4 ms·

is there any actual research to support this? I'm always wary of arbitrary numbers being mandated by the federal government. Seems like the result would be like

is there any actual research to support this? I'm always wary of arbitrary numbers being mandated by the federal government. Seems like the result would be like the healthcare bill, just more people forced to work multiple part-time jobs

lotsofpulp 5y ago
The alternative is a universal basic income, which is even less likely to pass.
- honkycat 5y ago
  At this point I think UBI is the best solution we have. I would prefer other things, but UBI is simple enough that I think it could work. EVERYWHERE online, people are complaining about the epidemic of houselessness. it sucks for everyone. For the businesses that have to deal with the people our society has abandoned. For the people being forced to live on the streets. At this point we have a choice. Give the unhoused access to subsidized healthcare and housing, or accept the permanent shanty-towns like we live in a 3rd world country.
  - mlyle 5y ago
    I favor both. Let's knock the work week down to 36 hours, and let's replace some of our social programs and tax credits with a (small, to start, but universal) UBI. This works the problem from both ends: it supports employment and wages by reducing the supply of labor, and it still betters the situation for those who are most negatively impacted by shortened work weeks.
  - syshum 5y ago
    The way to get UBI is to first replace all Social programs with the negative Income Tax. You solve the social problems, you stop the welfare trap, and you put the economy on the Path to a UBI. Until we replace all social programs with something better, less corrupt, UBI will never work
- Ericson2314 5y ago
  No they are highly complementary. UBI is very great. The real risk is not inflation, but not enough stuff or any of that other bullshit. The real of UBI is that the work ends up being distrusted highly unevenly, as we birfurcate into poor by not destitute happy do-nothings and rich happy workaholics, and the sometime later the latter group decides to cut off the gravy to the former. (Sure that is a long ways off, and that's why UBI is a fine first step on it's own) Shortening the work week forces the work to be more evenly distributed, which might bumb out people in the short term if they already had UBI, but is best for the long term.
toomuchtodo 5y ago
40 years of the productivity/wage gap [1]. Workers didn't always have the weekend as well [2]. Productivity goes up, you ratchet back the work week. Otherwise, everyone (okay, not everyone, but the vast majority of the country) is slaving for capital [3]. [1] https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/ https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/ ("From 1979 to 2020, net productivity rose 61.8%, while the hourly pay of typical workers grew far slower—increasing only 17.5% over four decades (after adjusting for inflation"). [2] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/08/where-the-five-day-workweek-came-from/378870/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/08/where-t... [3] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/18/the-wealthiest-10percent-of-americans-own-a-record-89percent-of-all-us-stocks.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/18/the-wealthiest-10percent-of-... ("The wealthiest 10% of Americans own a record 89% of all U.S. stocks")
- nverno 5y ago
  It only makes sense to fine the corporations if they have high margins/highly overpaid higher-ups. A blanket law like this would just punish all the businesses that are barely getting by with huge labor cost increases.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - Miner49er 5y ago
    Is that a bad thing though? Short term it would cause a lot of a pain, but long term it seems like it would optimize for more efficiency overall.
  - Ericson2314 5y ago
    What? Ugh "inequality discourse" is so bad. Insofar that people are being the work, the real probme is not rich moneybag's yachts, but the proliferation of inefficient small business that is politically powerful / service industry. The "sin" is more shared, sure. Big industry can get a lot done with new people, and thus small bussines soaks up the freed up labor just enough to keep people busy and suffering, but not so much that the labor market is tight. Small business also has a lot of power in shitty FTP democracy like ours, when big industry can't be as geographically wide spread without loosing efficiency. By taking out the small bussiness with rising "minimal productivity", we force there to be a UBI because it's the only way the big industry can have customer's. That however in turn means big business not hiring people no longer creates the same desperation for jobs. This means that big business must have better working conditions too. Going after yachts, alone, is stupid virtue signalling which doesn't fix the injustice that is the labor market. No one gives a fuck if Bezos's life is more boring is that neighbor asshole owning the McDonald's franchise can still bully his burger flippers.
