How Much Sleep Working Adults Actually Get

Roughly 3 in 10 American adults sleep less than 7 hours a night — but for the people who work the longest hours, the picture is far worse. Among employed adults working more than 60 hours a week, 48% get insufficient sleep, according to the CDC's National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). For working adults, the data point to a clear pattern: the more — and the more irregularly — you work, the less you sleep.

This analysis draws on the two largest federal health surveys that track American sleep: the NHIS, an annual in-person household survey, and the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), a state-based telephone survey. Both define "short sleep" as fewer than 7 hours per 24-hour period — the floor recommended for adults in a joint statement by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society. This article summarizes published statistics for general information; it is not medical advice, and the surveys describe populations rather than any individual's sleep needs.

About 30% of US adults are short on sleep, per the 2024 NHIS

In 2024, 30.5% of U.S. adults reported sleeping less than 7 hours on average, per NCHS Data Brief No. 559. The figure was nearly identical for men (30.6%) and women (30.4%).

A separate CDC survey, the BRFSS, put the national figure modestly higher — at roughly 35–36% of adults in 2022 (about 37% among men specifically). The two surveys differ in method, mode, and year, so the numbers are not directly comparable, but both land in the same range: somewhere between a third and four in ten adults routinely fall short of the 7-hour mark.

That range matters because short sleep is not cosmetic. The CDC links chronic insufficient sleep to higher risks of obesity, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, depression, and motor-vehicle crashes. These are population-level associations from observational data, not a prediction for any one person.

Working hours track closely with sleep loss in NHIS data

The most direct evidence that work coincides with sleep deficits comes from a 2022 NHIS analysis of employed adults by weekly work hours:

• 40 or fewer hours/week: 29% slept under 7 hours
• 41–60 hours/week: 35%
• More than 60 hours/week: 48%

In other words, working adults clocking the most hours were roughly two-thirds more likely to be sleep-deprived than those working standard schedules (a jump from 29% to 48% is about a 65% relative increase). The CDC noted the pattern held similarly for men and women. Because the survey is a snapshot in time, it shows a correlation, not proof that long hours cause sleep loss.

Some occupations report far more short sleep than others

Hours are only part of the story; *what* you do — and *when* — also tracks with sleep. A BRFSS analysis spanning 29 states (2013–2014) found that 36.5% of all employed adults reported short sleep, but prevalence varied sharply across 22 major occupation groups:

• Production workers: 42.9%
• Healthcare support: 40.1%
• Healthcare practitioners and technical: 40.0%
• Food preparation and serving: 39.8%
• Protective service: 39.2%

By contrast, education, training, and library workers and farming, fishing, and forestry workers had among the lowest rates, at 31.3% each.

A common thread among the most-affected occupations is shift work. The CDC reported that these high-prevalence groups also have some of the highest rates of alternative (non-daytime) shift schedules — ranging from more than 35% of healthcare practitioners and technical workers to more than 50% of food-preparation and serving workers.

The night-shift gap is starkest in a separate, earlier CDC analysis. In a 2010 NHIS study of workers, 69.7% of night-shift workers in transportation and warehousing reported short sleep, as did 52.3% of night-shift workers in health care and social assistance — well above the roughly 44% short-sleep rate for night-shift workers overall and 29% for day-shift workers. (These industry figures come from the 2010 worker analysis, not the 2013–2014 occupation study above; the two used different surveys, years, and categories.)

Geography and demographics add another layer

Where you live correlates with how much you sleep. Using BRFSS 2022 state estimates (CDC FastStats), short-sleep prevalence ranged from about 30% in Vermont to 46% in Hawaii, with the highest rates clustered across the Southeast and Appalachia — including Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, and Virginia.

Demographic gaps are also wide. In the 2024 NHIS, short sleep peaked in midlife — 34.5% among adults 50–64 and 33.4% among those 35–49, the prime working and caregiving years — versus 27.2% at both ends (18–34 and 65+). The single largest disparity was by race and ethnicity: 40.2% of non-Hispanic Black adults reported short sleep, compared with 29.0% of Hispanic, 28.9% of non-Hispanic White, and 27.9% of non-Hispanic Asian adults.

Sleep *difficulties*, distinct from short duration, were common too: in 2024, 15.4% of adults had trouble falling asleep and 18.1% had trouble staying asleep, both markedly higher in women than men.

What lost sleep costs the economy

Lost sleep is also an economic story. A 2016 RAND Europe study estimated that insufficient sleep costs the U.S. economy up to $411 billion a year — about 2.28% of GDP — through absenteeism and "presenteeism" (being at work but underperforming), equivalent to roughly 1.2 million lost working days annually. This is a modeled estimate, with the upper end of a range, not a measured figure.

What the data can — and can't — tell us

These figures come with caveats. All sleep estimates are self-reported, and people tend to overstate how much they sleep, so true prevalence may be higher. The surveys are cross-sectional, capturing correlation rather than proof that work causes sleep loss — though the dose-response pattern across work hours and shift schedules is suggestive. Percentages vary across CDC products and the cost study because of differences in year, survey, mode, and statistical method, so they should not be compared directly.

The convergent takeaway across both NHIS and BRFSS is hard to miss: for American workers, short sleep rises with hours worked and with nonstandard, around-the-clock schedules — and it concentrates in many of the jobs that keep the economy, and the health system, running overnight. If you are consistently sleeping less than 7 hours and feel it affects your health, daytime function, or safety, that is worth raising with a qualified healthcare professional.

Sources

• CDC/NCHS, *Short Sleep Duration and Sleep Difficulties Among Adults: United States, 2024* (Data Brief No. 559): www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db559.htm
• CDC/NCHS, *QuickStats: Percentage of Employed Adults Aged ≥18 Years Who Slept <7 Hours per 24-Hour Period, by Sex and Number of Work Hours per Week — United States, 2022* (MMWR): www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/73/wr/mm7316a6.htm
• CDC, *Short Sleep Duration by Occupation Group — 29 States, 2013–2014* (MMWR, BRFSS): www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6608a2.htm
• CDC, *Short Sleep Duration Among Workers — United States, 2010* (MMWR, NHIS; industry night-shift figures): www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6116a2.htm
• CDC, *FastStats: Sleep in Adults* (BRFSS 2022 state estimates): www.cdc.gov/sleep/data-research/facts-stats/adults-sleep-facts-and-stats.html
• American Academy of Sleep Medicine & Sleep Research Society, *Recommended Amount of Sleep for a Healthy Adult* (joint consensus statement): aasm.org/seven-or-more-hours-of-sleep-per-night-a-health-necessity-for-adults
• RAND Corporation, *Why Sleep Matters — The Economic Costs of Insufficient Sleep* (2016): www.rand.org/randeurope/research/projects/2016/the-value-of-the-sleep-economy.html