What would our work weeks look like if we passed on economic growth in the form of shorter work weeks?

 So, my post the other day got me thinking: gee, if we could work 5 hours less than we could have 10 years ago and have the same economy we did per capita, what could we have done over the past century or so? And that's what I want to look at today. 

Now, obviously, we don't want to not grow at all. So I'll be looking at different models of how we could have traded various levels of growth into shorter working hours over time. I'll be starting with 1938, with the FLSA (and thus, 40 hour work weeks) being implemented, and running simulations where every 10 years or so I look at how we could've traded some of that growth for shorter working hours. I'll look at simulations where we trade varying levels of economic growth for shorter hours. I admit, this might not be a perfect simulation. Working hours might not scale perfectly with growth. Some industries need more labor than others. Could you imagine nurses having 15 hour weeks during COVID? Yeah, I can't either. At the same time, automation might eliminate other jobs entirely. Still, this should give an AN IDEA of what could have been done if we shifted working hours to account for greater productivity over time, and what we could do over the next century if we continue to grow like we have. 

First, let's look at GDP over time, and then correct it for inflation.

Year	Nominal GDP	GDP in 2022 dollars	Percent change
1938 (“1940”)	$670.94	$13,378.26	N/A
1950	$2,085.98	$24,334.82	+81.9%
1960	$2,969.28	$28,202.94	+15.9%
1970	$5,280.90	$38,265.84	+35.7%
1980	$13,085.64	$44,648.08	+16.7%
1990	$23,923.14	$51,460.93	+15.3%
2000	$36,818.33	$60,112.66	+16.8%
2010	$49,330.01	$63,603.08	+5.8%
2021 (“2020”)	$72,183.03	$72,183.03	+13.5%

So, we see, with the 40 hour work week standard, we generally see around 15% growth per decade, but it varies. The end of the great depression, WWII, etc. really exploded the economy post 1938. The 1960s were also a really great decade. On the flip side, the great recession in 2008 seemed to stunt most of the gains made during the 2000s. 

Okay, so, here's a thought experiment. What if instead of growing, we just lived in the late 1930s forever living standards wise? What would our work hours look like over time? I wouldn't recommend doing this, but assuming hours scale linearly, this is what I come up with:

Year	GDP growth	Work week
1938	N/A	40 hours
1950	+81.9%	22 hours
1960	+15.9%	19 hours
1970	+35.7%	14 hours
1980	+16.7%	12 hours
1990	+15.3%	10.4 hours
2000	+16.8%	8.9 hours
2010	+5.8%	8.4 hours
2021	+13.5%	7.4 hours

So, yikes. We could be working a lot less in theory. But there are a few things I don't like about this. First of all, we SHOULD grow somewhat. The GDP per capita in 1938 was like what China's is today roughly. And honestly, going straight to 22 hours due to an anomalous high gdp growth seems a bit insane to me. I mean, WWII was responsible for much of that. So I think from now on I'm going to start from 1950. So imagine Harry Truman managed to pass some sort of law where every 10 years some of our our productivity gains would be translated into lower working hours.

Doing the 100% scenario over from 1950 this is what I come up with:

Year	GDP growth	Work week
1950	N/A	40 hours
1960	+15.9%	34.5 hours
1970	+35.7%	25.4 hours
1980	+16.7%	21.8 hours
1990	+15.3%	18.9 hours
2000	+16.8%	16.2 hours
2010	+5.8%	15.3 hours
2021	+13.5%	13.5 hours

While the 1960s are still anomalous in terms of high GDP growth, it gives a telling picture. In one decade, we could cut our number of working hours by one per day, having 5 7 hour days. After 60 years of this, we could've been living Keynes dream of 15 hour work weeks. Of course, this is still assuming we live like we did in 1950. And while that wasn't terrible, it was lacking compared to today with the economy only being 1/3 of the size per capita it is today. I mean, if we compared this to how people live today, we would be similar to Portugal or Bahrain. That actually ain't that bad. We're talking middle income countries that aren't really poor, but aren't really rich either. Much of eastern Europe and the oil rich countries in the middle east tend to live in a similar way too. 

So, let's do something a little different now. We don't want no growth at all. So let's assume that we grow at 50% of the rate we actually did, and then we cut working hours half as much as we did in the chart above. How would we live then?

