Leisure for Laborers ; Working Helps Us Define Ourselves

Summary

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It's Labor Day, a holiday that has been set aside to provide a day of rest for the American worker. Today most of us will relax, perhaps spend some time at the beach or barbecue some steaks. Tuesday morning we'll return to our work, as past generations have after their Labor Day rest, brought back to one inevitable reality that most can't escape -- the welcome necessity to labor for a living.

Congress officially declared Labor Day a national holiday in 1894. In the later years of the 19th century, when the industrial revolution reconstructed American society and talk of honoring workers first arose among union organizers, workdays could far surpass the current eight-hour standard. Many people worked very hard for modest "personal profit." The founder and president of the American Federation of Labor, Samuel Gompers, acknowledged the importance of business profit when he said, "The worst crime against working people is a company that fails to operate at a profit." We agree. Workers prosper when businesses do.

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Extract

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Leisure for Laborers ; Working Helps Us Define Ourselves

It's a good day, as well, to reflect on the state of our personal balance sheets. Of great concern to us is that the average worker's after-tax profit is being reduced dramatically by an overwhelming tax and regulatory burden. By some measu...

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