mlyle 5y ago
I think 32 hours is too big of a step (I favor 36), but it seems very clear to me that this is going to reduce the supply of labor. A lot of non-exempt people who work 40-50 hours now will work 32-40. More people will need to be recruited into these professions and employers will have to pay a touch more. Yes, at the bottom end, from people already with multiple employers, the benefit will be indirect. Reasons to think 36 hours could be reasonable: - We've had a 40 hour work week since 1940; since then productivity has gone up by 6x, but for most of recent history labor has not shared in the gains from productivity growth. - Other developed countries have adopted a 35 hour work week with success and are even considering 32 hours now. - Automation is displacing many jobs; shortening the work week to reduce the supply of labor comparably makes sense. - Alternative schedules of 9x4 or alternating 4 & 5 day workweeks of 8 hours a day make a lot of sense and would reduce stress on transport infrastructure and free up commuting time, too.
- netizen-936824 5y ago
  This is assuming that productivity is linearly correlated with hours worked (it isn't)
  - mlyle 5y ago
    I make no assumption of correlation between productivity and hours worked in my writing. I just say that increased productivity leaves room for this change. If productivity is sublinear, that's an even better argument for shortening the week. If you reduce hours worked by x% and production is reduced by much less than x%, that's great for society too. I mean, what's our objective-- chaining people to the workplace or getting things done? Many jobs requiring coverage / a person to be present will still make the "reduced supply" argument true.
- mschuster91 5y ago
  > but it seems very clear to me that this is going to reduce the supply of labor. Maybe companies would then be forced to eliminate what is commonly called "bullshit jobs" and invest in process optimization. There is so much potential for trimming fat in processes, it's incredible - for example in large companies, sometimes five to six people are involved in reimbursing a 5$ expense: the employee who bought a thing, the team lead, department VP, the data entry person in accounting, the accounting team lead and the person responsible for paying out money/cutting checks. Altogether, that simple 5$ expense burned half an hour of time (or, depending how horrid the processes and tools are, anything to two hours). If the labor cost of all these people would make such processual time waste inexplicably expensive, maybe companies would be forced to give the team leads a budget for small scale expenses and implement a fully digital process. Or your average "daily scrum meeting": no matter the company, everyone sans the boss who wants "progress reports" to show to superiors (again, see my take above on "bullshit jobs"...) loathes it, even if it's "only" fifteen minutes. No I don't care what the fuck you are working on, if you want help for a problem or are stuck somewhere post it in the Teams channel, now leave me the fuck alone to drink my coffee in peace. A team of eight people wasting 15 min each work day is 10 working hours a week. Or inadequate equipment: thankfully I have been at places that issued top notch equipment for the majority of my career, but I began in the public sector in sysops - and my private laptop had double or thrice the CPU and RAM power that the ages old desktop office machine. The amount of time wasted waiting for compiles or even loading Office... jesus. Or inadequate tooling: just how many corporate processes are built on slow, complex Excel datasheetsm slow 1970s-ish mainframe UIs or require manual copying of data between applications is mind-boggling.
philmcp 5y ago
I wrote about this recently https://4dayweek.io/blog/benefits-of-a-4-day-work-week-the-pros-and-cons https://4dayweek.io/blog/benefits-of-a-4-day-work-week-the-p...
Ericson2314 5y ago
What? With any same version of this law the multiple part time jobs loophole must be closed. The point is under capitalism technology is prevented from reducing human labor. The more stuff is automated, the cheaper labor becomes, and there is no reason to further reduce the use of labor --- instead we get innovation that replaces more expensive machine with cheaper machines or the like. Furthermore, the only time workers get more power is some sort of labor shortage, but if that is due to high demand there still isn't a reason to work less --- if anything, work a lot to save up for the next down term. The is no way for the system to endogenously shrink the work-week, so it must be endogenously imposed.
- netizen-936824 5y ago
  Can you please explain the term "endogenous" in the context of your comment? You appear to use it in two different ways where the implied meaning are polar opposites. Did you mean to write "exogenous" for one of them?
  - Ericson2314 5y ago
    Yes sorry the second one is supposed to be "exogenous"

lotsofpulp 5y ago

The alternative is a universal basic income, which is even less likely to pass.

