Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Bernie introduces legislation to reduce the work week

 So, Bernie is pushing for the idea to reduce the work week to 32 hours for the same pay as 40. I don't expect it to pass, but I do want to note it. obviously, I support such a move. I didn't make it a formal part of my purity test for 2024, but reducing the work week is getting up there for me with other priorities like UBI, medicare for all, free college, etc. I just ain't prioritizing it since literally no presidential candidate has endorsed such a move or made it a major part of their platform. But I do think that my form of human centered capitalism is going in the direction of being willing to trade off GDP growth for a reduced work week. Of course, there is the argument that a 32 work week would have such a mild impact it would be unnoticeable since a lot of workers are feigning working 40 hours when in reality they're working less. it really depends on the kinds of jobs that people do. Shift work might need more people to pick up the slack, which might not be a good idea to propose in an era of near record low unemployment, I mean, I've been toying with the idea of pushing this stuff during recessions to "share" work and reduce unemployment more quickly. Office work, I could see a shift down to 32 hours being as productive as 40. I feel like a lot of those guys pad out their time to look busy when they're not. Heck for some of these guys you could probably go all the way down to 10-20 hours maybe, although I dont think that's the norm.

Either way, I approve of the change.

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