HI HO, HI HO, it's back to work we go. Most Americans who escaped home and hearth for the long weekend fired up their last barbecues of the season yesterday, the holiday on which we down our final gin and tonics, or Diet Coke-and-hot-dogs, depending on taste and upbringing, and prepare to face the real world. That form of celebration is somewhat at variance with the original intention of the several state legislatures that established the first Monday in September as a national holiday.

Those ordinances, the first of which were passed in 1886, called for street parades to exhibit "the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations." With GM, Ford, and other manufacturing companies that are the traditional bastions of the trade union movement laying off workers by the tens of thousands and membership in unions dropping like a stone, unions are not in a celebratory mood. Not too many parades this year.

Some 35 million Americans traveled 50 miles or more from home this past weekend, 30 million by car, according to the Automobile Association of America. Both figures are up from last year, although not by much. Whether the increase would have been greater had there not been airport turmoil due to tighter security, and had gasoline prices fallen further, no one knows.

Americans return to the real world of jobs, school, errands, and chores sending mixed signals about how they view their own situations. No surprise that 73 percent of Americans say they would be happier if they made more money: 28 percent tell Gallup pollsters they would be happier with up to $10,000 more in annual earnings; 17 percent aspire to between $10,000 and $20,000; 14 percent would have between $20,000 and $50,000; and the greedier feel it would take $50,000 or more to bring permanent smiles to their faces.

This desire for more income does not stop 86 percent of Americans from professing themselves completely (42 percent) or somewhat (44 percent) satisfied with their jobs. Equally important as they face a return to the daily grind, 69 percent are completely satisfied with their relations with their co-workers, probably a higher percentage than were satisfied with the relatives they visited this weekend.

That's the good news. The bad news is that a new survey by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found that 62 percent of workers feel less secure in their jobs than a decade ago. Fully 77 percent say that outsourcing hurts American workers in general, and 31 percent tell the Pew pollsters that their jobs can be handled by workers overseas--an unnerving prospect. And consumer confidence has recently declined at the fastest pace since the days following Hurricane Katrina one year ago.

HAPPY WITH THE JOB, but insecure in it. Confusing. And it is not only what consumers say that is confusing. So is their behavior. If workers are feeling as insecure as they claim, they might be zipping their purses. Instead, they continue to spend and to drive the savings rate further into negative territory. Many retailers are reporting surprisingly good sales results: sales at posh jeweler Tiffany rose 5 percent last month in the United States, high-end retailers Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus posted strong results, and Wal-Mart's August sales jumped 8.1 percent compared with last year.