Labor Day. observed on the first Monday in September, is celebrated in many other counties on May 1st as International Workers’ Day.  Americans thought that holiday had overtones of socialism, so a different date was chosen.  This holiday weekend marks the end of summer, not too far from the autumnal equinox (the pagan holiday of Mabon) on September 22^nd.  For many years the week after Labor Day was time for back to school, but in many states, public school schedules have been shifting as schools experiment with shorter summer vacations and longer breaks during the year. Our state went back to school at the beginning of August.

Labor gets short shift under capitalism.  Labor is a commodity, bought and sold in labor markets, the price being determined partly by supply and demand and partly by power or lack thereof.  The federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour has been unchanged since 2009. At that rate, a full -time worker (40 hours a week for 52 weeks) would have a gross income of $15,170 before deductions, like social security tax and maybe even health insurance.  The poverty ceiling for a single adult is $15,650, In most states, that wage would be barely enough to rent a one-bedroom apartment, with nothing left for food and other necessities.  Among workers paid by the hour, 843,000 workers were paid the minimum wage OR LESS in 2024.

Regardless of our income, work or labor takes up a very large share of our lives. At some time between ages 16 and 22, people typically enter the labor force, and stay there with breaks for unemployment, health issues, domestic responsibilities and other reasons, until age 63 (typically 62 for women, 65 for men). Many people spend that long stretch of their lives working at a job that they find physically demanding, boring, high pressure or long hours.  Or at least not the answer to “What I want to do when I grow up?”—our favorite question for small children.

 Work or labor is a part of life, but not all of life.  Many of us view our labor as primarily a way to put a roof over our heads and food on the table. It can provide those essentials,  but our work can and should be more than that.  It is interesting that labor gets a negative religious cast. When God evicts Adam and Eve fromf the garden, She says that Adam shall earn his bread by the sweat of his brow and Eve shall suffer in bringing forth children (labor). Economists share that biblical perspective, that labor is suffering for which we must be compensated by some reward—bread or a baby among other possibilities. Labor or work is equated with suffering. 

Yet some of us are privileged to choose  whether to work or not because of inherited or acquired wealth.  Better yet, many of us to choose work that enables us to harness our gifts and our passions to engage in a vocation. Even a vocation has its downsides—a difficult boss or customer or client, tasks associated with the job that are distasteful, or other drawbacks. I used to joke that if I was paid for the distasteful side of my work as a college professor, then I was being compensated for grading papers and attending committee meetings!

Those who are fortunate enough, or wise enough, experience their work as a vocation at which one can excel and through which one satisfies the need to be useful, do develop and parcixe one’s skills,  and to have a community of fellow workers. Almost any kind of work can be a vocation, whether it is cleaning houses or raising chickens or putting out fires or managing a household or teaching grooming dogs.

 Sometimes we make the wrong choice. When I went to seminary at age 59 to study theological ethics after an early retirement from teaching, I met an ex-lawyer at orientation. “What are you doing here?” he asked.  Jokingly, I said,” I’m doing penance for 30 years of teaching economics.”  (I really liked being an economist and still do!) He nodded. A candidate for the ministry, he said he was doing penance for seven years of practicing law. I was just seeking a way to broaden and redirect my efforts as an economist, but he was making a much bigger change. As my former department chair Bruce Yandle used to say, if you try, you can fit three careers into a lifetime.

I was fortunate to work part-time early and late in my 50 year career. I continued to do public policy work and teach two graduate courses, one each semester, in an interdisciplinary program in Policy Studies. That light schedule freed me to do other things—travel, community leadership, writing. That’s one way of having a career AND a life.  It comes with a lower income, but when your children are grown and your mortgage is paid, it doesn’t seem to matter as much.

Labor is one of the ways we find meaning and purpose in life.  All kinds of work deserve our respect, and opportunities for the workers to feel useful and to have some degree of autonomy. And a decent wage.

So on your last visit to the beach before the start of college football, falling leaves, and shorter days, do something fun. You’ve earned it!