Year	Real GDP growth	Adjusted GDP growth	Adjusted GDP	Working hours
1950	N/A	N/A	$24,334.82	40 hours
1960	+15.9%	+8.0%	$26,281.61	37.1 hours
1970	+35.7%	+17.9%	$30,986.01	31.5 hours
1980	+16.7%	+8.4%	$33,588.83	29.1 hours
1990	+15.3%	+7.7%	$37,175.18	27 hours
2000	+16.8%	+8.4%	$39.213.89	24.9 hours
2010	+5.8%	+2.9%	$40,351.10	24.2 hours
2021	+13.5%	+6.8%	$43,094.97	22.7 hours

Well, we would have grown much less, down from around 200% to around 77%. Still, looking at international comparisons being just short of $43,439 puts us with Israel as our closest peer. And because that might not resonate directly to some, to compare it to other countries, we're talking similar to Canada, France, San Marino, the UK, New Zealand, and Japan. Significantly less rich than we are now, but we're doing quite well for ourselves. I mean, we're in "Europe" territory. And the relatively "good" part of Europe too. Like middle income Europe. Not as rich as say, Germany or some of the Scandinavian countries, but still quite well off. And the tradeoff? Well, we still work almost half as many hours as we do now. So ask yourself, would it be worth living like you lived in much of Western Europe if you could work 43% fewer hours in the process? Think about it. Another way of thinking about it, it would be like living in the US some time during the late 1970s. 

Say we considered that GDP hit to be too much. Okay, let's adjust it to 25% of GDP gains are translated into fewer working hours. What would happen then?

Year	Real GDP growth	Adjusted GDP growth	Adjusted GDP	Working hours
1950	N/A	N/A	$24,334.82	40 hours
1960	+15.9%	+12.0%	$27,255.00	38.5 hours
1970	+35.7%	+26.8%	$34,559.34	35.4 hours
1980	+16.7%	+12.5%	$38,879.25	33.9 hours
1990	+15.3%	+11.5%	$43,350.37	32.7 hours
2000	+16.8%	+12.6%	$48,812.52	31.3 hours
2010	+5.8%	+4.4%	$50,960.27	30.9 hours
2021	+13.5%	10.1%	$56,107.25	29.9 hours

Here, we see a scenario in which translating 25% of our GDP gains over time into less working hours sees a reduction from 40 hours to 30 hours. And while we would see a hit to GDP, we would still be living a country such as Iceland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Australia, Qatar, Austria, or Finland. Those are RICH countries. Or, put another way given GDP growth seemed to stagnate over the past few decades, we'd be living like we did in the mid 1990s. Ah, good times. Ya know, while tech has gotten better, I don't really feel that much richer otherwise. If anything I feel poorer given my dad was making good money at the time off of a solidly middle class income. I imagine a lot of middle class "90s kids" struggling in the current economy feel the same.

I was going to go further and do 10%, but let's be honest, if 25% only got working hours down to 30, 10% would get us down to like 36 or something. I could do a model for something in between 25% and 50%, but I think this model gives a good inference of that. Something along the lines of 26 hours a week with a GDP per capita around $50,000. That would put us in line with German, Belgium, Macao, or Hong Kong. In other words, not bad off at all.

To summarize my findings though, this chart should be handy.

Scenario	100% growth	90% growth (inferred)	75% growth	63% growth (inferred)	50% growth	0% growth
GDP	$72,183.03	~$66,000	$56,107.25	~$50,000	$43,094.97	$24,334.82
Working hours	40/week	~36/week	29.9/week	~26/week	22.7/week	13.5/week
Closest countries in living standards	US, Norway	US, Denmark, Singapore	Sweden, Australia, Qatar, Austria	Germany, Belgium, Macao, Hong Kong	France, San Marino, Israel, UK, New Zealand	Czech Republic, Portugal, Bahrain
Rough time period in American history	2021	Late 2010s	Mid 1990s	Late 1980s	Late 1970s	1950

