Would you work a 4-day work week if you could? How do you think switching to a 32-hour work week as the norm would impact the U.S. economy? Let us know your thoughts!

@dienzer9098

Жыл бұрын

first

@katrina3560

Жыл бұрын

I chose a 4 day work week when offered in my 20's. It was wonderful to have a day during the week to handle my personal business, meaning I was able to schedule appts outside work hrs, almost always. As a homeschooling mother now, my children are on a 4 day school schedule. We get all our academic work done and always have time for adventures that fuel our souls.

@katrina3560

Жыл бұрын

I believe we *could* sustain our economy, however it would mean some structural changes that might mean discomfort for the 1% in the long run and the rest of us immediately. Growing pains of sorts?

@AboveTheNoise

Жыл бұрын

@@katrina3560 that sounds pretty sweet.

@flymypg

Жыл бұрын

32-hour 4-day workweeks are at the end of a spectrum spanning the range to 40-hour 5-day workweeks. I had an employer who experimented with the workweek. First, we tried a 9/80 system, with every other Friday off, then working 10 hours on all but one of the other 9 days. Since many of us were already working 10-hour days, this was a huge boost, like getting 2 days off per month FREE. Another immediate effect was a LARGE reduction in workday absences for appointments and errands, as most could be moved to an off Friday. Clearly, adding a day off works, but it works best if it overlaps with when other businesses are open. So, the specific day off within the 2-week period may need to rotate within businesses needing to keep their doors open every weekday. We also experimented with limited flex-time, where authorized excess hours worked on one day could be "banked" for use as time-off within the next 90 days, based on work demands. Salaried folks loved the plan, because it let us use flex-time instead of PTO hours for appointments and errands, preserving our vacation time for, well, vacations! However, our wage earners felt left out, as many would (at least some of the time) also choose to bank time rather than charge overtime. But labor laws are strict about paying wages for hours worked, so this flexibility wasn't available to them. (Edit: For one very difficult project the entire engineering team banked so many flex hours that the company offered to convert them to bonuses, which most of us accepted, except for folks with young kids at home, which the rest of the company totally supported.) All these approaches maintained a total equivalent to 40-hour workweeks, but shifted it to benefit both employees and the business. We all felt the combination of 9/80 + Flex provided many of the benefits of a shorter workweek. Yes, the 32-hour workweek seems inevitable. But we don't need to do it all at once, in a single step. There's unused flexibility in the current system that should be tried along the way.

I have much enjoyed academic work for precisely this reason: If you can get everything done in 4 or even 3 days, you can spend the rest at home, or working on the projects you're most excited about.

@AboveTheNoise

Жыл бұрын

Any efficiency tips? Guessing that binge watching House of the Dragon during lunch hour might not be one?

@mookfarr

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, but what does "everything done" even mean? At least in the industry I work in, there is basically an infinite amount of things you could do any given day. Your imagination and work ethic is the limit. So if you're more efficient, that just makes time for more ideas. I understand how it might be different in service jobs, where there's literally only a certain amount of things you can do per day. But for a lot of white collar office jobs, like in my case marketing, there's a great deal of expectation for individual initiative and coming up with your own projects.

@brianjones9780

Жыл бұрын

@@AboveTheNoise read the book Deep Work, it has all the answers

@ArtArtisian

Жыл бұрын

@@mookfarr Ideally, the infinite imaginable things are the fun part, and not the work part.

@ArtArtisian

Жыл бұрын

@@AboveTheNoise Office hours? Talking with peers. Have tenure.

It would be nice to see companies receive tax breaks for reducing work hours to 32. That way companies that could would be incentiviesed to figure out how to make it work. Then after, they may see more unexpected benefits.

@AboveTheNoise

Жыл бұрын

Great point! Thanks for watching.

@hug4goats510

Жыл бұрын

Exactly !!!

I would love to have a 15 hour work week. I would feel more productive and energetic

@AboveTheNoise

Жыл бұрын

Right? But man, those 15 hours would have to be really productive.

Nicely done ATN. Power to the people/workers! I wouldn’t mind my 40 hour work week so much if I actually loved my job.

Having worked some jobs with reduced hours, I find that it's fine if EVERYONE has reduced hours (like when I worked at a university where all the administrative staff had Fridays off all summer). But if I'm the only one who has reduced hours (say, a job where I'm not working Fridays but everyone else is), then it's very stressful to return to a full day's worth of notices, emails, etc. from all the people who WERE working on my day off. Personally, my preferred way of working is a work-from-home situation where I can do a few hours of work in the mornings and then have my afternoons off. But of course, this is only good without a commute. If I have to take 30-45 minutes each way commuting for a 4-hour workday, that's not great either.

