People who are employed in Kansas City, Mo., start work earlier than the majority of the United States — at around 7:51 a.m.
That's considerably earlier than our counterparts in New York, who go in around 8:24 a.m., and our neighbors in Lawrence, Kan., who get to work around 8:15 a.m.
A new report from news blog FiveThirtyEight compiled data to establish the median time Americans begin their workdays in each metro area. The data, collected as part of the American Community Survey, refers to the location of work, not residence and does not include people who work at home.
The median worker in a Midwestern city starts his or her day earlier than in major cities on the coasts; in Indianapolis and Minneapolis at around 7:54 a.m. and in St. Louis at around 7:50 a.m, whereas San Francisco's median worker starts at 8:17 a.m., and in Boston around 8:11 a.m.
Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight breaks the analysis down further on his website, placing the late-rising cities into three rough categories: cities with young creatives, college towns and cities with economies based on tourism and recreation. Silver says most early-rising cities fit into two categories: economies based on military or economies based on farming and agriculture.
But what about the early-rising Midwestern metros like Kansas City that don't fall into one of these categories? Maybe we just like to get to work early. Or maybe there really is some validity to the notion of the Midwestern work ethic.
