 And again, since higher and higher profits could be sucked out of the company and taxed at lower and lower levels, there was no incentive to reduce the number of hours everyone worked. In the 1950s, before that Time magazine article predicted the leisure society, before that article was written, the average American working in manufacturing put in about 42 hours of work a week. Today, the average American working in manufacturing puts in about 40 hours a week.