“Moving to a 32-hour workweek with no loss of pay is not a radical idea,” said Senator Sanders. 
In legislation absolutely certain of going nowhere, Bernie Sanders Introduces Legislation to Enact a 32-Hour Workweek with No Loss in Pay
“It is time to reduce the stress level in our country and allow Americans to enjoy a better quality of life. It is time for a 32-hour workweek with no loss in pay.”
Gaining Momentum
CNBC compounds the silliness with a claim “The four-day workweek is gaining momentum in Congress.”
The four-day workweek is gaining momentum in Congress: Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., introduced legislation Wednesday that would reduce the standard workweek to 32 hours without a pay cut.
The act would shorten the standard workweek over four years by mandating that overtime pay kicks in after 32 hours worked in a week, down from the current 40. Those who work more than 8 hours in a day would get overtime pay at time-and-a-half, and those who work more than 12 hours in a day would be entitled to double their regular pay.
The bill is gaining as much Congressional momentum as would a bill in support of spreading toenail fungus.
Small businesses are already struggling with labor costs.
Cost of Running a McDonalds Jumps $250,000 in California
Prices at fast food restaurants in California are set to jump in April as huge minimum wage hikes kick in. Escalating restaurant prices won’t be limited to California.
On February 4, I noted the Cost of Running a McDonalds Jumps $250,000 in CA Due to Minimum Wage Hikes
What would food prices cost if everyone got paid for 40 hours while working only 32 hours? What would a hotel cost? Groceries? Auto repairs? Hospital care?
It’s much more than it appears.
The qualified labor pool is not big enough to handle a mandated need for 20 percent more workers even if it was phased in.
How would the bill even work? Does everyone makes their current pay plus 20 percent? It’s an idiotic proposal.
Selective Support
I am in favor of Bernie’s idea in one instance: Congressional Democrats. I would gladly pay them full salary to do nothing at all.
In fact, I would double their pay if they would stay home and not vote on anything.
Otherwise, I would rather vote for a bill to spread toenail fungus. It would be much less damaging.
Be easier to work those two jobs….
the land of Oz….fckn great !
What is a work week ? I work just enough to make it look like I’m productive. It is more art than science. I think productivity per hour is only like 50%. So theoretically you should be able to reduce the work week to 20 hours.
I’ve said for decades the biggest question that will be posed to all is how to keep more people from becoming homeless under capitalism. Eventually automation will replace most jobs. So then what are humans to do under the current economic system ? I believe human employment peaked long ago.
I really do believe the future can look like star trek where life is spent not surviving but exploring new worlds. The current economic system is simply not sustainable for humans. It has little to do with the system itself and more to do with humans being coopted by innovation.
So the reduction in population increases occurring in the US (and other G8 countries) is really part of the adaptation of humans to the changing environment forced by technology and automation. Capitalist system working to some degree!
Perhaps you’ll enlighten us by describing your superior systems of economics and politics which will release us from our slavery and provide the resources and intelligence we need.
EWW (Fauxcahontas) scares me more but they are equally dangerous. Did Al Gore really propose a 1-time 15% tax on retirement accounts way back when? I suppose they’re all consistent in making sure everyone suffers one way or another – for the good of big gov’t
Sanders is always attacking businesses. He’s always trying to increase the cost and difficulty of doing business in the US. The man is an idiot and so are all his supporters.
Sanders is stuck in the socialist mindset.There is a better capitalist way to double the purchasing power of everyone which will not cost enterprise a penny in increased cost.
Money is created by either the banks or the treasury simply with accounting entries. You know that Mish because you said you learned things fron Steve Keen and he has proved that to be true. The Bundes Bank and Bank of England have also confirmed this fact.
So if you implemented a policy of a 50% Discount at retail sale, and the monetary authority rebated the entirety of all discounts back to the merchants giving it to consumers their purchasing power would mathematically double and demand would consequently potentially double for every enterprise’s goods and services.
