know... The BLS tracks a yearly "American Time Use Survey" to collect data about how Americans use their time. Here are some of the interesting facts about how Americans spend their days from the BLS 2014 survey! 1 All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy! 2 Leisure activities 3 Envy your grandparents **** *************** ***************************** ** *....................... On the average day, 96% of Americans take part in some form of leisure. Americans spend almost 3 hours a day watching TV. On average, those 00 over 75 get to spend a stunning 8 hours a day on leisure. The second most popular Men spend 6 hours on average and women spend 5.2 hours on average relaxing and enjoying leisure activities like exercising and socializing. way to relax is to socialize with friends-Americans spend 45 minutes a day, on average, hanging out together. That's about a quarter of the amount of time they spend glued to a screen. Who spends the least time relaxing? That'd be Americans the ages of 35 and 44, who spend about four hours a day having fun. 4 Household activities 5 The "kitchen gap" 6 Let's s talk about work! |Women still spend the most time, on While we're on the subject of men and women-on days that men work, they tend to work almost an hour longer than women. There is good news though, if you care about the household work gap. average, doing household activities- 2.6 hours, versus men who spend 2.1 hours. lılılılılı Here's another surprising fact: while 83% of women are likely to spend time cooking, taking care of the lawn, managing finances, and other household Between 2003 and 2014, the percentage of men who cook or clean on The BLS explains that this could be because activities, only 65% of men will do the same tasks on your average day. an average day increased from 35% to 43%. women are more The percentage of women who do so decreased likely to work part-time than men. Even when adjusted for that fact, full-time men tend to work about a half hour longer than full-time women, on average. from 54% to 49%. 7 Struggling on the weekends 9 What kind of people are working from home? Working from home From 2003 to 2014, the percentage of Americans who do some or all 23% Would you believe that on your average weekend day, 35% of Americans are probably working? 19% Chances are high that they've got multiple jobs or are self-employed. of their work at home increased And how about this-on a working day, 23% of employed Americans do some or all of their work from home. from 19% to 23%. Self-employed people are 3x more likely than wage or salary employees to have worked at home on an average day. 2003 2014 Employed Americans tend to spend about 8 hours working at their workplace and 3.2 hours working 37% of multiple Ujobholders do work at home, compared to 22% of single jobholders. from home. Over those same years, the amount of time Not everyone does both, of course. the average employee spends working at home also increased by nearly 40 minutes. Experian 0000 Sources: http://www.bls.gov/tus/#tables http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.nr0.htm http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/atus_06242015.pdf Data Quality