4 hour work day

[catherine]

As some of you know, I'm interested in exploration of new economic models. The Nearings were proponents of one of them, and one of the cornerstones of their vision was the 4 hour workday. They felt the ideal day would be divided into 4 hours for "bread labor," 4 hours for community endeavors, and 4 hours in leisure. Presumably the rest would be spent sleeping and food prep, etc. Not sure about that. But the major 12 hours of every day should be in those 4-block chunks.

This is a really interesting idea to me, so I searched around and a website dedicated to the idea.

What do you guys think of the 4 hour work day? If we could get our minds out of the current paradigm and think outside the box, what advantages do you think the 4 hour work day would have?

Read the article for a few of those advantages. And, if you do click on this essay (http://www.4hourworkday.org/essay), you will see a VERY familiar image that we see very often right here on this site! ;)

[iris lilies]

There's nothing magical about 8 hours as the work standard for corporate and related work. Many will tell you that it's not even 8 hours, it's now many more hours.

I think that rather than another arbitrary standard for hours of work for The Man, having an integration of work and non-work is supportive of a healthy life. Like my grandmother--should would be shelling peas in the evening while sitting on the porch talking to neighbors. Delivering eggs would be integrated with one trip to town were kids were taken to the doctors, deals were made with the local grain purchasers, shoes purchased for one child, etc. But then, in that scenario, there's the idea that one is "always working" or that "my work is never done."

In the end, many people work 4 hours anyway. Some have jobs for The Man that are officially part time. Others have their own business that supports a 4 hour work day.

I'm definately not in favor of more mucking around in governmental regulation on this, not saying that you are, either.

[Rogar]

It has been so long since I read the Nearing book or books, I've forgotten which the concept came from, but I've kept it in my mind as a great model. Since leaving the traditional work force, the 4 hours of "bread labor" has pretty much lost it's meaning as money is no longer a motivator, but I have substituted instead constructive work in the garden, doing home repairs, yard work, and fixing up things. My volunteer work is fairly intensive in the winter and spring so I really can't fit it into a neat 4 hour block of any given day, but is maybe a fourth or third of my spendable time. If I remember correctly, the leisure time for the Nearings was creative leisure of music and study? I have included exercise in the form of daily cycling or hiking into my routine and I'm not sure what category that fits into. Any more, I also need a little down time to zone out a little which is usually Netflix or NPR on the tube or reading on the internet.

I think it is a great model that could also work for simple living people who don't need a large income but still need an income stream of some sort through parttime work.

[catherine]

Yes, that 8 hours is very illusory in terms of what the work force NEEDS to put in. It works fine if you're happy with the growth economic model, where working citizens put in 8 hours (or more) in exchange for a standard of living that is also an illusion. We are overshooting the mark for what we need right now, because we think we "need" all the things being presented to us by the producers of these things. And those producers are simply trying to push, push, push production to the tipping point of unsustainability, because the goal is more profit, more GDP, more interest, more growth.

I'm not suggesting the labor unions start lobbying for a 20 hour work-week. I'm suggesting that we rethink the growth economy. If we do that, other things like a typical work life will fall in place. If we don't have to rape our resources making widgets that we have to convince people they need to buy, we don't have to hire people to work on those widgets 60 hours a week to meet manufactured demand.

I'm also not saying that if you find tremendous satisfaction in your work, you shouldn't do it as much as you want to. If you want to heal people, or teach people, or add up numbers in a column 80 hours a week, go for it. I'm saying that if we could agree to share some of the mind-numbing things that need to be done--like garbage collection or getting kids across the street safely, or weighing produce--then some of the people who can't wait to get to the 20th century version of retirement because they hate their jobs (with good reason) will have less of a reason to waste their precious present moments by focusing on some distant "promised land" of leisure.

[ApatheticNoMore]

A 30 hour work week almost got passed in 1933. This country nearly had a 30 hours workweek. It passed the Senate. The AFL supported it.