The merchant would simply open a T-account labeled Retail Discounts and the monetary authority would open an account labeled Thus and So’s Discount Rebates and all of the debits and credits will sum to zero and everybody gets their full price and the benefits of the policy. A few other carrot and stick policies to solidify and stabilize the new paradigm.
You can bemoan stupidities and hold onto orthodoxies on the left and the right, or you can beneficially solve problems and have more prosperity than you previously thought possible.
Why do you propose only 50%? Similarly, why work exactly 32 hours. Just make everything free and end the work requirement. This messing around with a few percent here and a few hours there just muddies the waters. Get on with it already!
The way this could work is to realize that the shorter work week is the ultimate goal, and could be done incrementally with the same rate of pay per hour. Perhaps a 20 minute reduced work week per year so taking 3 years to get to a 39 hour work week. Within 9 years the work week would be 37 hours, and in 12 years the work week might modify into 4 nine hour shifts for full time employment.
The wage rate would adjust organically like it always does, people will naturally gravitate to the best jobs if possible, and employers will pay to attract the best talent.
Many employers are already hiring only pert time workers, and temporary workers to avoid benefits, so not much of an excuse there. Being in my early 60’s i lived in a time when many enterprises had much reduced operating hours and things worked just fine; even better than now.
By design, we now have many two income families just to survive, and day care is raising Americas kids. Anything to alleviate the work load on families should be considered a healthy move. With better work leisure ration, able bodied people on public assistance that don’t work at all could take up the slack. No need for illegals to ever be hired for a job in America.
There are a lot of companies that have 37.5 or 35 hour weeks now and have been at these numbers for many years.
It doesn’t matter. Most human job are going to be replaced by humanoid robots and AI.
This is good news.
How about $50/hr minimum rate? The apparent justification is that because prices are expensive in the SF Bay Area, we need to increase the minimum hourly earnings. But no mention is made of how doing this would then increase prices even more, thus requiring further increase sin the minimum hourly rate, etc., etc.
——
California Senate candidates spar over Dem’s proposal for $50 minimum wage: ‘Do the math’
By Andrew Mark Miller
February 13, 2024
A Monday night debate in California between several candidates vying for an open Senate seat included a question about raising the minimum wage to $50, an idea that one Democrat candidate has floated.
“In the Bay Area, I believe it was the United Way that came out with a report that very recently $127,000 for a family of four is just barely enough to get by,” Democratic Congresswoman Barbara Lee said when asked to defend her previous support of a $50 minimum wage and explain how it would be “sustainable.”
“Another survey very recently: $104,000. For a family of one, barely enough to get by, low income because of the affordability crisis.”
Lee has previously called for a $50 minimum wage, which would amount to around $104,000 per year of income. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour and ranges from $16-$20 in California.
…
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/california-senate-candidates-spar-over-dems-proposal-minimum-wage
Boomers expect to be catered to in their old age. They’ll drag social security into the grave with them, and surf on inflationary policy that forces the young to work more and more for less and less.
That’s assuming the young put up with this…
Reduce stress level? LOL! Hmmm- end the FED.
It’s been almost 100 years since Henry Ford instituted a 5 day work week… which was, at the time, super controversial.
So, for what it’s worth, there’s some precedent here. It’s not like having 2 days off was how the world worked for most of human history.
100 years ago, productivity was rapidly increasing, and Americans were getting wealthier every year. Leading them to take some of those gains out as more leisure.
Today, the exact opposite dynamic is in play: Americans are rapidly getting poorer, and productivity is declining. Hence why work hours are now instead increasing, right along with decreasing pay.
“We” were, wealth wise, effectively a third world country in 1850. By 1920 we were not. Now we are back to third world status again.
If it was not for The Fed and the rest of 20th century pathologies; Americans would likely work 3 days a week by now. For twice current take home. But since we did; and do; have a Fed, and income taxes and all the rest; instead “we” are no back to working 6.
Don’t forget lobbying creating a Corporatocracy. Nothing gets fixed until lobbying is illegal.
” Nothing gets fixed until lobbying is illegal.”
