This comment misses the point entirely. The goal of society is to raise the quality and/or lower the cost of living. The goal of these “less than 40 hour work week” proposals is to lower hours and keep the net pay the same (effectively raising the per hour pay) at nearly every job .This would be an advancement as a society as the quality of life would go up for it’s citizens.
This is explicitly not suggesting people take different jobs with identical hours for less pay.
You seemed to miss the point entirely as well. The PM’s suggestion represents a 40% decrease in the labor market. You wouldn’t be able to make up that loss without hiring a whole lot more people, which would put most places out of business. Thinking gains would come from productivity increases, that’s simply not going to happen, as inflation has far outpaced labor productivity for the last 60 years. Finland’s Unemployment rate is roughly 13% currently, so even hiring all of those people to make up for missed labor will not come close to solving the gap.
As normal, great aspirational idea that has zero basis in reality.
That’s not what missing the point means but I understand where you’re coming from. You’re worried about the feasibility of this proposal, which is entirely separate from my comment and the comment I was responding to. So to be clear, you’re not actually talking to me or the original commenter, you’re talking at me. Which is fine, we can have this conversation - which is different than what I was discussing - at the same time if you’d like.
Yes, reduction of hours could theoretically means
a larger volume of people are needed to cover those positions. That is likely true in some fields and likely not true in others. As an example, waiters or nurses or teachers would likely need more staff to cover those lost hours as those are services that are often open most days of the week at most hours. We can’t have hospitals closed on Fridays, for instance. So in that case your suggestion is correct.
The element you’re not considering past the simple math of the problem is whether or not we need 40 hours to stay profitable. The counter example to the nurse would be most white collar jobs who reportedly don’t need 40 hours a week to complete their work and be successful. These people are forced to work 40 hours because of cultural expectations but, because of the “productivity” boom of the last century, don’t actually need to work 40 hours. This is the situation that the PM’s suggestion would be most feasible.
If someone can complete their work in 32 hours but is paid to be at their desk for 40, 1 of 2 things happen. (Reminder, this is the expected amount of work to keep the business profitable.) They either notify their boss that they can do more work, and thus increase their responsibilities until it hits 40 hours, which nearly always results in neither higher pay nor higher recognition long term. Or they don’t, and they make what use they can of those 8 hours, which is always less efficient than if they had “free time”. This is where the government, unions, or any regulatory body is necessary for the improvement of society. Businesses of a certain size or profession grow inefficient in using their employees time as their productivity goes up, which again can be converted either into more work and higher sales or more free time and better benefits. (This is ignoring what happens too often which is that extra time gets converted to meaningless meetings and micromanagement and time around the water cooler etc).
So I disagree with you in saying, as a blanket statement derived from napkin math, that the PM’s proposal (which I imagine both of us have just read the title comments on instead of an actual, ready to implement policy proposal) is not based in reality.
Why you seem excited to defend the forced labor hours of the working class is beyond me. Surely you’re not rich, and surely you’d prefer to work less than you do and have the same quality of life. So I have to assume you’re either afraid of someone messing up “the economy” by being too progressive or you’ve taken the conservative propaganda to heart and believe things must only get worse for the working class if the rich are to get richer and therefore through market magic improve everyone else’s lives maybe (trickling down or some other illogical and indirect process). Tell me, if you can be so introspective, why you decided to talk at me. Why do you think something that several studies have shown, at least to my knowledge, to not only be feasible but also beneficial? Why are you against the topic at first mention of societal progress?
Boy, you seem to think you know a lot of things, and yet know very little. For someone like me who is working on cures for blindness, no I don’t want to work less hours. I actually want to help cure blindness.
Those nurses? No they don’t want to work less when there aren’t others trained to do their job.
Perhaps you work a job that’s has no use to society and if you worked less it wouldn’t matter, but that’s not a lot of jobs.
Buddy, imagine getting paid more to do your job. That’s what we’re talking about. Imagine there being more nurses and more demand for all jobs and more effective nurses because they’re less tired and overworked and underpaid.
Like this isn’t rocket science. You could get the same money for less mandatory hours. You wanna work more, go for it. I want to get you more money for those hours and I want the hospitals to have to hire more people instead of overworking them. Again, idk why you’re acting like this wouldn’t be a better system for everyone. The service would only improve. The pay would only improve. The profits would be the only thing that takes a hit.
Like buddy, imagine in a world where that works. Where are these extra nurses coming from? It’s not even demand for nurses, it’s time to teach and educate them. It’s like you believe people cable, educated, certified to do jobs can be spun up with a snap of the finger. Doctors are already say in the US highly paid positions. And you can’t get enough of them because it takes too long to educate them, outstripping demand.
So you entire premise fails. You want to reduce the working hours of the population by 40% and expect those people to simply exist. The UE rate is what again? Certainly not 40%. So you have to do more with far far less.
And no, profits wouldn’t take a hit, you simply raise prices, and now for those hours you are working, you can’t afford anything. Since you can’t afford anything, those businesses go out of business and now you don’t have a job.