"We stand unflinchingly for the six-hour day and the five-day week in industry,” thundered AFL president William Green to a labor meeting in San Francisco that spring. Franklin Roosevelt and Labor Secretary Frances Perkins also initially endorsed the idea, but the president buckled under opposition from the National Association of Manufacturers and dropped his support for the bill, which was then defeated in the House of Representatives."
http://www.alternet.org/labor/when-america-came-close-establishing-30-hour-workweek

At one point nearly everyone believed it would be inevitable, Keynes wrote about it (and marx? haha, you know I'm not even going to go there). but I mean MOST of the major thinkers at one point believed a shorter workweek was inevitable, the inevitable result of technological progress.

But the thing is while a 30 hour workday would benefit people who earn more than they need and could take the paycut (and I am one of them - and my needs aren't that great), noone struggling to survive on 40 hours because they earn too little to survive (non living wage) is going to be helped by going 30 unless they got an hourly pay raise as well. A 30 or 20 hour workweek is a clueless sermon to them barring further social changes (like pay increases) that probably seem fantastical to them at this point. Furthermore I don't see how you'd ever establish it without laws and/or a strong labor movement. And I'm not sure if you'd even get a law passed without a strong labor movement so :). In 1933 you had that. If you have some idea of how this would come about short of say a labor movement or legislation I'd like to hear (no even economic collapse won't bring it about as our economic collapses are entirely manipulated to direct money to plutocrats (bailouts for banksters etc.). Anyway economic collapse has major downsides haha). Some countries like Germany I've heard have major protections for workers who want to go part-time. You could try to jiggle around the fixed cost incentives to encourage a shorter work week (if there was any political will which there isn't). Fixed costs here are the cost paid to have an employee regardless of how many hours they work (lets assume an employee paid hourly) - that don't vary with the work performed. I believe fixed costs plus salaried work (which is a whole other story) is one of the reasons companies want fewer workers working longer hours rather than more workers working less hours.

I've worked 30 hours before, I think it's a good workday. It's a much much much much much better life. Noone can actually work 8 hours straight anyway. I have not ruled out trying for that again (I have ruled it out right now :( ). But it's an uphill battle all the way.

[catherine]

I agree that this sounds pie-in-the-sky, but I'm not being naive by stating that there is a better way and we can find a way to it. Time to dismantle the paradigm.

A 20 hour work-week cannot take place without a wholesale economic/social paradigm shift. This is not one piece of legislation I'm talking about like raising minimum wage. I'm talking about some of the issues that a lot of sound economic thinkers are already talking about: For instance, Tim Jackson in Prosperity Without Growth talks about the consequences of "business as usual" and the tremendous challenge of moving in a different direction.

This is a summary of solutions taken from one of the reviews on Amazon:


This presents the dilemma of growth:
+ Growth in its present form is unsustainable -- unbounded resource consumption is exceeding environmental capacity, and
+ De-growth under present conditions is unstable -- reduced consumer demand leads to increased unemployment and the spiral of recession.

A solution to this dilemma is essential for future prosperity.

We can begin to see a solution in the "Green new deal". People need jobs and the world needs to manage a transition to sustainable energy. These two goals can be met simultaneously by directing investments away from opulent consumer goods and toward low-carbon systems that reduce climate change and increase energy security. In addition investments in natural infrastructure including sustainable agriculture and ecosystem protection provide long-term benefits. The engine of growth becomes creation and operation of non-polluting energy sources and selling non-material services. In addition, delivering the benefits of labor productivity to the workers would allow them more leisure and less stress as they enjoy a shorter work week. The book describes quantitative models to demonstrate the feasibility of this approach.

The many elements of such a transformation are described, including:

Establishing limits:
+ Establishing resource extraction and emissions caps, including reduction targets,
+ Reforming financial systems to support sustainability, and
+ Supporting ecological transitions in developing countries.
Fixing the economic model:
+ Developing a new macro-economic model based on ecological constraints,
+ Investing in jobs, assets and infrastructures,
+ Increasing financial and fiscal prudence,
+ Revising the national accounts such as GDP to include the value of ecological services and the costs of pollution and destructive activities.
Changing the social logic:
+ Adjusting working time policy to allow shorter or longer work weeks to suit the preferences of the workers [bolding mine] and share the work to be done,
+ Reducing systemic inequalities,
+ Measuring capabilities and well-being,
+ Strengthening social capital, and
+ Dismantling the culture of consumerism.