Lobbying means living in the same school district as a politician. Nominally “Legal,” has little to no bearing on anything.
As long as there is an even 1 millionth percent greater probability that Warren Buffet’s opinion on “economic policy” is given even the tiniest amount of greater consideration than the opinion of any random junkie under a freeway overpass: “lobbying” is all we’re left with.
What’s important is rendering lobbying irrelevant. By making sure government is too small, powerless and limited to do much of anything at all, regardless. Not by granting ambulance chasing rabble even greater dominion than they already have been granted.
“Government goods and services”; AKA robbery and harassment of some, for the benefit of others; are no different from any other goods and services: They are just as much governed by economic laws as any other goods and services. IOW: They are sold to the highest bidder. That will NEVER change. The only thing which can be changed, is how much harassment of others government is in a position to sell to the highest bidder: The smaller and more limited government is, the less point there is in lobbying it. The Founders figured that one out intuitively; them not being stupid and all. Something which can not be said for any member of the current day “made money from my home” illiterate indoctrinati.
A career politician who has never held a real job in his life.
BTW, the Federal Minimum Wage is currently $7.25/hr. Might need a little updating there.
Bernie Sanders is the most economically illiterate member of congress.
Reducing the workweek from 40 hours to 32 hours with no cut in pay amounts to a 25% pay increase.
One only needs to be barely more intelligent than Bernie Sanders to know what that would do to prices.
Heck, look at California and what their minimum wage hikes have done for fast food prices.
Wait until the new wage hike goes into effect in 10 days.
The only silver lining in Bernie’s idiocy is that it has absolutely no chance of going anywhere other than coming out his mouth.
California resident here: my wife and I with our 8-year old son went to Chipotle after swimming lessons. It’s nice to get out with the family. Three burrito bowls, one medium soda (two free waters), and a bag of chips was $35. Maybe this is a different approach to reducing obesity.
Bernie is a cynical old communist who appeals to the lowest common denominator free shit army. I put him in the same category as F.D.Roosevelt and Maxine Waters.
A 32 hour work week would be great for the US Congress. The less they work the better off we all will be. I’m all in Bernie but let the private sector decide what is best for their own business.
ive tried various work week schedules in the past. Did 4 10’s for a while. Cool 3 day weekends but if you have daily chores it sucks. Around 20 years ago I did some sort of 12 hour rotation thing. Extra days off. Then you waste the first one sleeping and dont get jack done on workdays. Finally realized, if you have to work, that 8 hours a day m-f is best.
Your staff will become 20% less productive overnight. What are you going to do? You are going to figure out a way to make it work which means you will automate so you can fire more workers. So the 32 hour ww will eventually lead to lower employment levels. Way to go Bernie!
or go out of business for the ones that cant afford automation or it’s not a choice due to nature of work.
2 step process in how to create run away inflation
thanks bernie
Malls became ghost towns, bc the breakeven cost of a center sore was over $800K/y.
According to Bernie UPS will stall, bc the cost of the average full time employee, working overtime 32h/w, with benefits, might be $80/$100/h. That will lead to ==> shortages and bottlenecks.
Many small businessmen work 10h/12h per day, invest to grow their business, but hardly make a living for years. Many startups fade. They don’t cash in. The risk/reward of startups is bad. Full time jobs are down 1.8 million. Bernie wants to fix it.
Bernie wants to foist his communist dreams on gov employees and private co. Gov
can raise debt “without a limit”, but private co can’t. It’s not fair. They go broke. Their employees will survive on unemployment benefits.
An anonymous manufacturer proposes a 20% reduction in quality/size/weight with no reduction in price.
A union proposes a 20% increase in salaries to make up for the 20% decrease of purchasing power.
“An anonymous manufacturer proposes a 20% reduction in quality/size/weight with no reduction in price.”
For the 80+% of current workers; or at least the ones who receive 80+% of compensation in our lock limit financialized dystopia; where is the problem?