honkycat 5y ago
At this point I think UBI is the best solution we have. I would prefer other things, but UBI is simple enough that I think it could work. EVERYWHERE online, people are complaining about the epidemic of houselessness. it sucks for everyone. For the businesses that have to deal with the people our society has abandoned. For the people being forced to live on the streets. At this point we have a choice. Give the unhoused access to subsidized healthcare and housing, or accept the permanent shanty-towns like we live in a 3rd world country.
- mlyle 5y ago
  I favor both. Let's knock the work week down to 36 hours, and let's replace some of our social programs and tax credits with a (small, to start, but universal) UBI. This works the problem from both ends: it supports employment and wages by reducing the supply of labor, and it still betters the situation for those who are most negatively impacted by shortened work weeks.
- syshum 5y ago
  The way to get UBI is to first replace all Social programs with the negative Income Tax. You solve the social problems, you stop the welfare trap, and you put the economy on the Path to a UBI. Until we replace all social programs with something better, less corrupt, UBI will never work
Ericson2314 5y ago
No they are highly complementary. UBI is very great. The real risk is not inflation, but not enough stuff or any of that other bullshit. The real of UBI is that the work ends up being distrusted highly unevenly, as we birfurcate into poor by not destitute happy do-nothings and rich happy workaholics, and the sometime later the latter group decides to cut off the gravy to the former. (Sure that is a long ways off, and that's why UBI is a fine first step on it's own) Shortening the work week forces the work to be more evenly distributed, which might bumb out people in the short term if they already had UBI, but is best for the long term.

toomuchtodo 5y ago

40 years of the productivity/wage gap [1]. Workers didn't always have the weekend as well [2]. Productivity goes up, you ratchet back the work week. Otherwise, everyone (okay, not everyone, but the vast majority of the country) is slaving for capital [3]. [1] https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/ https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/ ("From 1979 to 2020, net productivity rose 61.8%, while the hourly pay of typical workers grew far slower—increasing only 17.5% over four decades (after adjusting for inflation"). [2] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/08/where-the-five-day-workweek-came-from/378870/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/08/where-t... [3] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/18/the-wealthiest-10percent-of-americans-own-a-record-89percent-of-all-us-stocks.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/18/the-wealthiest-10percent-of-... ("The wealthiest 10% of Americans own a record 89% of all U.S. stocks")

nverno 5y ago
It only makes sense to fine the corporations if they have high margins/highly overpaid higher-ups. A blanket law like this would just punish all the businesses that are barely getting by with huge labor cost increases.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Miner49er 5y ago
  Is that a bad thing though? Short term it would cause a lot of a pain, but long term it seems like it would optimize for more efficiency overall.
- Ericson2314 5y ago
  What? Ugh "inequality discourse" is so bad. Insofar that people are being the work, the real probme is not rich moneybag's yachts, but the proliferation of inefficient small business that is politically powerful / service industry. The "sin" is more shared, sure. Big industry can get a lot done with new people, and thus small bussines soaks up the freed up labor just enough to keep people busy and suffering, but not so much that the labor market is tight. Small business also has a lot of power in shitty FTP democracy like ours, when big industry can't be as geographically wide spread without loosing efficiency. By taking out the small bussiness with rising "minimal productivity", we force there to be a UBI because it's the only way the big industry can have customer's. That however in turn means big business not hiring people no longer creates the same desperation for jobs. This means that big business must have better working conditions too. Going after yachts, alone, is stupid virtue signalling which doesn't fix the injustice that is the labor market. No one gives a fuck if Bezos's life is more boring is that neighbor asshole owning the McDonald's franchise can still bully his burger flippers.