It can be done, but not unless we recognize that we're frogs in the proverbial pot getting hotter and hotter.

[puglogic]

I can say that I am trying to move toward this myself, although it can be tough without downsizing (guess that means I need to downsize my life)

From a personal perspective, during the periods when I'm able to pull this off and still feel reasonably financially secure, it feels wonderful. During the "working" 4 hours, I am uber-focused and get a great feeling from working hard and making a lot happen. During the community's 4 hours, I'm teaching people about growing food, or simple living, or using resources like the library, and it has lots of benefits. The leisure 4 hours is sometimes spent on things other than leisure (but it's not work, and it's not community) but is always feel-good stuff like gardening, self-care/exercise, connecting with family/friends, making my house more energy-efficient, and of course lots of reading and constant learning.

Even assuming others might find it as cool as I do, I don't know how America could move toward that ideal. It may be moving on its own in some quarters, though, as organizations continue to cut budgets by cutting people/hours/benefits. For example, our library has cut everyone back to a 16-hour maximum workweek. I've seen people finding ways to close the fiscal gap in their lives by creating/selling stuff on Etsy, pet care for their neighbors, selling their extra car and walking more, learning about money and budget, cutting their food budget in half by cooking more/intelligently, lots of avenues.

One of the big problems is health insurance, naturally. It's suicide to live without it, and yet for someone like me, it makes up a HUGE budget item each month. Unsure how that will resolve itself in a 4-hour-day society.

Anyway, I love the concept and think more people could enjoy it if they stepped away from the "culture of consumerism" as many of us here have, and got a little creative with things (as, er, many of us do....am I sensing a pattern here? :) ). Not sure how it would happen on a large scale.

[ApatheticNoMore]

I'm not suggesting the labor unions start lobbying for a 20 hour work-week.

I am. But unions don't have a lot of power these days. And I've never personally worked union.


I'm suggesting that we rethink the growth economy. If we do that, other things like a typical work life will fall in place.

How? many people in this society desperately need their jobs AND every penny they earn.


If we don't have to rape our resources making widgets that we have to convince people they need to buy, we don't have to hire people to work on those widgets 60 hours a week to meet manufactured demand.

one possible idea is this arose out of big scale production and if somehow the tide could be tipped back to household production that would change. So I support (literally I've given money to that household food bill that passed in CA) moves to decriminalize household production. But I don't see any ready way to make this dominant mode of production blah blah, though yes you could hope for that to come about with rep raps etc., I see a lot of utopianism that while very alive, will not change the economic system.


I'm saying that if we could agree to share some of the mind-numbing things that need to be done--like garbage collection or getting kids across the street safely, or weighing produce--then some of the people who can't wait to get to the 20th century version of retirement because they hate their jobs (with good reason) will have less of a reason to waste their precious present moments by focusing on some distant "promised land" of leisure.

In my utopia as well.

And just for the sake of being radical (and since your statement of sharing the drudgery reminded me of it), Bob Black's Abolition of Work
http://www.zpub.com/notes/black-work.html

[catherine]

Thanks, ANM. I enjoyed that essay..

I think that it is important to define work, and the role it's supposed to have in society.. Black's article really defined work as something intrinsically negative: "Work, then, institutionalizes homicide as a way of life."

What about work as sacred? Kahlil Gibran: "Work is love made visible." Or Eisenstein: "The one who bows into service is an artist. To see work as sacred is to bow into service to it, and thus become its instrument." Or MLK: "Do you work so well that... all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to say, here lived a man who did his job as if God Almighty called him at this particular time in history to do it."

In the discussions I've had with you on this topic, I think your filter seems to me to be how much you hate work, and my filter is that there is work that is odious but there is work that is not only necessary, but fulfilling and enriching. I don't believe in all work as either good or evil. Some food nurtures us and some food poisons us, and I think the same of work.

So I agree with you and with Black on many points, but not in the belief that if work doesn't kill you mentally, physically or spiritually it's not work. I've had jobs I've hated and jobs that have taught me and fulfilled me.

I think society should somehow recalibrate to maximize the opportunity for all people to experience the latter and just do enough of the former to keep the wheels turning.