That’s the problem. Small companies, niche companies can do this pretty easily and move the costs onto customers. Most industries cannot. Know how we went from a 60-80 hour work week to a 40 hour work week? We sent the jobs overseas, where they still fork 80+ hours a week, for far less money.
Great concept, until you look anything deeper than the surface.
That’s not how we went from 80 to 40 hours. We got there through productivity increases and strong unions, you’re not speaking from a historically accurate position.
The US pays more for healthcare than nearly every other country for equivalent results and far less coverage. In this singular example, hospitals (and health insurance companies) could absolutely be made to be cheaper while maintaining quality. That means a reduction in profit. ANOTHER way to say that is the existing hospitals (and health insurance companies) could maintain prices and productivity AND INSTEAD pay their workers more.
You’re correct in saying we can’t materialize educated and trained people out of thin air, but in nearly everything else you’re just dead wrong. We would not need to materialize “40% more workforce” we could, under the same proposal, just pay the existing staff overtime starting at 32 hours instead of 40. It’s really not this hard of a concept.
Most large companies, think publicly traded companies, make more profit year after year. Those companies can and should pay their workers more. They won’t unless forced so we have to force them.
That means Walmart has to raise their wages and hire more people. That means hospitals have to pay nurses more (which absolutely will increase the rate at which people study to become nurses). That means fortune 500 companies, which are inefficient as hell, let their well paid employees work 8 hours less and notice nearly no difference in output (according to the studies that have been conducted on this that I’m aware of).
Again, you’re not actually engaging with the whole concept and you’re arguing against one made up scenario with an incomplete understanding of the argument. The new standard work week should be 32 hours at equal hourly rate as it is today. Businesses do 1 of 3 things: keep their current staff and accept the lower hours (studies show some businesses can do this without issue, just a win-win), increase their staff and keep their pay (lowering their hours, this would eat into profits and likely raise prices in some mixed percentage), keep their staff and raise their pay (keeping their hours, this would eat into profits and likely raise prices in some mixed percentages). Not every industry (or even most) could afford to raise prices and survive, they would have to be okay with less profits. But in a functioning society cost of living should be going down or quality of life should be going up, and the US (and most of the world) are long over due for one of those things. We need a correction, likely starting with addressing wealth inequality and then something like a new standard work week.
You really need to look up your information. We absolutely didn’t go from 80 to 40 hours via productivity increase, or unions. Maybe start looking into the labor movement and those who died because of it.
Anywho you are arguing and not actually making a point here, so have a good life. I guess we can all pray you have a useless enough job in life that you can work 20 hours a week and not be needed for any more.
Plenty of jobs let you grab those hours.
Problem is the pay is dogshit
This comment misses the point entirely. The goal of society is to raise the quality and/or lower the cost of living. The goal of these “less than 40 hour work week” proposals is to lower hours and keep the net pay the same (effectively raising the per hour pay) at nearly every job .This would be an advancement as a society as the quality of life would go up for it’s citizens.
This is explicitly not suggesting people take different jobs with identical hours for less pay.
You seemed to miss the point entirely as well. The PM’s suggestion represents a 40% decrease in the labor market. You wouldn’t be able to make up that loss without hiring a whole lot more people, which would put most places out of business. Thinking gains would come from productivity increases, that’s simply not going to happen, as inflation has far outpaced labor productivity for the last 60 years. Finland’s Unemployment rate is roughly 13% currently, so even hiring all of those people to make up for missed labor will not come close to solving the gap.
As normal, great aspirational idea that has zero basis in reality.
That’s not what missing the point means but I understand where you’re coming from. You’re worried about the feasibility of this proposal, which is entirely separate from my comment and the comment I was responding to. So to be clear, you’re not actually talking to me or the original commenter, you’re talking at me. Which is fine, we can have this conversation - which is different than what I was discussing - at the same time if you’d like.
Yes, reduction of hours could theoretically means a larger volume of people are needed to cover those positions. That is likely true in some fields and likely not true in others. As an example, waiters or nurses or teachers would likely need more staff to cover those lost hours as those are services that are often open most days of the week at most hours. We can’t have hospitals closed on Fridays, for instance. So in that case your suggestion is correct.
The element you’re not considering past the simple math of the problem is whether or not we need 40 hours to stay profitable. The counter example to the nurse would be most white collar jobs who reportedly don’t need 40 hours a week to complete their work and be successful. These people are forced to work 40 hours because of cultural expectations but, because of the “productivity” boom of the last century, don’t actually need to work 40 hours. This is the situation that the PM’s suggestion would be most feasible.
If someone can complete their work in 32 hours but is paid to be at their desk for 40, 1 of 2 things happen. (Reminder, this is the expected amount of work to keep the business profitable.) They either notify their boss that they can do more work, and thus increase their responsibilities until it hits 40 hours, which nearly always results in neither higher pay nor higher recognition long term. Or they don’t, and they make what use they can of those 8 hours, which is always less efficient than if they had “free time”. This is where the government, unions, or any regulatory body is necessary for the improvement of society. Businesses of a certain size or profession grow inefficient in using their employees time as their productivity goes up, which again can be converted either into more work and higher sales or more free time and better benefits. (This is ignoring what happens too often which is that extra time gets converted to meaningless meetings and micromanagement and time around the water cooler etc).
