jeremy borger [blog]

A Day in the Life of America

Time Magazine had a great section recently about a day in the life of America where they looked at how we commute, work, consume, sleep and use our free time.

Commute time was interesting. The national average for the commute to work is 25 minutes. Cleveland’s is slightly below average at 23.5 minutes. My personal commute from downtown to Westlake is almost spot on with that. Maybe a little less.

The longest commute is New York City with an average of 34.1 minutes. That’s a lot better than I thought it would be because I’ve heard some horror stories about commutes that last over an hour. But I guess it’s just an average… Los Angeles has the worst traffic delays. 72 hours a year on average. If you live in LA, you’ll spend about three days a year (non-stop) stuck in traffic. Cleveland is one of the lowest in the country with only 13 hours a year being stuck in traffic. So remember that next time you’re complaining about a slowdown on I-271.

They also looked into happiness levels associated with occupation. Less money does not mean less happiness. Clergy are the most happy with 67.2 percent saying they’re “very happy”. I’ll resist the urge to make a comment about Catholic priests here… Gas station attendants are the least happy with only 13.2 percent saying they’re very happy. My job was lumped into “advertising” which was actually pretty high on the scale with 42.3 being very happy. I would not include myself in that percentage…

On average, Americans buy almost 161,000 bottles of Absolut Vodka a day.

Ohio is right in the middle of the country with beer consumption. We consume 23 gallons per person every year. Most of mine is probably Great Lakes. Who’s number one? New Hampshire with 32 gallons. Utah’s at the bottom with 12. Mormons don’t drink.

The magazine was more detailed than the web site, getting into information like time spent sleeping, what we do with our free time, income levels and eating habits. It got me thinking about my average day. I was up at 6:30am today, was in the office by 8:45am or so (after my 23.5 minute commute), stayed until 5:30pm, then went to the gym for about an hour an a half before coming home and eating dinner around 8:30pm. Then I was finally able to write a blog entry that no one would read at about 11:30pm.

All to do it again tomorrow.