[bae]

What do you guys think of the 4 hour work day?

It depends.

On what you view as "work", what fulfills you, and a dozen other things. It's too complicated to simply lay out a "N hour work week" figure.

There were times when I was working 80+ hours a week doing R&D, and loving it, because I was in The Zone, and all that mattered was the mental stimulation of working with my team inventing Bold New Things.

There have been times when I've "worked" 0 hours a week, but was out in the wilderness hunting/gathering/foraging for weeks on end. So it was all work, or no work at all, depending.

I'll sometimes pull a several day duty shift at the fire station - 24 hour work days there, but you may do nothing but work out, cook, eat, sleep, and train, or you may spend the time hip-deep in muck or whatnot. Luck of the draw.

If you plan on regulating the number of hours that can be worked, well, telling people how they "should" live and structure their lives denies them their basic freedom to make their own decisions and live their lives as they see fit.

[catherine]

It depends.

On what you view as "work", what fulfills you, and a dozen other things. It's too complicated to simply lay out a "N hour work week" figure.

There were times when I was working 80+ hours a week doing R&D, and loving it, because I was in The Zone, and all that mattered was the mental stimulation of working with my team inventing Bold New Things.

There have been times when I've "worked" 0 hours a week, but was out in the wilderness hunting/gathering/foraging for weeks on end. So it was all work, or no work at all, depending.

I'll sometimes pull a several day duty shift at the fire station - 24 hour work days there, but you may do nothing but work out, cook, eat, sleep, and train, or you may spend the time hip-deep in muck or whatnot. Luck of the draw.

If you plan on regulating the number of hours that can be worked, well, telling people how they "should" live and structure their lives denies them their basic freedom to make their own decisions and live their lives as they see fit.

I completely agree. I'm not trying to dictate how much people should "work"--however they define it. I'm suggesting that we, as a society, reconsider the growth economy as a paradigm, in order to increase options for meaningful work and leisure for a larger segment of society.

And there's nothing like being in The Zone--I know what you mean. And sometimes it takes some challenging involuntary or mandated work objective to get you there. I'm not against employment.

BTW, did you click on the essay I mentioned? You may see yourself there.. ;)

[bae]

I'm suggesting that we, as a society, reconsider the growth economy as a paradigm, in order to increase options for meaningful work and leisure for a larger segment of society.

You might enjoy this:

http://pixhost.me/avaxhome/b3/de/0021deb3_medium.jpeg

It's also worth looking into the cultures of the Pacific NW coastal peoples - with such a moderate climate, and easy availability of food and materials, things developed a bit differently here :-)




BTW, did you click on the essay I mentioned? You may see yourself there.. ;)

:-)

[ApatheticNoMore]

Yea I hate work. I think it's what drew me here to this board. Hoping not to work someday. Really. :) Well that is much easier said that done haha (wish I had a pension like in the old days etc. etc.), and whether or not I ever acheive that whatever, politically I strongly favor SS, which I've paid into all my working life, being there much like it is today, and otherwise it's mostly my problem really, since I don't actually envision utopia magically arising next year or something.

But whether or not I'm sometimes lazy, I'm not actually against *effort*. I think Black may make that very distinction of work versus effort (or that's someone else's essay, I don't remember :)). I'm against work and OUR LIVES being for goals that are not *OURS*, for things we do not believe in (and I don't mean we have strong moral opposition, but I mean things that we dont' care about!). But who will take out the trash, who will clean bedpans? If collectively it's obvious such things need to be done (and it should be pretty obvious, in the real world, yucky work sometimes needs to be done), well automation can do some things, but other than than in utopia drudgery could be shared.

And beyond socially necessary work: optimize free time and people can put effort or put no effort (and be couch potatoes) into whatever they want in their free time. Maximize the time people don't have to work for goals that are not theirs.

I find the existing 40 hour work week (or more) to already be a horrible mandate on how people should live their lives and oppressive (but one could work less, yes but generally not in anything that pays enough hourly to live on). It's like work 40-50 hours a week at a professional job, or 20 hours a week at micky D's.

[spirit]

At the risk of causing yet another word-war...

