Are there more lazy people than hardworking people? I do not have that statistic but what we do know is that there are more people who’d rather work less and earn more. In this article, we will be referring to people who want to work less for more as “lazy”, reason because they can always choose to work more if they wanted additional income. At the same time, I also want to qualify that there are always other extenuating circumstances to explain why someone cannot work more and therefore are not classified as “lazy.”

Now that we have straightened that out, why did I make such a statement? In this post, we will explore possible reasons why working less might be more costly than being hardworking. Contrary to just having less, I argue that “lazy” people actually pay more to live.

More “lazy” people are hired but they are often paid less (Income)

There should be some realism in every business and it would be unthinkable if a business owner expects every worker to work their heart out for the company. Many employers will learn to not have an equal expectation on every employee. At most, they can hope to have more hardworking workers than “lazy” ones. The next obvious consideration would be the remuneration for a hardworking vs “lazy” worker. From the employers’ perspective, these considerations would have been fitted in the hiring budget. Therefore, companies will have to make up for productivity by hiring more lower-wage workers. That is not to say that they will hire more to compensate for their shortfalls but rather to pay each of them less to hire more. This is probably why employees who are labeled as “lazy” will be remunerated less.

Most products sold are targeted at the middle class (Affordability)

Surely, one might argue that bare essentials are made affordable for all to purchase. But people do not only consume what they can afford. In Singapore, people often consume products that are popular rather than essential. This is caused by the standard of living of the country, as citizens will feel more entitled to the similar luxuries as the rest of the population. As such, more installment plans are introduced to help more people afford products beyond their pay grade. Incidentally, this impacts the people earning less more than others. Although this does not directly cause “lazy”people to spend more, it does affect their spending habits in more ways than imagined.

“Lazy“ people tend have less and retire later (Retirement)

Lower income and such spending habits potentially leads to lower savings and less investments made. With less to save and invest, it will also actually cause the person to have a later retirement age, which means they will have to work more years in their life. This factor has been frequently overlooked and many consider this situation as inevitable, blaming it on their circumstances. However, I feel that with proper planning and realistic life goals, it is highly possible for many to prevent such predicaments.

Closing Thoughts

Surely, this topic is controversial and highly debatable by different personalities. The reason why we see it in such a perspective is because we do not feel that your income potential is limited by your current employment. This is because there will always be ways to supplement your income in a smart way. Many people have expressed that their income is too little but when questioned about what they could do about it, it always resulted in a clueless situation.

My response to that is, perhaps there are more that can be done to help people realize and understand such issues so that they will be able to work less on the long run and retire earlier.