@AboveTheNoise

Жыл бұрын

Thanks for sharing your experience!

@katjerouac

Жыл бұрын

How do you work from home?..

California also (at least used to) categorize anything over 8 hours in a single day as overtime, regardless of how many hours were worked in a week.

BAHAHA imagine working 8 hours a day, 5 days a week 🤪 -sincerely, a teacher

@AboveTheNoise

Жыл бұрын

That’s a good one. We forgot about y’all. Guess that sorta waters down our point about unions?

@FrancesBaconandEggs

Жыл бұрын

@@AboveTheNoise no, what you say totally applies! I would even just take more planning time and shorter days, because the way it’s set up right now means I have to pick between grading on time, communicating with parents, giving students feedback on their work, and planning lessons! I think students would also benefit from more flexible time to engage in extracurriculars and pursue passions.

@FrancesBaconandEggs

Жыл бұрын

@@AboveTheNoise for example, culturally responsive lessons and assessments take MUCH longer to plan and grade than traditional ones. I literally don’t have the time to research and prepare kickass activities because it takes away from other things.

I found the best way for me to work is working from home, where I have no unnecessary supervision. I get the job done on my own terms, mostly sooner than the actual work day ends and then go about my own business, compared to working at the office where I would have to sit idle for the next 3hrs or so and just be PRESENT. When I think about it, yeah, compressed, a 3 day work week would work fine with me 😃

Good stuff as usual. More Nixon historical trivia. He also submitted formal proposals to Congress for universal healthcare, twice. And he ordered studies on and then proposed to Congress a federal guaranteed minimum income.

I'm so glad this channel showed up in my recommendations a while ago. Incredibly based takes on society and economy, i love it! Keep up the good work!

@AboveTheNoise

Жыл бұрын

Wait, did you mean "incredibly biased takes on society and economy?" lol

@flinops

Жыл бұрын

@@AboveTheNoise based, not biased :) this internet slang word for good, or intelligent, idk ^^ sorry for spelling or logical errors, I'm german

@AboveTheNoise

Жыл бұрын

Ah, sorry to misunderstand you! We’re just trying hard not to be biased, or at least be transparent when we are. But good to know you like our channel! I hope you hang with us for more episodes coming up this new season!

4 10s is a common schedule in construction. Good compromise imo.

4 to 3 hrs work week sounds cool, that way i be better productive on my other job. Increase in income

Today I prefer to have a 5-day week but with the option to work from home sometimes, and work any hours I want any day, as long as the job’s done. There are days when I can take 10 hours of work, but others when only 4 hours is what I can do because of personal or family related stuff. Flexibility is the best choice for me. It may not be true to everyone.

@AboveTheNoise

Жыл бұрын

Flexibility is one of the top things people of all ages say they want at work now, so you're definitely not alone.

I'm so glad to have found your channel. All I care about is the truth, and it appears like that is what you are all about! Keep up the good work and you can never go wrong by knowing how to do proper research and fact-checking!

@AboveTheNoise

Жыл бұрын

Thank you for watching!

Loving Myles' energy here

@AboveTheNoise

Жыл бұрын

Thank you!

Your impression of the economy is perfect.

@AboveTheNoise

Жыл бұрын

Haha. That’s literally how I imagine it to sound.

How do you people even work from home. I didn't know infrastructure maintained itself and freight delivered itself

It would benefit companies (and their workers) that value quality rather than quantity

I want the phrase, 'the bee's knees' to make a comeback.

well, i think the world is more leaning to 48h workweek actually. Everybody wants more money.

A 32 hour work week mandatory? Looks like everyone is going to never get a full paycheck lol

@truebengalsfan

Жыл бұрын

Could this also cause people to lose benefits

Same amount of money HA!!! I just got reduced to 4 day work week and less hours, same hourly wage...

@AboveTheNoise

Жыл бұрын

😮

@hmw1441

Жыл бұрын

that's what I been saying, this whole conversation kinda ignores hourly workers? I don't get a salary, I can't be paid the same to work fewer hours...who tf is going to raise my wage 20% so I can work fewer hours? Lol

LOL! If you're going to work hard, then you can also play hard.

In this thread: lot's of people either complaining they work 200 hours a week and you're all lazy or missing the point entirely and saying that less hours would mean less money.

