Rep. Takano Introduces Legislation to Reduce the Standard Workweek to 32 Hours

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 3:46 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #48

supportlocal4h wrote: post #19

Decades ago the U.S. tied healthcare to employment. It had some big positives at the time. I think it has proven to have more negatives as time has unfolded. Here is one of them. If you reduce hours per worker by, say, 10% you just pay each worker 10% less and hire 10% more workers, right? It's not so simple. If you try to cut the health insurance premium of each worker by 10% the policy becomes unattractive. If you…

It’s slightly worse than that. If you have 90 units of work to be done you might hire 9 workers at 10 units each. If the standard work goes down by 10%, you now need 10 workers at 9 units each. Your workers have increased by 11.1% (given by 1-1/(1-0.1)) A reduction from 40 to 32 would reduce hours per worker by 20% but increase workers and total health care costs by 25%.

Post by chefkoch » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 3:47 PM UTC

Jtsummers wrote: post #94

gurleen_s wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While I'm not sold on having a government run healthcare system (the pandemic only reinforces this) A reminder that government services suck on purpose. There is no reason for government healthcare to be ineffective other than the malicious intent of those who run our government (D or R).

> A reminder that government services suck on purpose. There is no reason for government healthcare to be ineffective other than the malicious intent of those who run our government (D or R). Yes. Government employees and elected officials have weekly meetings with a standing question: Where are we doing things well? And then they coordinate to fuck it up and make it suck. /s

Post by splistud » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 3:49 PM UTC

thoughtstheseus wrote: post #39

JoeQuery wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you here. I'm honestly not educated on history enough to know if such a reform is feasible in a single pass - an entire redesign vs incremental change. It would be cool if a major rework could happen all at once.

The best approach I know of is for the government or other large employers to make the shift to a 4 day workweek. Once 10s of millions are doing it, it’ll become more of a cultural norm.

Post by splistud » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 3:51 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #16

xibalba wrote: post #14

Takano and other well meaning legislators reveal they have zero clue how economies work or how wealth is created. It is fairly terrifying that these sorts have become so influential.

Based on vast capital accumulation to a small cohort [1], I believe they do know how wealth is being created. They're simply improving quality of life for the people doing the actual work. Conversely, its terrifying (at least to me) that there are people who endorse the dystopian status quo. [1] https://www.stlouisfed.org/open-vault/2020/december/has-weal...

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 3:52 PM UTC

jon-wood wrote: post #79

ceejayoz wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The research around shorter work weeks and productivity indicates "units of work" don't work that way. https://www.npr.org/2021/07/06/1013348626/iceland-finds-majo... > Now, research out of Iceland has found that working fewer hours for the same pay led to improved well-being among workers, with no loss in productivity. In fact, in some places, workers were more productive after cutting back their hours.

That's true in the sort of desk jobs most of the people who inhabit Hacker News do. It's patently not true of things like manufacturing line work, delivery drivers, chefs, and call centre operators. A chef can't drop 8 hours a week and still expect to serve the same number of meals because of efficiency gains, and a call centre needs to be accessible at the times people are calling. For the record I fully support any…