Handing 50% of earned income over to the governments in income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, registration fees, permit fees, and so on, makes it obvious to me how to avoid 40 or 40+ hours of work each week to make ends meet.

Leaner/Meaner government including reduced "services" and especially WASTE reduction might make it reasonable for each of us to work less and enjoy life more. Think about it.

[ApatheticNoMore]

Handing 50% of earned income over to the governments in income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, registration fees, permit fees, and so on, makes it obvious to me how to avoid 40 or 40+ hours of work each week to make ends meet.

The existence on industries like building missles and weapons of warfare, especially on this scale (ok that's government for sure, no doubt about it), the existence of industries like advertising that produce nothing that anyone needs, the need to waste fuel commuting to jobs that could be done at home, the inefficiency of even our cars that burn that fuel (internal combustion engine is supposedly crazy inefficient), the inefficiency in our housing and it's lack of ability to conserve energy, make use of the environment, passive solar, permaculture principles etc., the fact that massive amount of the food produced gets thrown away, the very existence of such a thing as planned obsolescence - makes it obvious to me how to avoid 40 or 40+ hours of work each week to make ends meet.

Or at any rate, even if they don't make it obvious to me how to do it for myself (because of the 40 hour pretty much enforced norm), they make it obvious to me that much work is entirely socially unnecessary. So does the unemployment rate, even in a system with TREMENDOUS astounding waste, we still can't employ way too many of the people at all.

[catherine]

Stone Age Economics looks great, except for the fact that the KINDLE version costs $30. I'll definitely put it on my wish list. I expect that it's consistent with some of the economic ideas I'm exploring, which includes the gift economy.

This quote from a review is also relevant to ANM's viewpoint:


The logical conclusion from this book is that we should figure out what we really need materially, calculate how many hours we have to work to supply these needs, and not work a minute more.

And spirit, I agree that waste, whoever incurs it, is bad. I really believe that it's a vicious cycle, however, in terms of the culpability of government vs business. And of course, the choices that we as individuals make.

[Gardenarian]

While I like the idea of a four-hour day, I think other options might make more sense.

Most people have to commute to work, so if they are working 20 hours per week, it might make more sense to work three days rather than five.

I have long envied the many European countries that have 4-6 week long vacations, as well as very flexible personal time, maternity leave, and sick leave plans.

There is a lot of wasted time in the 8-hour day (at least for those in office-type jobs.) As someone said - "time isn't money; time is everything.

[Lainey]

Two points: I'm old enough to remember that in the late '70s/early '80s that students were encouraged to consider majoring in something called "leisure studies" because the forecast was we'd all be working <40 hrs/week thanks to computers, robots, etc. So people would have plenty of time to enjoy lots of fun and games and diversions with these extra hours. Ha!

Also, the new book by Alan Weisman, "Countdown: Our Last Best Hope for a Future on Earth?" asserts that the issue of global over-population is actually trumping almost all other issue regarding our quality of life. He mentioned that had the Chinese not instituted the one-child policy, there would now be another 400 million more people on the planet. He's not, of course, advocating forced policies, but just that one fact is certainly attention-getting.

[shadowmoss]

If I remember the Nearing books right, they sat down and calculated just how much money they would need for the next year and worked just until they got that much money. Going from that example, one could then align the 'wants' to only fill the work needed to fill 4 hours a day.

[Lainey]

I realized I didn't tie my point on over-population to the original posts. Weisman was also stating that it may not be possible for everyone to work an 8 hour job even if they wanted to, if we add many hundreds of millions of more people to the planet.

[Gregg]

Just to mirror some of the others here, I can't stand to work more than 4 hours on any cause in which I have no emotional investment. OTOH, I can apply myself for completely unreasonable stretches of time without feeling as if I've worked at all if the passion is there. The only trick is finding the right niche'.

[Tussiemussies]

Had read a while ago about a company, and I cannot recall which one unfortunately, in the early 1900s where the owner decided that the best thing for his employees would be to end their workday at 3:00 PM. He felt they could spend time with family and possibly have a hobby. They were happier and worked with loyalty and harder I believe it said since they were grateful. This was adhered to until his death when his son took over the company and reinstated regular hours again.

