Is a 32-Hour Workweek a Good Idea?
Summary from the AllSides News Team
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) proposed legislation this week to lower the standard 40-hour workweek to 32 hours, with no loss to workers' pay. Reactions have been mixed, with some more staunch than others.
Those in Favor: According to Morning Consult, 87% of U.S. workers are “extremely optimistic about the practice.” Workers want to work fewer hours whether they love or hate their jobs, according to Jacobin (Left Bias). Many have seen 40-plus hours a week for years with stagnant wages, with some picking up multiple jobs to make ends meet. Sanders cites other nations and technology as key reasons why shortening the workweek is both beneficial and reasonable.
Those Opposed: Some, like a writer for The Hill (Center bias), say “this measure threatens to undo everything that made our nation’s current prosperity possible” and that "America was built on a six-day workweek." Many oppose the notion that the 40-hour workweek causes undue stress, and argue that the claims of benefit from a shorter week are "based on weak and flawed data sets."
How the Media Covered It: Many outlets on the left pushed the benefits of shortening the workweek and posed it as an overwhelmingly good idea. Many on the right and center either simply reported on the legislation or highlighted arguments against it.
Featured Coverage of this Story
From the Center
America’s only socialist senator and the union chief who shook Detroit say enough is enough, it’s time for a 4-day workweek
“This is not a radical idea,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) told Congress this morning. The chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions is calling for the legislative branch to pick up an issue dropped nearly 70 years ago: changing the workweek to 32 hours without docking employee pay, or in other words, a four-day week.
Sanders spoke of successes in his opening statement that other countries have had in implementing shortened work weeks, like, of course, France, but also in specific companies across the nation.
United Auto Workers...
From the Right
Bernie Sanders champions bill to create 32-hour workweek without pay loss
Get ready for a long weekend at Bernie’s!
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wants Americans to follow in the footsteps of some lawmakers in Congress and cut back on their working hours while getting the same pay.
The self-described “Democratic socialist” passionately advocated for a 32-hour workweek as the national standard while chairing a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee hearing Thursday.
“American workers are now over 400% more productive than they were in the 1940s,” noted Sanders, 82.
“Almost all of the economic gains of that technological transformation have...
From the Left
Bernie Sanders Is Calling for a 32-Hour Workweek
Many people hate their jobs. Some don’t. But almost everyone would like to work less. And over the past several decades, American workers have worked longer hours overall as their wages have stagnated. As if that weren’t enough, they have also seen their declining amount of free time disrupted by increasingly erratic schedules. It’s a dismal situation. Strange, then, that politicians almost never speak to this widespread desire.
But yesterday, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders announced that he would introduce Senate legislation to establish a standard thirty-two-hour workweek, with no loss in pay, across the...
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