WASHINGTON -- As millions of workers enjoy the Labor Day holiday break, a new poll shows that more than half of Americans -- 52 percent -- would eagerly trade a day's pay for a day off work each week.

But the poll, released by the Center for a New American Dream, also showed that 46 percent of Americans can't afford, or aren't sure they can afford, even a small pay cut because of the need to keep up with housing, healthcare and other costs.

"We're finding it incredibly difficult to strike a balance between work and family -- three out of five Americans surveyed feel pressure to work too much and more than four out of five wish they had more time to spend with their family," said Diane Wood, executive director of the Center, a Takoma Park, Md. group focused on countering commercialism.

The release of the poll dovetails with two national efforts -- one grassroots and one in Congress -- to spotlight what many see as the growing imbalance between home and work life for many Americans.

In Congress, a bipartisan group of senators is sponsoring a resolution to make a national priority of reducing the conflict between work and family life, and to proclaim October as "National Work and Family Month." The resolution is awaiting action by the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is chaired by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the chief sponsor of the measure, along with Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass.

Hatch and Kennedy disagree on the way to create a more "family friendly" work environment, with Hatch favoring a loosening of labor laws and Kennedy pushing for more government policies to protect workers.

But the two lawmakers stress their agreement on the basic need to focus on the increasingly difficult challenge many Americans face in balancing family needs with ever-longer work hours. "The resolution to declare October Work-Family Month will bring new attention to this important issue," Kennedy said. The goal, added Hatch, is a better life for American families."

In a separate effort, organizers associated with the "Voluntary Simplicity" movement and Cornell University's Center for Religion, Ethics and Social Policy, have designated Friday, Oct. 24 as the first annual "Take Back Your Time Day." They are urging workers across the nation to take all or part of the day off work and organize "teach-ins" or "speak outs" about how to combat the "epidemic of overwork" affecting many Americans.

"Our model is the first Earth Day," said John de Graaf, national coordinator of the initiative and editor of a new book "Take Back Your Time" (Berrett-Koehler, $14.95). "Within two years of that April 22, 1970 event, Congress passed, and a conservative Republican president signed into law, the most significant environmental legislation in our nation's history -- the Clean Air and Water Acts and other similar laws.

"It took a groundswell of popular voices to make that happen and it will take another to change our values about time and money."

The group chose Oct. 24 because it will highlight the fact that Americans work nine weeks more than many workers in Western European nations -- the same amount of time from Oct. 24 until the end of the year.

A study to be released today by the United Nations labor agency says U.S. workers are the world's most productive, but only because they put in more hours than Europeans.

Workers in France, Belgium and Norway beat the Americans in productivity per hour, the International Labor Organization says in its new issue of Key Indicators of the Labor Market.

De Graaf stressed that "Take Back Your Time" organizers hope the initiative will create a "broad coalition for social change." Some participants may favor government policies to reduce work weeks, while other participants may be skeptical about government mandates and instead prefer things like tax relief for working families, he said.

"The stance of 'Take Back Your Time Day' is to let a vigorous public debate begin about a problem we all face," de Graaf said.

There is clear public interest in the issue, according to the poll just released by the Center for a New American Dream, whose motto is "More Fun, Less Stuff." The poll was conducted by Widmeyer Research & Polling among a nationally representative sample of 500 American adults in August

"The unfortunate fact is that ours is a work and spend culture that has serious implications for our quality of life, our environment and the health of our communities," said Wood, the Center's executive director.

Of the 52 percent who say they'd trade a day's pay each week for a day off, 27 percent said they are motivated by a desire to have more free time to do whatever they wanted. Another 21 percent said they want to have more free time to spend with their family, while 20 percent said they just wanted to feel less pressure and stress in their lives.

Children also are feeling the time pinch, organizers said. Earlier this year the Center released another poll in which two-thirds of children ages 9-14 surveyed said they wish their parents had a job that gave them more free time to do things together. In addition, six out of 10 children said they'd rather spend time having fun with their parents than going shopping.