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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

#91

Post by 1123581321 »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #65
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 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'…

That is an interesting situation. I’m surprised your employer didn’t seek out a consortium to improve the group; it would’ve been a huge financial benefit to them, assuming they were paying a share of premiums.

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

#92

Post by ecommerceguy »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #65
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 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.

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

#94

Post by Jtsummers »

gurleen_s wrote: post #87
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'…

> 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

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

#95

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#96

Post by thatguy0900 »

gurleen_s wrote: post #87
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'…

> 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).

Well, there's no reason for the govt Healthcare to be effective either. The gov makes money either way, malicious intent or no it is hard to keep a system running effeciently when there is no real compelling reason to do so. Even for profit corporations start to bloat and become ineffective when they are making too much money, and they arnt garunteed that money either way unlike the government.

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

#97

Post by splistud »

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…

Where do you get the idea that this isn't the very heart of every political campaign? There's a curve of course, where if you promise too much people don't see it as believable.

My first experience with this was high school. Freshman year the student body presidency was won by the fellow who promised that we would get sodas added to the machines (rather than the no-caffeine options that were then available). Bullshit. But he won. In his acceptance speech, he explained it straight out, and we all learned something.

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

#98

Post by bob1029 »

tudelo wrote: post #59
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…

Every road having a toll is your idea of the future? Or am I misunderstanding something.

Toll roads are a bad example IMO. We could have an entirely separate conversation about how they hurt the most disadvantaged and are typically a gigantic scam when played out on broader timelines. If you want to see the end game on toll road experience, come visit Houston sometime.

A consumption tax would be something more like "I want to buy a new hillside estate and I have to pay this special 20% fuck you tax because I'm excessively wealthy".

Consumption tax code could be fairly complex in order to minimize impact to those who are purchasing day-to-day items and other essentials. I would happily pay extra taxes on my discretionary purchases like high-end PC hardware (and probably make more of them) if it meant that on the other hand I wouldn't be penalized just for working and making money. Anything you could buy at a grocery store should probably be exempt or in a tightly-controlled tier.

Property taxes are cool too. Land is a ~fixed resource, so you have to have some counterpressure involved there. I am not saying alter property taxes to accommodate any of this, I just think they have a place.

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

#99

Post by splistud »

mcot2 wrote: post #62
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…

Have you not noticed corporations and the very weathy fund almost all candidates? What you are saying only happens when we get money out of politics.

I can report that our 245 year experience with democracy has us on the verge of doing just that. Any day now...

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

#100

Post by opheliate »

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 difficult to see if tax revenue would be high enough from just taxing non-essential items.

IMO, any tax system where the poorest people pay a higher proportion of their income than those richer than them is flawed.

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