Essentially, the more growth is diverted into reduced working time, the greater the hit to overall GDP growth there is, but the shorter working hours will be. What we find acceptable will be subjective, but we can find a point on the GDP curve between work life balance. I'm just trying to demonstrate how we can reduce working hours, and if we pursued working hour reductions instead of GDP all of this time, we could be working less, maybe even much less. There's no reason why we can't reduce our working hours to 30-35 hours. Heck, we could work around 20-30 and still be "rich" compared to most of the world. While GDP is weakly correlated with happiness, clearly more GDP doesn't necessarily mean more happiness, if conditions don't change elsewhere. If we're still struggling to survive, and still spending most of our time working, what's the point? Wouldn't it be better to work 30 hours and live like Sweden does? Or 25 hours and live like Germany? or 20 and live like the UK? Really, we don't understand how rich we are, and how those numbers on a chart don't make us happy. We're at a point in time where many of us are nostalgic of the past. Many of us miss the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and/or 1990s. We remember things being better when we were young than they were now. And in some ways they were better. My parents grew up with unions and a middle class income you could get out of high school. And I remember my childhood in the 90s and 2000s to be the happiest times of my life. If anything, in my case, what made my happiness go down was growing up and realizing how crappy life under the status quo really is. I don't want to spend my life working, and worrying about surviving. I would live with a slightly lower living standard if it meant more work life balance, and more economic security. 

Anyway. Let's say we wanted to start NOW, in 2022. Let's imagine with an average growth rate of 16% a decade (very typical overall) for the next century, what life could be under the following scenarios going forward. 

100% growth scenario (no work reductions)

Year	GDP (16% growth rate)	Working hours (0% reduction)
2021	$72,183.03	40/week
2030	$83,732.31	40/week
2040	$97,129.49	40/week
2050	$112,670.20	40/week
2060	$130,697.44	40/week
2070	$151,609.03	40/week
2080	$175,866.47	40/week
2090	$204,005.10	40/week
2100	$236,645.92	40/week
2110	$274,509.27	40/week
2120	$318,430.75	40/week

These are the kinds of numbers John Keynes must've been looking at a century ago when he thought we would all be working 15 hour weeks. I always here from jobist liberals and the like "oh anti work is so impossible now, maybe 100 years from now"...but here's the thing. if you're obsessed with growth at all costs, it's ALWAYS 100 years from now. We could all work for 40 hours a week for $300k in real terms in 100 years, and you know what? We would still say it's not enough. How do I know this? Because John Keynes in 1930 looked at our hypothetical GDP in the 2000s the exact same way. And he thought, wow, with all of this extra productivity, we will reduce our working hours, won't we? Won't we? Dude must be rolling over in his grave.

Now let's run the other scenarios I did above.

75% growth scenario

Year	GDP (12% growth rate)	Working hours (3.85% reduction)
2021	$72,183.03	40/week
2030	$80,844.99	38.5/week
2040	$90,546.39	37/week
2050	$101,411.96	35.6/week
2060	$113,581.40	34.2/week
2070	$127,211.16	32.9/week
2080	$142,476.50	31.6/week
2090	$159,573.68	30.3/week
2100	$178.722.52	29.2/week
2110	$200,169.23	28.1/week
2120	$224,189.53	27/week

I know, large hypothetical numbers, but it still applies. And we got similar results to the past 70 years. We see a similar hit to GDP, but then we have to again wonder, how much GDP is enough GDP? How much GDP is too much GDP? Is all of this GDP even sustainable for our environment? Now imagine if we continued off of the already existing 75% GDP growth scenario and did it for another 70 years. Where would we be now with working hours? Down to around 20.5. That's where. 

Now let's do the 50% growth scenario

Year	GDP (8% growth rate)	Working hours (7.41% reduction)
2021	$72,183.03	40/week
2030	$77,957.67	37/week
2040	$84,194.29	34.3/week
2050	$90.929.82	31.8/week
2060	$98,204.22	29.4/week
2070	$106,060.44	27.2/week
2080	$114,545.40	25.2/week
2090	$123,709.03	23.3/week
2100	$133,605.75	21.6/week
2110	$144,294.21	20/week
2120	$155,837.75	18.5/week

So with a 50/50 split, we could double our GDP while getting down to 18.5 hours a week. We will only have half the GDP as we would under the no work reductions model, but again, you have to ask, is it worth it, and is it even sustainable? Honestly, working less seems preferable to high hypothetical numbers. And just because you're probably wondering, because this curve isn't much different than real world data in the past 70 years, if we had been doing this since 1950, we would probably see 10.8 hour weeks by 2120 if we followed the trend all the way from 1950.

