WORK: March 6 marks Employee Appreciation Day. 

Americans work an average of 1,796 hours per year — far more than workers in many other industrialized countries. The personal-finance company WalletHub released its report on the 2026’s Hardest-Working Cities in America. None of the top 20 were in Pennsylvania; in fact, the first time the state made the list was at number 77 with Philadelphia.

The top 5 were Cheyenne, Wyo., Anchorage, Alaska, Washington, D.C., Sioux Falls, S.D., and Irving, Texas.

To identify where Americans work the hardest, WalletHub analyzed the 116 largest cities across 11 key metrics. The data set ranges from employment rate, average weekly hours worked, and the share of workers with multiple jobs.

Irving, Texas, had the lowest share of households where no adults work, which is 3.6 times lower than in Detroit, the city with the highest. New York City had the longest average commute time, which is 2.6 times longer than in Fargo, N.D., the city with the shortest.

“The COVID-19 pandemic fundamentally reshaped how people view work, prompting many employees to reassess their priorities, expectations and definitions of success. In the U.S., employee engagement reached one of its lowest levels in recent years, according to Gallup surveys conducted in 2024. Several new terms also emerged to describe employee disengagement and negative workplace sentiment, such as Quiet Quitting, Quiet Cracking and the Great Resignation. Although recent labor reports and employer actions, such as ending work-from-home arrangements and requiring employees to return to the office, suggest that the Great Resignation has largely subsided, it will likely take time for organizations to fully re-engage their workforce,” said Dr. Linchi Kwok, professor, Cal Poly Pomona.