Let’s go back to 1992 — no smartphones, no Slack, no productivity
bros on TikTok — and somehow, Juliet Schor was already asking
the question we’re still obsessed with today:
Why the hell are we working so much?
The Overworked American is part history lesson, part economic analysis, part cultural gut check. And honestly, it holds up. Like, uncomfortably well. Schor’s whole thesis is that Americans should be working less — a lot less — and yet, over the course of the 20th century, we went in the exact opposite direction.
We chose consumption over time.
We traded free hours for faster cars, bigger houses, and more
stress.
And now we’re buried in email, burned out, and too tired to cook
dinner.
This book isn’t just about work. It’s about the myth that more stuff equals a better life — and how that myth became a trap we don’t even realize we’re in.
Schor starts with this wild historical nugget: for most of the early 20th century, Americans were working less and less. Hours per week were dropping. Paid holidays were increasing. There was this real sense that progress meant more leisure. It was a given.
Like, economists in the 1930s were out here predicting a 20-hour workweek by the year 2000.
But then... it didn’t happen.
Instead of cashing in our productivity gains for more free time, we went the other way: longer hours, more dual-income households, and a cultural script that says being busy is a badge of honor.
Schor’s question is simple:
What changed?
And more importantly:
Who benefits when we stay overworked?
Schor makes it painfully clear that this wasn’t some accidental drift. It was a conscious shift — driven by corporations, advertisers, and a post-war culture that fused identity with consumption.
In her words:
“The average American now works more each year than a medieval peasant.”
And she’s not even exaggerating. She backs it up with data — long-term labor trends, cross-country comparisons, time-use surveys. The whole deal.
And the picture is bleak:
It’s the perfect storm: longer hours, more stress, and a consumer culture telling you to buy your way out of burnout.
One of the most brutal insights in the book is how time-scarcity becomes self-reinforcing.
You’re tired, so you spend more on takeout and convenience.
You work more to afford the convenience.
You get more exhausted.
You try to treat yourself, but that just keeps the hamster wheel
spinning.
And if you ever do get a break?
You feel guilty. Or anxious. Or like you should be “catching up” on
something else.
Schor calls this out as the core paradox of modern life:
We have more material comfort than ever, and yet we’re constantly
pressed for time.
Time poverty is the new class divide.
Here’s where Schor really starts cooking. She doesn’t just blame workaholism on bad bosses or capitalism-as-usual. She goes deeper — into the way advertising and culture manufacture new desires faster than we can fulfill them.
You get the new phone.
Now your laptop feels slow.
You buy the upgraded laptop.
Now your Wi-Fi feels too basic.
You subscribe to a faster plan.
Now you’re working more to pay for the plan.
It’s not a conspiracy — it’s just the logic of a growth
economy.
If people work less and buy less, the system slows down.
So the system fights back — with FOMO, status anxiety, and the endless
promise that “more” will finally be enough.
Spoiler again: it won’t.
Schor busts a few myths here too. It’s not just the corporate grindset crowd pulling 80-hour weeks. A lot of the increase in total work hours comes from households, not individuals.
Meaning: dual-income families, especially in the middle class, are
clocking in more total hours than previous generations.
You’ve got both parents working full-time, plus commutes, plus
childcare, plus all the invisible labor it takes to manage a
household.
Meanwhile, upper-class professionals are often working long hours as a form of identity. Schor calls this “competitive busyness.” You perform overwork as a signal of status. “I’m so slammed” becomes a flex.
It’s a mind virus.
Schor isn’t just diagnosing the disease. She’s offering a different vision of progress.
One where productivity gains don’t automatically turn into corporate
profits — they turn into time.
One where public policy supports shorter hours, better benefits, and
more leisure.
One where we actually choose to stop chasing more, and instead
ask: “What do I want to do with this life I’ve got?”
Radical stuff, I know.
She floats ideas like:
Basically, a society that values time as much as money.
This book was written in the early ‘90s, but a shocking amount still holds up. In fact, it reads like prophecy. Everything she warned about — the return of long hours, the collapse of free time, the weaponization of consumer desire — has only gotten worse.
That said, there are a few things that feel like artifacts of the era:
Still, the core framework? Rock solid. And honestly kind of terrifying in how relevant it still is.
If McMindfulness is about how we cope with burnout, and The End of Burnout is about how we diagnose it, then The Overworked American is about how we built the machine that burns us out in the first place.
It’s not a self-help book.
It’s a systems-awareness book.
And it’s not offering hacks.
It’s asking bigger questions:
That’s why this book hits so hard.
Because once you see the trap, you can’t unsee it.
Put this on the shelf next to Your Money or Your Life, Bullshit Jobs, and The Dawn of Everything.
It’s not just about time.
It’s about values.
About what we’ve been sold, what we’ve sacrificed, and what we could
still take back.
This book doesn’t just say “work less.”
It says:
“You had options. And you still do.”