This value American workers appear to place on working clearly plays out in reality, as some winners of the recent $448 multistate Powerball lottery did indeed decide to keep working. Susan Nickel, 63 years old, was one of the winners in New Jersey, but told reporters that while she would urge her husband to retire, she, personally, would continue working. On the other hand, winner Paul White of Minnesota was representative of the minority of workers across the country, saying he didn’t “want to work for anybody else for the rest of my life for a paycheck.”

Most American workers who predict they would continue working even after winning the lottery say they would want to stay at the same job rather than seek a new job. The roughly 2-to-1 ratio in favor of keeping the same job versus getting a new one is about the same as in 2004, but slightly higher than in 2005 and 1997.