So I disagree with you in saying, as a blanket statement derived from napkin math, that the PM’s proposal (which I imagine both of us have just read the title comments on instead of an actual, ready to implement policy proposal) is not based in reality.
Why you seem excited to defend the forced labor hours of the working class is beyond me. Surely you’re not rich, and surely you’d prefer to work less than you do and have the same quality of life. So I have to assume you’re either afraid of someone messing up “the economy” by being too progressive or you’ve taken the conservative propaganda to heart and believe things must only get worse for the working class if the rich are to get richer and therefore through market magic improve everyone else’s lives maybe (trickling down or some other illogical and indirect process). Tell me, if you can be so introspective, why you decided to talk at me. Why do you think something that several studies have shown, at least to my knowledge, to not only be feasible but also beneficial? Why are you against the topic at first mention of societal progress?
Boy, you seem to think you know a lot of things, and yet know very little. For someone like me who is working on cures for blindness, no I don’t want to work less hours. I actually want to help cure blindness.
Those nurses? No they don’t want to work less when there aren’t others trained to do their job.
Perhaps you work a job that’s has no use to society and if you worked less it wouldn’t matter, but that’s not a lot of jobs.
Buddy, imagine getting paid more to do your job. That’s what we’re talking about. Imagine there being more nurses and more demand for all jobs and more effective nurses because they’re less tired and overworked and underpaid.
Like this isn’t rocket science. You could get the same money for less mandatory hours. You wanna work more, go for it. I want to get you more money for those hours and I want the hospitals to have to hire more people instead of overworking them. Again, idk why you’re acting like this wouldn’t be a better system for everyone. The service would only improve. The pay would only improve. The profits would be the only thing that takes a hit.
Like buddy, imagine in a world where that works. Where are these extra nurses coming from? It’s not even demand for nurses, it’s time to teach and educate them. It’s like you believe people cable, educated, certified to do jobs can be spun up with a snap of the finger. Doctors are already say in the US highly paid positions. And you can’t get enough of them because it takes too long to educate them, outstripping demand.
So you entire premise fails. You want to reduce the working hours of the population by 40% and expect those people to simply exist. The UE rate is what again? Certainly not 40%. So you have to do more with far far less.
And no, profits wouldn’t take a hit, you simply raise prices, and now for those hours you are working, you can’t afford anything. Since you can’t afford anything, those businesses go out of business and now you don’t have a job.
That’s the problem. Small companies, niche companies can do this pretty easily and move the costs onto customers. Most industries cannot. Know how we went from a 60-80 hour work week to a 40 hour work week? We sent the jobs overseas, where they still fork 80+ hours a week, for far less money.
Great concept, until you look anything deeper than the surface.
That’s not how we went from 80 to 40 hours. We got there through productivity increases and strong unions, you’re not speaking from a historically accurate position.
The US pays more for healthcare than nearly every other country for equivalent results and far less coverage. In this singular example, hospitals (and health insurance companies) could absolutely be made to be cheaper while maintaining quality. That means a reduction in profit. ANOTHER way to say that is the existing hospitals (and health insurance companies) could maintain prices and productivity AND INSTEAD pay their workers more.
You’re correct in saying we can’t materialize educated and trained people out of thin air, but in nearly everything else you’re just dead wrong. We would not need to materialize “40% more workforce” we could, under the same proposal, just pay the existing staff overtime starting at 32 hours instead of 40. It’s really not this hard of a concept.
Most large companies, think publicly traded companies, make more profit year after year. Those companies can and should pay their workers more. They won’t unless forced so we have to force them.
That means Walmart has to raise their wages and hire more people. That means hospitals have to pay nurses more (which absolutely will increase the rate at which people study to become nurses). That means fortune 500 companies, which are inefficient as hell, let their well paid employees work 8 hours less and notice nearly no difference in output (according to the studies that have been conducted on this that I’m aware of).
Again, you’re not actually engaging with the whole concept and you’re arguing against one made up scenario with an incomplete understanding of the argument. The new standard work week should be 32 hours at equal hourly rate as it is today. Businesses do 1 of 3 things: keep their current staff and accept the lower hours (studies show some businesses can do this without issue, just a win-win), increase their staff and keep their pay (lowering their hours, this would eat into profits and likely raise prices in some mixed percentage), keep their staff and raise their pay (keeping their hours, this would eat into profits and likely raise prices in some mixed percentages). Not every industry (or even most) could afford to raise prices and survive, they would have to be okay with less profits. But in a functioning society cost of living should be going down or quality of life should be going up, and the US (and most of the world) are long over due for one of those things. We need a correction, likely starting with addressing wealth inequality and then something like a new standard work week.
You really need to look up your information. We absolutely didn’t go from 80 to 40 hours via productivity increase, or unions. Maybe start looking into the labor movement and those who died because of it.
Anywho you are arguing and not actually making a point here, so have a good life. I guess we can all pray you have a useless enough job in life that you can work 20 hours a week and not be needed for any more.