Apparantly American Workers have it pretty damn good...

I stumbled across this article on MSN. It attempts to compare the American workforce to the global average (hours, wages, unemployment etc.), but relies more on Mexico and Korea as examples to illustrate that, comparatively, American workers have it pretty damn good in relation to most. They seem to gloss over most other western, liberal-democratic, capitalist countries in their analysis. A selective interpretation indeed.

If you think you're working too much and getting paid too little, consider that the average Mexican worker puts in about 100 more hours of work each year than the average American, yet only makes the equivalent of $2.63 per hour (Americans average $23.65), or that Koreans, who work almost 600 more hours per year than the average American, still make about $10 less than us per hour. Feel better yet?

...See how America's labor force compares to its international counterparts, and perhaps you'll gain a new appreciation for your own job situation.

And when they did use other western, liberal-democratic, capitalist countries in their analysis, they were rather dismissive of the progressive nature of employment relations in these countries. For example,

Norway and Netherlands recorded fewest hours worked with 1360 and 1368, respectively...It hardly seems fair that the workers who enjoyed the highest hourly rate of compensation in 2005 also worked the fewest hours: Norwegians topped the list, earning an equivalent of $39.14 per hour.

That actually seems pretty fair to me.