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I'm a little worried about how that would affect the lower class in the short term. It's easy to say that they'll get more money as they'll get a day of overti

I'm a little worried about how that would affect the lower class in the short term. It's easy to say that they'll get more money as they'll get a day of overtime, but I think it's more likely that a lot of people will find that businesses just staffed up more for low skilled positions (and eventually for skilled positions), and then people have more time but are only making 80% of what they were previously, and can't afford both rent and food together in a given month anymore. I think the instability this would cause i the lower class would be devastating. The very people that don't have savings and that can't easily weather large financial events would have once forced on them all at the same time.

mlyle 5y ago
I'm not saying to abolish the minimum wage. I'm just saying to reduce the nominal workweek before overtime. > just staffed up more for low skilled positions (and eventually for skilled positions), There's not an infinite supply of bodies out there. It's not clear where you'd just "find 10% more people"-- at least not without raising comp. And, of course, getting closer to full employment is a good thing in itself... > but are only making 80% of ... 36/40 = 90%, even in this worst case where someone has their hours reduced from 40 to 36 to avoid overtime pay. I think there's a lot more poor people that are getting 30-35 hours from their job who would be nowhere close to the overtime threshold before, but now that their normal workweek is closer to the max get it sometimes. Any policy change will hit some people negatively, but I think this would be a net positive for the vast majority of lower earners.
- koala_man 5y ago
  >It's not clear where you'd just "find 10% more people" Well, you just gave millions of low-income workers 10% less money and 10% more time, so my guess is that more people would be forced to get a second job.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - mlyle 5y ago
    On the absolute margins, of people already working 2 jobs-- sure, this policy is likely to mostly cause a reallocation in hours between employers at first. * Some other people will be content working less. * Other people who already get overtime every week will be getting more overtime. * Exempt employees are likely to slowly evolve to working less as the 36 hour workweek becomes the norm. * Employers faced with paying more overtime or getting less hours will need to pay more and work harder to train up lower skilled workers to fill positions. And in the end, everyone shifts up a bit from this reallocation.
- kbenson 5y ago
  > It's not clear where you'd just "find 10% more people" As another commenter noted, maybe from all those people that are no longer making enough to make ends meet. Now you have someone working two jobs, maybe at like 16-24 hours each, and if one of those needs more hours, well, now you're working more than 40 hours a week overall but less than 32 per job and not getting overtime for any of it. I could easily see something like this being one of those well intentioned policies with major negative outcomes. > 36/40 = 90%, My mistake, I missed where you defined it as just dropping four hours off, and "shorter work week" sounds like cutting a day off to me, so I assumed the wrong thing. Even so, 10% is not an amount a lot of people can sustain. You posit that there's a lot more people getting 30-35 hours, but I'm not so sure of that, so would definitely want to see some numbers before endorsing anything like this. Additionally, I think a lot of people that are working less hours are doing so because in some cases employers can get around some laws about sick time and paid time off if employees aren't "full time". The bottom line is that if people have more money, they can choose to work less. Just make sure people are paid more and they'll choose to work less if that's actually important to them, and they'll seek out jobs that offer things they care about (such as less work hours) if that's important to them. Reducing the expected working hours is nice, but I doubt most the people that would actually need it (those working demanding or demeaning jobs) would trade that for less pay given the realities. The only people that can really make use of that are the middle and upper class, and they can already choose to prioritize that and look for work that allows it given their financial stability.
datavirtue 5y ago
One of the problems with low wage work is that it also sucks down all of your time AND you can't afford to take time off--unpaid. The only way to get a new job is finding another low paying job that can hire you on the spot. There is no time for personal growth...job hunting and interviewing. Getting out from underneath it requires a massive time and energy investment that a lot of people cannot maintain for the length of time needed.

mlyle 5y ago

I'm not saying to abolish the minimum wage. I'm just saying to reduce the nominal workweek before overtime. > just staffed up more for low skilled positions (and eventually for skilled positions), There's not an infinite supply of bodies out there. It's not clear where you'd just "find 10% more people"-- at least not without raising comp. And, of course, getting closer to full employment is a good thing in itself... > but are only making 80% of ... 36/40 = 90%, even in this worst case where someone has their hours reduced from 40 to 36 to avoid overtime pay. I think there's a lot more poor people that are getting 30-35 hours from their job who would be nowhere close to the overtime threshold before, but now that their normal workweek is closer to the max get it sometimes. Any policy change will hit some people negatively, but I think this would be a net positive for the vast majority of lower earners.

koala_man 5y ago
>It's not clear where you'd just "find 10% more people" Well, you just gave millions of low-income workers 10% less money and 10% more time, so my guess is that more people would be forced to get a second job.
- deleted 5y ago
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- mlyle 5y ago
  On the absolute margins, of people already working 2 jobs-- sure, this policy is likely to mostly cause a reallocation in hours between employers at first. * Some other people will be content working less. * Other people who already get overtime every week will be getting more overtime. * Exempt employees are likely to slowly evolve to working less as the 36 hour workweek becomes the norm. * Employers faced with paying more overtime or getting less hours will need to pay more and work harder to train up lower skilled workers to fill positions. And in the end, everyone shifts up a bit from this reallocation.
kbenson 5y ago
> It's not clear where you'd just "find 10% more people" As another commenter noted, maybe from all those people that are no longer making enough to make ends meet. Now you have someone working two jobs, maybe at like 16-24 hours each, and if one of those needs more hours, well, now you're working more than 40 hours a week overall but less than 32 per job and not getting overtime for any of it. I could easily see something like this being one of those well intentioned policies with major negative outcomes. > 36/40 = 90%, My mistake, I missed where you defined it as just dropping four hours off, and "shorter work week" sounds like cutting a day off to me, so I assumed the wrong thing. Even so, 10% is not an amount a lot of people can sustain. You posit that there's a lot more people getting 30-35 hours, but I'm not so sure of that, so would definitely want to see some numbers before endorsing anything like this. Additionally, I think a lot of people that are working less hours are doing so because in some cases employers can get around some laws about sick time and paid time off if employees aren't "full time". The bottom line is that if people have more money, they can choose to work less. Just make sure people are paid more and they'll choose to work less if that's actually important to them, and they'll seek out jobs that offer things they care about (such as less work hours) if that's important to them. Reducing the expected working hours is nice, but I doubt most the people that would actually need it (those working demanding or demeaning jobs) would trade that for less pay given the realities. The only people that can really make use of that are the middle and upper class, and they can already choose to prioritize that and look for work that allows it given their financial stability.

datavirtue 5y ago

One of the problems with low wage work is that it also sucks down all of your time AND you can't afford to take time off--unpaid. The only way to get a new job is finding another low paying job that can hire you on the spot. There is no time for personal growth...job hunting and interviewing. Getting out from underneath it requires a massive time and energy investment that a lot of people cannot maintain for the length of time needed.