I didn't do this earlier, but let's say we do a 25% growth scenario

Year	GDP (4% growth rate)	Working hours (10.71% reduction)
2021	$72,183.03	40/week
2030	$75,070.35	35.7/week
2040	$78,073.17	31.9/week
2050	$81,196.09	28.5/week
2060	$84,443.94	25.4/week
2070	$87,821.69	22.7/week
2080	$91,334.56	20.3/week
2090	$94,987.94	18.1/week
2100	$98,787.46	16.2/week
2110	$102.738.96	14.4/week
2120	$106,848.52	12.9/week

This is a more aggressive anti work scenario, but it shows that over the next 100 years, if we forgo most economic growth in favor of shorter working hours, we can be working 13 hour weeks 100 years from now. Is this not worth it? It depends. Only growing the economy roughly 50% over a century seems pathetically low, but the results speak for themselves. Honestly if we decide 20 is the ideal amount of working hours, the 50% scenario would be better. And we could get to 27 with the 75% scenario. It's really up to us.

And finally, a zero growth steady state model.

Year	GDP (0% growth rate)	Working hours (13.79% reduction)
2021	$72,183.03	40/week
2030	$72,183.03	34.5/week
2040	$72,183.03	29.7/week
2050	$72,183.03	25.6/week
2060	$72,183.03	22.1.week
2070	$72,183.03	19/week
2080	$72,183.03	16.4/week
2090	$72,183.03	14.1/week
2100	$72,183.03	12.2/week
2110	$72,183.03	10.5/week
2120	$72,183.03	9.1/week

So yeah, that's A LOT of work reduction. But is 9 really worth it over 13? That's subjective, but honestly, I'm not really in favor of a full on steady state economy. There should probably be SOME balance between growth and work. Both the 100% and 0% scenarios seem silly to me. All that growth with no social change seems like a waste of effort. You're not making society better at its core. Even I realize now in 2022 we can do better. All things considered, based on the last 70 years, I think something between the 50-75% growth scenario would probably be ideal. Or perhaps a few decades of steady state followed by 100% growth once we find the right balance. But ultimately, I think 50-75% would be ideal overall over the course of the next century. We shouldn't be working the same 40 hour weeks of the 1930s. And if we find ourselves doing this 100 years from now, whatever reincarnated me is walking around will probably die from an aneurysm if I ever reach the same educated state I'm currently in again. 

Anyway, to summarize the last 5 charts

Scenario	100% growth	75% growth	50% growth	25% growth	0% growth
Estimated GDP 2070	$151,609.03	$127,211.16	$106,060.44	$87,821.69	$72,183.03
Estimated working hours 2070	40/week	32.9/week	27.2/week	22.7/week	19/week
Estimated GDP 2120	$318,430.75	$224,189.53	$155,837.75	$106,848.52	$72,183.03
Estimated working hours 2120	40/week	27/week	18.5/week	12.9/week	9.1/week

Those are my projections over the next 100 years. Whatever we choose is up to us. We could go all work, and no play, meaning a 4x GDP growth, or, we can go no growth and work 1/4 as much. Or we can do something in between. I think the 50% scenario of roughly 2x the growth for half the hours might be ideal. I'd be able to live with the 75% scenario if it can be done under indepentarian/human centered capitalist ideals. I mean triple GDP with 1/3 reduction in working hours can work if we go full on UBI/human centered capitalism and most people still voluntarily work. 

Anyway. That's my article on this subject. Basically, when people wonder why we never got to live John Keynes future this strategy, it's because we chose maximal growth over reduced working hours. If we reduced working hours each decade since the 1950s, we could still live like a western industrialized country, while working in the ballpark of 20-30 hours a week. We could've lived the 15 hour weeks Keynes talked about, but we would've sacrificed most growth. 

Looking into the future, we have the same choice. We can either grow at a maximal rate, or we can work less and choose some balance between the two. We could be working around 30 hours a week in 50 years and still grow at a solid rate. We could work around 20-25 hours in 100 years and still be far richer than we are now. We could've made these same choices in the past century, but we didn't. I personally wish we would've at least gone the 75% route, if not the 63% route. 

And before anyone asks what UBI would do, UBI would be projected to have a work reduction on average around 10-15% based on the 1970s NIT studies. This would only be a temporary, one time work reduction though, and would be like the equivalent of forgoing a single decade in growth or less. If implemented over a period of years, we would barely notice the difference. And then we would continue growing. We're also ignoring how much UBI could grow the economy through the multiplier effect. So human centered capitalism according to UBI would be far more mild than any of these scenarios over the long term. This article is more about reducing working hours directly.