How Is Iowa Ranked So Low on Hardest Working States in America?

If you had to put together a list of the hardest working states in the U.S, where would you rank the state of Iowa? Do you have a region you'd put higher than others? Being from the Midwest and knowing what it's like to live here year-round, selfishly, I'd want to rank Iowa and other mid-west states pretty high. Thankfully, WalletHub has put the list together for us.

Some people will go on to say Americans are lazy and no one wants to work right now but I'm here to say that for a vast majority of Americans, that isn't true. According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, there are 5.7 million unemployed Americans and America's (as of July 2022) unemployment rate sits at 3.5%. 96.5% of Americans wake up and go to work daily. Every day you log onto social media you can find comments that say "no one wants to work right now" and that's just not true.

Iowa is known for being the number 1 corn and pork producing state in America. Sounds like a lot of hard-working farmers are in the state and work daily to feed America. Where does Iowa rank on WalletHub's hardest working states in America? Currently at number 22.

WalletHub did use 10 indicators to determine their findings and those indicators range from average workweek hours, workers with multiple jobs, and volunteer hours per resident. According to their findings, the hardest working state is North Dakota and New Mexico is the least hardworking state.

Those numbers are fine and dandy and do help give their search some kind of concrete data but I don't think the study did a great job of defining what hard work is. Here's where my mid-west bias is going to come into play...

What if someone from Iowa has to get up an extra hour or two early to shovel/plow their driveway because it snowed 10 inches overnight and they can't get out of their driveway in order to go to work in the first place? Those two hours might not count as "work hours" but I'd consider that pretty hard work. That happens all the time during the winter months.

Iowa is a pretty big farming state, right? Well, what about farmers who work 365 days a year no matter the conditions? Heat index over 100, rain, snow, windchill -10... these farmers might be working a "normal 10-15 hour day" but the conditions in which they're working aren't always normal. They can be downright terrible if we're being honest.

Working outside from Nov-March can suck in the midwest. I'd consider just waking up and working outside, no matter the conditions, pretty hard work. If Iowa is producing more pork and corn than any other state, that's a LOT of people working whether there's a heat advisory, windchill advisory, or winter weather warning.

I also find it interesting that back in April of 2022, WalletHub ranked Iowa as one of the worst states when it came to people working from home. That means Iowans are getting up every day and traveling to work, regardless of what is going on outside. Seems like Iowans aren't letting outside conditions stop them from making it to work. Sounds like a state full of hardworking people to me.

If you want to define the "hardest working state" by average workweek hours or people who work multiple jobs, sure you might have Iowa ranked at 22. I for one know better. I know mid-west states are known as the flyover states to a lot of people in the U.S and that's fine. But there's not a study alive that will convince me Iowa doesn't have some of the hardest working people on the planet.