At first I thought this was Quaker Oats but could not find any information about it. Does anyone know what company this was? Chris

[herbgeek]

Chris- it was Kelloggs who had a 30 hour week.

[Gregg]

Kind of an interesting side note... We used to have a construction company. The crews wanted to work 4 ten hour days to get their 40 in. That was a disaster. No production in the last few hours of any day. Mistakes were made. I was very concerned that someone would end up getting hurt. The compromise we made was to try 4 nines and then work from 8 to noon on Friday. The ninth hour was generally clean-up and stocking, just getting lined up to be as efficient as possible the next morning. What we found was that during the "1/2 day" on Friday we got just as much done as on most 9 hour days. Everyone was in a great mood and running fast simply because they knew that the day would be over before they knew it. Obviously that won't work well for anyone who depends on an hourly wage rather than piece work or performance based work, but it did make a light go on for me.

[catherine]

Good point, Gregg. I know that when I went to work in an office from 9 to 5 (or 8-9 on many days), there was definitely a point of diminishing returns after 3pm. My mind was not focused, then at 4:30 you tend to be preparing to leave, unless I was working on a task that was going to keep me there for a few more hours. Sometimes you spend the first half hour catching up with friends at the coffeepot, or arranging your workspace, or any number of "getting ready for work" activities.

I think the trend for some employers and companies is results-based work. The company I do most of my market research work for has a huge proportion of employees who work from home. That's the model they want. But who knows in that case who is sitting at the desk waiting for emails vs. doing laundry, or running out to CVS? And who cares as long as the work gets done when it's supposed to?

[ApatheticNoMore]

But who knows in that case who is sitting at the desk waiting for emails vs. doing laundry, or running out to CVS? And who cares as long as the work gets done when it's supposed to?

oh come on, it wouldn't be that difficult to monitor.

[catherine]

oh come on, it wouldn't be that difficult to monitor.

The point is, the company is not interested in monitoring that kind of activity, as long as the work gets done. That's why they feel the benefits of reduced overhead beats any potential concerns about misuse of time. It will be much more obvious if the work doesn't get done than how much housework was stuck inbetween work tasks.

[Tussiemussies]

Chris- it was Kelloggs who had a 30 hour week.


Thanks Herbgeek...

[Tradd]

There are some industries where a four hour day wouldn't work. Mine is one of them. The freight just keeps moving.

[bae]

There are some industries where a four hour day wouldn't work. Mine is one of them. The freight just keeps moving.

So create two jobs, each of 4 hours! Solve the unemployment problem right there.

(Didn't the French try this? Workers with jobs were "hogging all the work"....)

[Tradd]

So create two jobs, each of 4 hours! Solve the unemployment problem right there.

(Didn't the French try this? Workers with jobs were "hogging all the work"....)

Hah! Not when I'm the supervising customs broker for my office...

[bae]

Hah! Not when I'm the supervising customs broker for my office...

You need to learn to share :-)

[Tradd]

You need to learn to share :-)

Customs wouldn't like that, I can tell you!

[Lainey]

... The crews wanted to work 4 ten hour days to get their 40 in. That was a disaster. No production in the last few hours of any day. ...

Gregg, I can definitely see this. I was also alarmed when hospitals allowed nurses to work 3 12-hr shifts/week. I'm not even sure if that's still happening, but I would hate to be a critical care patient being treated by a nurse in the 11th hour of their workday.

[Float On]

I work four 5 hour days and find I get as much done in that time as I ever did at a 40 hour a week. I don't need to take a lunch break (can if I want to). Plus, having Wednesdays off is such a bonus! Like a weekend in the middle of the week.

[Gregg]

Gregg, I can definitely see this. I was also alarmed when hospitals allowed nurses to work 3 12-hr shifts/week. I'm not even sure if that's still happening, but I would hate to be a critical care patient being treated by a nurse in the 11th hour of their workday.

Yes, they still do that Lainey. My SIL is a RN that has worked on that schedule for 20+ years. She loves it, but has freely admitted to not being as sharp at 7:00 pm as she was at 7:00 am. And who would be? I know the hospital overlaps shifts so when one nurse is in the 11th hour others around are fresher, but there is still a significant chance for fatigue to play a part.

