CA's 17 'Hardest-Working' Cities: Study

CALIFORNIA — With Employee Appreciation Day right around the corner March 6, researchers at WalletHub decided to shine a light on the hardest-working cities in the United States.

The personal finance website released its 2020's Hardest-Working Cities in America rankings, and one California city almost emerged as the hardest-working city in the country.

The city deemed to be the hardest-working in the U.S.? That gritty honor went to Anchorage, Alaska, according to WalletHub, followed by San Francisco, California, and Virginia Beach, Virginia.

At the other end of the hard-working spectrum, Detroit, Michigan, finished with the lowest overall hard-work ranking. The bottom five cities were rounded out by Burlington, Vermont, Buffalo, New York, Cleveland, Ohio, and Bridgeport, Connecticut.

The average worker in the U.S. puts in 1,786 hours per year, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The figure for America is 106 more hours than the average in Japan and 248 more than the average in the United Kingdom.

Methodology

WalletHub compared the 116 largest cities in the U.S. across 11 key metrics, including employment rate, the average number of hours in a work week and the number of workers with multiple jobs.

Each relevant metric was then listed with its corresponding weight, and the cities were subsequently graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the hardest-working-possible city.

Here are the top 10 hardest-working cities in the U.S. in 2020, according to WalletHub:

1. Anchorage, Alaska: 80.07
2. San Francisco, California: 76.87
3. Virginia Beach, Virginia: 76.61
4. Cheyenne, Wyoming: 76.11
5. Irving, Texas: 75.65
6. Norfolk, Virginia: 74.79
7. Corpus Christi, Texas: 74.65
8. Washington, D.C., 74.46
9. Austin, Texas: 73.94
10. Plano, Texas: 73.28

See how California cities ranked below. National rankings are in parenthesis.

1. San Francisco (2)
2. Fremont (34)
3. San Jose (40)
4. Irvine (44)
5. Oakland (49)
6. San Diego (55)
7. Anaheim (57)
8. Santa Ana (65)
9. Long Beach (69)
10. Chula Vista (71)
11. Los Angeles (75)
12. Bakersfield (84)
13. Sacramento (96)
14. Riverside (98)
15. Stockton (104)
16. San Bernardino (108)
17. Fresno (109)

Find the full list of 116 cities on WalletHub.