Satisfaction With Work

Forget whistling while they work. Most Americans seem to be singing the “Hallelujah Chorus” as they dance through their workdays, according to a review of public attitudes by Karlyn Bowman of the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank.

“Poll questions asked over the past quarter century show little change in job satisfaction,” Bowman said at a recent AEI panel that included Guy Molyneux of Peter D. Hart Research Associates. “The vast majority are satisfied with their jobs or the work they have chosen.”

In surveys conducted over the last 28 years by the National Opinion Research Center, eight in 10 working Americans have said they were satisfied with the work they do. Nearly half, 45%, reported last year they were “very satisfied,” and 44% said they were moderately satisfied with their work. Only about one in eight complained they were “very” or a “little” dissatisfied.

Molyneux cautioned against reading too much into those claims. Admitting your job is the pits is “an admission of personal failure,” he said.

And some jobs are more satisfying than others; his surveys of teachers and nurses found many were dissatisfied with their working lives.