America would be wealthier; hence able to pay them more; if politicians, ambulance chasers, “investors”, lobbyists “economists” and other rent seekers and “ownership society” leeches all cut their hours by not just 20%, but indeed at least 90. After all: All that the idiots do, is destroy value. Every.single.hour they engage in what their pea sized little intellects believe is “work.”
I only have one question: what does the US government has to do with dictating work hours to the private sector?
Well, I have another (bonus) question: name one thing the government got involved in, which did not end up costing substantially more to an average citizen?
“what does the US government has to do with dictating work hours to the private sector?”
The exact same they have to do with dictating what private sector property owners can and can not build on their private property.
IOW: Nothing.
But that hardly stops the stupid, clueless illiterate and pliantly indoctrinated from cheering on them to do both of the above.
What is so effing stupid is that a standard 40-hour work week, for those IN CHARGE (Middle Management) is NOT TRUE NOW.
I was a middle manager, exempt from overtime and my work weeks, making less than $40K a year, were LONG arduous affairs…I would arrive at work at 7am and leave at 8pm – -day after day, as we were a start-up or my earlier jobs were in high Tech with NUMBERS to make, such as Friday shipments, and month end and quarter end numbers: A LOT OF PRESSURE to fill orders to get Distributors/Clients to give us ADD-ON orders so we could make OUR NUMBERS.
A 32-hour work week, in such an environment, would lead to FAILURE. Sanders has never done a REAL JOB with REAL PRESSURE.
What a piece of crap he is.
I will add that because I hustled up and worked 60 to 80 hour weeks, I was noticed (for showing up early and leaving late) and ultimately got lured over to a START UP – – my last real job – – and we kicked ASS.
I was READY to be an owner and got a huge Stock grant and because I became partner, director and Exec VP. the rewards and bonuses finally kicked in. I was only 32 years old.
Our business exploded. We kept doubling revenues and reducing BILLS OF MATERIALS costs and our net profits exploded with that growth.
IT WAS LONG HOURS for sure.
Ultimately, we went public (IPO) and I quit at 38 years old, balding and stressed out, I sold ALL of my stock and retired.
It is now over 40 years later and I do not regret working long hours. We retired, down-sized, dumped the Mercedes, and Lexus and CRAP and we now travel full time in an RV and overseas by private jet.
IT PAID OFF.
It’s good when a startup succeeds and stock options kick-in but the vast majority of time, this doesn’t happen.
I worked for probably 8 companies that handed out stock options. Though I worked hard at all of them, only one company succeeded, where I realized maybe $50k on my options. Most of the time, hard work is not rewarded.
Well, certainly. Startups most often fail. The idea is that one success pays for the four (or more) failures. It’s a crap shoot. Not a world for the sort of person who wants that predictable, reliable, lifetime government job.
Work in the startup world? You might have noticed you often get paid for what you did, not do.
Bernie will help the Democrats loose support from business both large and small. Another nail in the Party’s coffin.
Bernie is the odd duck-billed platypus in the Blue Zoo.
typo
I was just reading a story about people working in entertainment industry at upper level jobs, are seeing pay cuts, when seeking work after the writer/actor strike. One talked of going from $525,000 down to $350,000. TV and movie production is not 9-5. A 4 day work week will drive up costs if Friday is time and a half. Back in the early days, a season was up to 39 episodes. That dropped to 22 as costs increased.
Program length dropped from 51 minutes to less than 43 per hour to fit more commercials.
Marxists like Sanders don’t think about the unintended consequences of their proposals. But for each economic action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Creating a boom results in creating a bust.
Shrinkflation for the labor market… mandated by the government!
Leave it to Bernie!
I could see that happening, but only if it doesn’t apply to the illegal immigrants taking the jobs Americans don’t want: meat processing & veggie picking.
Last I checked the only bill he has ever authored was re-naming a couple of post offices. He should stay on that trail and reduce postal service by 32% since I get 32 pieces of junk mail a week.
Bernie’s picture should be in the post offices, right between John Wayne Gacy and Sam Bankman-Fraud.
