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

takano.house.gov

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

#121

Post by xibalba »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #57
toomuchtodo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

What worries me is that the stagnant wages have been caused by globalization making our labor relatively unattractive compared to the rest of the world. This will only make our labor more unattractive, accelerating the loss of our dwindling manufacturing base.

This exactly. The U.S. economy doesn’t exist in a competition-free vacuum. This “solution” would hurt those at the left side of the income/wealth distribution the most, but would hurt all of the U.S. to some degree.

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

#122

Post by [deleted] »

caturopath wrote: post #34

It's weird to see all the comments taking this as a meaningful piece of legislation rather than the symbolic stunt that it is. Nothing wrong with Takano promoting his political views that way, but it's a little silly to act like this is something it's not.

[deleted]

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

#123

Post by palmtree3000 »

opheliate wrote: post #100
thoughtstheseus wrote: post #25

Somewhat of a tangent but related to labor: tell your reps to abolish personal income taxes and replace it with a consumption tax. We should not be taxing labor…

My thoughts, correct me if I'm wrong here: If I'm on a very low income, likely 100% (or more) of my monthly earnings will go to buying food, paying rent/utilities, etc, so under a consumption tax, a higher proportion of my income will be taxed than under income tax (people in the lowest tax bracket generally won't pay income tax at all). Of course, you could exclude these necessities from tax, but then I find it diff…

You can make a consumption tax progressive! You'd probably want to make it a bit more progressive than the current income tax brackets, to cancel out the effect you're describing.

Re: implementation: make putting money into a bank account tax deductible and pulling money out taxable, then continue to use the existing income tax system. Any money you earn that you don't spend is a tax write-off, any money you spend that you didn't earn this year is something you have to pay more taxes on.

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

#124

Post by paxys »

ecommerceguy wrote: post #92
Mountain_Skies wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that my ACA (Obamacare) premiums are lower than the premiums were at my last employer for similar coverage (using COBRA numbers for comparison). This might be because my last employer was bad at negotiating but I think it's mostly because they had an aging Rustbelt workforce and lots of people in roles that were unhealthy long term (linesmen and call centers). Because rates are set based on the pool'…

Sounds like you are young and because you are young you are receiving the privilege of paying less premium for health care. Health Insurance for better or worse heavily discriminates against the older folks. >> the risk in the public ACA pool is lower than the employer's pool of employees as a general rule, the public pool is substandard rating.

> because you are young you are receiving the privilege of paying less premium for health care

That's a weird way of putting it. Young people are getting far less value from their healthcare premiums than the old. That's how the entire system is able to work.

Health insurance, social security, medicare etc. all discriminate against the young in favor of the old. And I'm not passing judgement for or against such a system. That's just how it is.

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

#125

Post by infamouscow »

typest wrote: post #76
aerosmile wrote: post #50

I've been wondering what stops politicians from gaming the democratic system by introducing legislation that has short-term benefits for the electorate and long-term negative consequences for the country as a whole. I know that I wouldn't vote for someone like that, but I can't think of many people around me who wouldn't. I suppose many would think of it this way: "what's good for the long-term future of the country…

Politicians gaming the system by promising short term benefits at the cost of long term gain happens alls the time. But, it's not quite so cynical as you think. First, understand that while people definitely want short term gain, they also want long term gain. Most all people are decent to some extent, and want long term success for their family, community, country, planet, etc. So, keep that in mind, and then let's…

More than a dozen sitting members of Congress (of both political parties) have been in their seats for more than 36 years, so forgive me if I find these arguments about long-term and short-term interests moot.

Politicians care about getting elected and then re-elected, in that order. Somewhere much lower in their set of priorities is pushing policy.

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

#126

Post by dragonwriter »

xibalba wrote: post #121
TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What worries me is that the stagnant wages have been caused by globalization making our labor relatively unattractive compared to the rest of the world. This will only make our labor more unattractive, accelerating the loss of our dwindling manufacturing base.

This exactly. The U.S. economy doesn’t exist in a competition-free vacuum. This “solution” would hurt those at the left side of the income/wealth distribution the most, but would hurt all of the U.S. to some degree.

Or they have looked at charts like this, understand why the US is to the right but have no reason to think (and plenty of domestic research on per-working-hour productivity to support) that the factors that create the overall trend line apply to the US:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/productivity-vs-annual-ho...

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

#127

Post by VelkaMorava »

chefkoch wrote: post #103
Jtsummers wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

Some republicans, yes.

I have been reading comments like yours on the internet for quite a while now. I am from Europe, so I have no horse in this race.

I have these 2 questions/thoughts:

1) Do you think it's a good idea to have all the branches of the government controlled by 1 party? We actually had this a few decades ago in the Czech republic and we refer to that period as "totalita" or dictatorship. Let's say the wet dream (based on comments like yourself) of all Democrats becomes real and they control everything from communal level to presidency. How is it different than China, USSR or Czechoslovak Socialist Republic?

2) What has changed in the past half a year? If I am not mistaken, Democrats have had control of the presidency and house for over half a year now. I admit HN is my only source of news, but it seems like there are still ICE camps. There is still half-built wall between US and Mexico. The US still drones countries on the other side of the world. From the statistics people are still living paycheck to paycheck and can't afford healthcare (I understand the plague has its fair share here too). The US still helps Israel, which is IMO a rogue state at this point, as per the Pegasus scandal.

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

#128

Post by ceejayoz »

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…

> A chef can't drop 8 hours a week and still expect to serve the same number of meals because of efficiency gains...

Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps being better rested makes them collaborate better with the other chefs. Maybe the improved morale helps come up with a new menu item, or a more efficient way to make a dish. Maybe they wind up staving off carpal tunnel.

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

#129

Post by paxys »

xen2xen1 wrote: post #41

"I’d Say, In A Given Week, I Probably Only Do About Fifteen Minutes Of Real, Actual Work.” -- Peter, Office Space I've worked in lots of offices and watched people, especially "important" ones. It's fun to watch. They're so busy the strain is enormous. But if you pay attention, they spend lots of time calling their sister, talking to the Schwann's man.. "I work so hard I never leave work" but little actual work is do…

I really hope that the pandemic finally makes us realize that the 9-5, 40 hours/week office culture we have set up over the decades is a total sham. Very few people are really working that much, but it isn't socially acceptable for anyone to admit it.

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

#130

Post by sudosysgen »

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…

Actually, this is largely true even for other professions. A chef for example will slow down significantly after 5 hours of work and make more mistakes, so will manufacturing line workers and call center operators.

For sure, some jobs are more affected than others. But there are few jobs that aren't affected at all, and we shouldn't cut off the nose to spite the face.

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