mlyle 5y ago

I think 32 hours is too big of a step (I favor 36), but it seems very clear to me that this is going to reduce the supply of labor. A lot of non-exempt people who work 40-50 hours now will work 32-40. More people will need to be recruited into these professions and employers will have to pay a touch more. Yes, at the bottom end, from people already with multiple employers, the benefit will be indirect. Reasons to think 36 hours could be reasonable: - We've had a 40 hour work week since 1940; since then productivity has gone up by 6x, but for most of recent history labor has not shared in the gains from productivity growth. - Other developed countries have adopted a 35 hour work week with success and are even considering 32 hours now. - Automation is displacing many jobs; shortening the work week to reduce the supply of labor comparably makes sense. - Alternative schedules of 9x4 or alternating 4 & 5 day workweeks of 8 hours a day make a lot of sense and would reduce stress on transport infrastructure and free up commuting time, too.

netizen-936824 5y ago
This is assuming that productivity is linearly correlated with hours worked (it isn't)
- mlyle 5y ago
  I make no assumption of correlation between productivity and hours worked in my writing. I just say that increased productivity leaves room for this change. If productivity is sublinear, that's an even better argument for shortening the week. If you reduce hours worked by x% and production is reduced by much less than x%, that's great for society too. I mean, what's our objective-- chaining people to the workplace or getting things done? Many jobs requiring coverage / a person to be present will still make the "reduced supply" argument true.
mschuster91 5y ago
> but it seems very clear to me that this is going to reduce the supply of labor. Maybe companies would then be forced to eliminate what is commonly called "bullshit jobs" and invest in process optimization. There is so much potential for trimming fat in processes, it's incredible - for example in large companies, sometimes five to six people are involved in reimbursing a 5$ expense: the employee who bought a thing, the team lead, department VP, the data entry person in accounting, the accounting team lead and the person responsible for paying out money/cutting checks. Altogether, that simple 5$ expense burned half an hour of time (or, depending how horrid the processes and tools are, anything to two hours). If the labor cost of all these people would make such processual time waste inexplicably expensive, maybe companies would be forced to give the team leads a budget for small scale expenses and implement a fully digital process. Or your average "daily scrum meeting": no matter the company, everyone sans the boss who wants "progress reports" to show to superiors (again, see my take above on "bullshit jobs"...) loathes it, even if it's "only" fifteen minutes. No I don't care what the fuck you are working on, if you want help for a problem or are stuck somewhere post it in the Teams channel, now leave me the fuck alone to drink my coffee in peace. A team of eight people wasting 15 min each work day is 10 working hours a week. Or inadequate equipment: thankfully I have been at places that issued top notch equipment for the majority of my career, but I began in the public sector in sysops - and my private laptop had double or thrice the CPU and RAM power that the ages old desktop office machine. The amount of time wasted waiting for compiles or even loading Office... jesus. Or inadequate tooling: just how many corporate processes are built on slow, complex Excel datasheetsm slow 1970s-ish mainframe UIs or require manual copying of data between applications is mind-boggling.

philmcp 5y ago

I wrote about this recently https://4dayweek.io/blog/benefits-of-a-4-day-work-week-the-pros-and-cons https://4dayweek.io/blog/benefits-of-a-4-day-work-week-the-p...

Ericson2314 5y ago

What? With any same version of this law the multiple part time jobs loophole must be closed. The point is under capitalism technology is prevented from reducing human labor. The more stuff is automated, the cheaper labor becomes, and there is no reason to further reduce the use of labor --- instead we get innovation that replaces more expensive machine with cheaper machines or the like. Furthermore, the only time workers get more power is some sort of labor shortage, but if that is due to high demand there still isn't a reason to work less --- if anything, work a lot to save up for the next down term. The is no way for the system to endogenously shrink the work-week, so it must be endogenously imposed.

netizen-936824 5y ago
Can you please explain the term "endogenous" in the context of your comment? You appear to use it in two different ways where the implied meaning are polar opposites. Did you mean to write "exogenous" for one of them?
- Ericson2314 5y ago
  Yes sorry the second one is supposed to be "exogenous"