For me personally I work best from about 6:00 am until noon or maybe 1:00. After that its usually a waste of time for me to hang around. Thank the stars (and stripes) for self-employment.

[Spartana]

My former job was a 10 hours/day 4 days/week work week and I loved it. Felt I got a lot more done knowing I would be off for 3 days. When we went to a 9/80 workweek (every other Friday on) I hated it and it was one of the reasons I eventually quit. Fridays on became pretty much a goof off day too and not much work got done. We even had a very crass name for it that I won't repeat here :-)

[Gregg]

So really a 32 hour workweek (4 x 8) might be a pleasant solution for most folks? If not for those pesky bills...

[pcooley]

Since going back to work after being a stay-at-home-parent for twelve years, I've been working a 17.5 hour work week. I do three 4.5 hour days and one 4 hour day. I take Friday off because my son gets out of school at 12:30 on Friday. When I have a lot to do -- right now, I'm trying to redesign some databases to make them more efficient and easier to pull information from -- that four hours is not enough. However, in general, it seems about right to me. This year, they made me a full staff member, so I get benefits, paid sick leave, and four weeks paid vacation. I'm convinced that, living simply, I could live off the income I'm making, and if everyone was on-board, we might be able to live quite well as a family of four once the mortgage is paid off, (hopefully by April). The rest of the family, however, doesn't see simple living as a project to be whole-heartedly embraced, but rather a preoccupation of Dad that has some good benefits but is sometimes eccentric.

[Spartana]

So really a 32 hour workweek (4 x 8) might be a pleasant solution for most folks? If not for those pesky bills...

Well if I HAD to work full time (or close to it) I'd opt for a 12 hour day - 3 days a week schedule myself. Anything to avoid having to commute to work everyday. Back when I was in the coast guard I was stationed at a few small boat stations that operated like fire stations. We had 2 crews that switched off with each other. One crew worked 72 on and then had 48 off one week. While the other crew would have 48 on and 72 off. Then we'd switch iot up the following week. We lived at the station house during our time on. I actually liked that in theory but in reality we often had to stay on for extra hours and extra days as something was always going on that we needed both crews for.

[catherine]

So really a 32 hour workweek (4 x 8) might be a pleasant solution for most folks? If not for those pesky bills...

So, how do we recalibrate society so that 32 hours gets the bills paid? I remember my best friend next door's father was a driver for Drake's Cakes. His wife was a SAHM, as were all moms for the most part back then and he had a nice 2 bedroom Cape Cod.

If we could reduce consumer demand, we could even out the shorter working week with standard of living

[bae]

So, how do we recalibrate society so that 32 hours gets the bills paid? I remember my best friend next door's father was a driver for Drake's Cakes. His wife was a SAHM, as were all moms for the most part back then and he had a nice 2 bedroom Cape Cod.


Seems to me we've gone from a 40 hour workweek for families, to an 80+ hour workweek - with both partners working outside the home. Just to keep the bills paid. In some ways, that is a huge step backwards, no?

I wonder what the point of the McMansion and the pair of sporty European cars is, when nobody is ever home.

[ApatheticNoMore]

So, how do we recalibrate society so that 32 hours gets the bills paid? I remember my best friend next door's father was a driver for Drake's Cakes. His wife was a SAHM, as were all moms for the most part back then and he had a nice 2 bedroom Cape Cod.

If we could reduce consumer demand, we could even out the shorter working week with standard of living

Various ways to look at it I suppose. There's the whole problem of real wages declining and productivity gains not having gone to labor. How to get working people (especially the working poor - the working rich just need to be frugal :laff:) more money. Guaranteed income? Increased wages? How to increase wages? Unions?

An alternate path to increasing wages is to decrease the cost of living, it's a bit of a 3rd world path so not sure if we want to go there but ... it may not be bad per se. But what's the main obstacle to reducing the cost of living? In my view (and my view comes out of my budget so ...): rentier profits. Things like housing costs and medical costs having to be kept up (housing costs are very deliberately kept up as a matter of policy - and the extent this is taken to is absurd, medical costs are kept up because of the interests involved: pharma, hospitals, etc.). And as a renter housing is seen very clearly to me as a COST, part of the cost of living, it's not an investment, stocks and bonds are investments, housing is a cost. But when whole generations have bet everything otherwise ... Student debt may be another one of these rentier costs.

