NY TIMES, April 12, 2010, By CATHERINE RAMPELL Do Smarter Workers Work Less?
Last week, we summarized a Labor Department report on hours worked and earnings by
state, which found that Nevadans work the longest hours and workers in the District of
Columbia had the highest hourly wage. Over at The Atlantic, Richard Florida has parsed
the data to focus on what makes a state’s labor force more or less likely to work longer
weeks and get higher pay.
His result: Education seems to play a big role in how long a state’s average resident works,
and for what wage.
In the chart below, Mr. Florida, director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of
Toronto, plotted states according to human capital — here defined as what share of their
work force had at least a bachelor’s degree — and how much their average worker earned
per hour. As you can see, states with more college graduates tended to have higher wages (with a
correlation of 0.65). And that’s not all.
He also looked at the relationship between human capital and hours worked. Generally
speaking, states with more highly educated workers worked shorter weeks (with a
correlation of negative
0.59). 1 Of course, correlation is not causation. But plenty of research indicates that a more
educated local economy is a healthier economy, as one of our Daily Economists, Edward L.
Glaeser, has written. So it does not seem such a stretch to find a pattern between human
capital and earnings or more convenient hours.
Another provocative trend that Mr. Florida found is between immigration and state pay.
Economists have long debated how immigration affects the American job market, with
some believing that it depresses (at least some) native workers’ wages and others arguing
that immigration is a boon to the American economy and average worker earnings.
This scatterplot suggests that state hourly earnings are positively associated with the
percentage of immigrants (correlation of 0.64). 2 Again, correlation is not causation, and there may be all sorts of confounding variables
here that skew the results. But even so, it’s food for thought. Answer Questions:
1. Summarize the article. Describe the experimental procedures (if there were any) and the main findings.
2. Tie the key themes of the article to the topics covered in the chapter. In other words, how does this article relate to chapter 2?
3. What real-life applications do the findings reported in this article have on day-to-day life? 3

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