How does this work with labor force participation rates trending down?
60 years ago my 2nd grade teacher said several times that when us kids became adults, we probably would have a four day work week. Like my flying car, another broken promise. So much for machine productivity improving things for the working class. Just makes you run faster to stay in the same place.
Most people waste half their time at work, no reason we can’t trade those wasted hours and put them all in a Friday, with people actually working all day the other four days
But most people would turn into vegetables, staring at the TV, getting drunk or stoned, basically doing next to nothing if they didn’t have to go to work.
You mean there’d be no change?
New Soviet Man. Federal workers are already probably below 32 hours of actual work each week. Far below.
That and the old classic image depicting 10 guys working on a small section of fence in the Soviet Union. Where only 1 or 2 workers are actually needed. But they had full employment gosh darn you. LOL.
Just look at any city run street repair crew, where the same principle is followed. They have two people to hold Stop/Slow signs, one to shovel in the asphalt, one to sweep up the excess, one to tamp down the patch and at least one driver. Full union employment!
There are actually machines that only have a driver and that automate the whole process. For example:
Pothole-filling machine at work
Mar 12, 2015
In addition to the Department’s usual winter pothole repair method of using cold patch material, NJDOT is using 13 state-of-the-art pothole-filling machines. The pothole-filling machine is a truck that can heat a mix of asphalt and gravel before injecting the mixture into the pothole. It provides a more lasting repair, which in the long run saves time and money.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaYi16bvrJ0
AND
The Ultimate Pothole Patcher
The Python 5000 is a self-propelled pothole patching machine that will save you money while keeping your streets and roads well-maintained. It will make long-lasting patches using standard asphalt mixes, and it has the unique ability to make continuous repairs to long cracks and joins in the road. One person can easily carry out the entire patching operation without ever leaving the comfort and safety of the operator’s cab.
https://www.superiorroads.com/
As a retired Fed, like most places, 20% are doing 80% of the work at Federal agencies.
I’m semi-retired and work one day a week for one day’s pay lol.
The data we have suggests productivity improves dramatically, enough that many businesses become *more* profitable.
Anyone who has ever worked a 9-5 in an office can tell you how much work is getting done after 3:30, or all day on Friday.
So maybe not as stupid as you think, though obviously not possible in all industries.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/4-day-work-week-trial-yields-overwhelming-success-in-u-k-researchers-say
SO a business can choose to do this. And maybe they should. But the government shouldn’t mandate it. There’s the difference
Maybe you missed the part about this legislation being sure to go nowhere. IOW you can just call this “Lib virtue signaling” and get back to your day without a worry. I’m sure most Dems in Congress would vote this down alongside practically every GOPer
I don’t know where you work, apparently for the government 😁, but in my business after 3:30 and on Friday afternoons the people who wanted to be productive continued to be productive. Not to mention weekends.
Sure, but the evidence we have suggests that most people are more productive in a 32 hour scenario. That evidence could be wrong, of course, but it’s the evidence we have right now.
I prefer to enjoy my weekend working for me, not The Man
Same thing with the school day.
What happens when all day Friday becomes all day Thursday?
Bingo. That is exactly what will happen.
It’s called progress. Why do you want to work more hours rather than fewer?
Well, that’s not what happened in the experiment, but that evidence could be wrong.
So Thursday becomes Friday. Instead of getting no work done on one out of every five days you now get no work done on one out of four days.
Universal Basic Income. Just do it. Don’t toy with socialism. Go full on. It’s worked so well in so many places
Name one.
It’s actually being done in multiple locations now.
https://www.google.com/search?q=guaranteed+monthly+income
Clearly this guy is being serious
I believe this was meant to be sarcastic?
This is literally almost the perfect example of a purely inflationary action. Why not just pay everyone to do nothing ?? I’m sure no one will notice the inflation. LOL
This is literally almost the perfect example of a purely inflationary action. Why not just pay everyone to do nothing ?? I’m sure no one will notice the inflation. LOL
It’s called UBI – Universal Basic Income..