I work 12 hrs a day 😢

@danielagatt3947

Жыл бұрын

which become 46hrs a week its soul crushing and those 6 hourse extra are flat rate 😢

If we had to pay our workers more, everything is going to fail and go terribly wrong! Or... The top 10% will have to give up their wage oppression on the bottom 90%. Do the rich really need to get richer just because they are rich? What happened to the work for your money mentality? Honestly, I'm stuck between the camps of needing to pay our workers more for the hours they are working or working fewer hours at the same wages. I prefer the fewer hours camp; however, I also understand just how short our labor force is in the US for many critical jobs (child care, nursing, many other STEM jobs, etc.). We might need less child care because people are working less, but we won't need less nursing if people are working less. Do we need to increase fertility rate and/or immigration to make this work over time? Or is this just shifting problems between areas of deficit or other countries. I can grasp some branches of the tree affected by these changes, but it is beyond my ability to understand it all and solve it. Interestingly enough, I've also read that many other countries that are at the approximate same level of industrialization have similar work hours, wage, labor shortages, etc. discussions as in the US. Some of those nations, like Sweden, already have reduced hour work weeks. Sweden has a comparable fertility rate to the US, and they have comparable job shortages (sweden.se/work-business/working-in-sweden/finding-a-job). Their economy hasn't collapsed with short work weeks. What are the other factors of their success? Have their issues just moved to other areas of their society? Is this an indicator that it can work in the US?

Would you rather work 5 8 hour days or 4 10 hour days. Most will say 4 10 hour days whether business owners or employees. For owners there is less setup, shutdown time less paid lunch breaks. for employees they prefer having 3 day weekends. How about you?

Hmm, I wonder who happened in the 80s

I don't understand why The Economy has a dodgy English accent when it feels threatened, but, speaking as an Englishman, it definitely made me laugh! 🤣 It strikes me that the problem stems from assuming that there's an exact, uniform correlation between hours worked and productivity, which isn't the case. You can have two people doing the same job for the same amount of time at the same rate of hourly pay, but still have one person achieve more than the other consistently, or on any given day. That graph of productivity and compensation you showed had a very clear inflection point where compensation stopped tracking, but you didn't delve into any ideas of why. Is there any evidence to suggest that it was at that point in American history that wages became coupled to time worked, rather than to measured productivity? Was there a legal change? Was that when the USA pivoted to a majority Tertiary (Service) industry economy? If we decoupled wages from time, and pegged them to productivity instead, then we'd be left with question of how to scale the relative worth of different types of productive output to fairly compensate workers. How does the per square metre rate for painting a wall compare to the per metre rate for replacing electrical wire, or the per tonne rate for wheat harvested, or the per complaint rate for a telephone customer service agent? That might actually be the strongest case for the "invisible hand of the market", if one doesn't wish to have governments determining the relative worth of your skills. Then you get the idea that "the state" should ensure that everyone gets their basic necessities (housing, food, water, domestic energy) provided, and then anything else is economic gravy that "the invisible hand" can be left to value as it pleases. Don't we elect governments to handle all this kind of stuff so the rest of us can get on with our lives? What do politicians think they're supposed to be doing otherwise? Governments should always be accountable, but they shouldn't need constant babysitting through how be a healthy human society!

@mookfarr

Жыл бұрын

It seems to me that ideally a person should be paid for their productivity. So there should be an expectation that everyone works the same amount of time, but you might get slightly more money if you're more productive. Obviously it doesn't always work that way, but I think that's the ideal. Also, I think the idea that you can get "everything done" is very much an hourly-wage-earner mentality. When you're in management, there's an infinite number of things you can accomplish per day, as there's expectations that you're being enterprising, rather than just taking orders. So, you set your own limits.

@DavidBeddard

Жыл бұрын

@@mookfarr As with anything, there's no single right answer and there's plenty of nuance and compelxity that means it'll never be that simple. The long and the short of it is that capitalism isn't the answer, but exactly what it is will take time and experimentation to figure out.

@mookfarr

Жыл бұрын

@@DavidBeddard capitalism isn't perfect, but it seems to be the best option we've devised so far.

@DavidBeddard

Жыл бұрын

@@mookfarr What's your basis for that opinion, if I may ask?

@mookfarr

Жыл бұрын

@@DavidBeddard The fact that all the wealthiest and most powerful nations in the world have embraced some form of capitalism. I can think of no other system that has given a higher quality of life to as many people. Even China, though communist/socialist in brand, has largely become what it is today by opening itself up to capitalistic systems. Again, just to cover my bases, I'm in no way claiming that it's perfect. Ultimately the human condition will corrupt every system, but I see capitalism as the best we've come up with so far for maximizing gain and minimizing pain for the most people.

watching thing this video for class work 😒

@AboveTheNoise

Жыл бұрын

Sorry that we’re making work for you - did you learn anything useful by watching the video?

Less is more

Is funny the difference between this discussion 40 hr - 32 hr in USA and the normal 48 hr - 72 hr of most people. IMO y'all need to open your eyes.

very oversimplified