So those are approaches to make peoples wages go further so they can work less. Increase income or reduce costs for the average worker. For people who already make enough to go part time well then they could spend less, and there would need to be some way to encourage companies to offer the option to work part time for less. Which is why I said it was about fixed costs to the company, the fixed cost of having an employee is why they'd rather have existing employeees work more rather than more employees sharing the work (this is of course assuming it's a "rational" economic dollars and cents decision not some paranoid pathological power relations decision just based on having power over employeees - keep people from having any free time to maintain more control over them etc. - although that could be the case ....).

[catherine]

Seems to me we've gone from a 40 hour workweek for families, to an 80+ hour workweek - with both partners working outside the home. Just to keep the bills paid. In some ways, that is a huge step backwards, no?

I wonder what the point of the McMansion and the pair of sporty European cars is, when nobody is ever home.

Totally agree...

[Gregg]

I think all of the above are on exactly the right trail. My mom stayed at home, my dad didn't make much and we never felt slighted at all. Our beemer was a 1969 GMC pick-up, but we didn't seem any worse for wear. Our 1300 sq.ft. McMansion suited us to a T. Whenever the size of a house doubled and the cost of basic transportation quadrupled (or more) its probably about the same time most folks got pulled farther and farther from the house they were over-paying for and got to start spending more and more quality time in the cars they were over-paying for. It is, after all, so much better to look good than to feel good. (Fernando Lamas paraphrase.)

[mira]

I've read about this before, and as others have mentioned, the only way to make it (or anything like it) reality is to reconfigure economic structures and our mindsets.

In a typical 8-hour workday, how much time do we actually spend properly working? 5 hours? 4 hours? Most employees are paid for their time rather than the work they do, leading to this weird culture of presenteeisim. What would happen if we were paid only for the work that we did over 4 or 5 hours? Would our earning be on par with what they are now? Would this kind of model be viable in a service industry?

My own personal situation is this: Out of all the many and varied jobs that I've had, I have only ever had one full-time one (and even that was only a summer contract). I do not ever wish to work full-time because it drains me. I don't like anything enough to dedicate 35+ hours a week to it, not including the commute and the "recharging" I have to do when I get home. I am fortunate to live in a country that does not penalize me in terms of benefits for working part-time (to an extent - I am on the lower threshold of National Insurance contributions, which go towards my state pension & unemployment entitlements; if I earned a penny less, I'd have to make voluntary contributions).

For about 2.5 years, both my husband and I both worked part-time (28-30 hours each - we were each making what we would have made if we'd been working full-time on minimum wage). We did not struggle financially. We manage our money well, and consciously. People would show their pity for us when we explained our situation - "Oh I hope you find full-time work soon! It's so hard at the moment!" Please don't pity us; our situation is wonderful.

Now, I am employed 14 hours a week + 2 hours overtime (instead of the 28 + 2 I had been doing for 2 years) and I have just started a freelance business from home. I get more done in those 16 hours as an employee than I ever did when I was working there 30 hours. I don't have that constant feeling of drudgery and hopelessness hanging over me that I did before - "I'm going to have to go through all this again for the next three days!". You have no idea how much it helps not being in that state of mind.

My husband chooses to work full-time. I had wrongly assumed that he would have wanted to keep working part-time... I'm not going to lie: if he wasn't working at least 28 or so hours a week (he does 35 + on-call for a very modest wage), I wouldn't be able to pursue my ambition of working flexible freelance.



I have long envied the many European countries that have 4-6 week long vacations, as well as very flexible personal time, maternity leave, and sick leave plans.
Yes we are very lucky here and we often take it for granted. 4 weeks is normally a minimum for paid vacation when an employee starts a new job. We still have some way to go as far as paternity leave is concerned, but we're working on it. What is keeping the US from improving their employee rights to vacation and parental leave? Is there some weird fear that it is all a bit too "socialist"?? I prefer to think of it as "humane"...[/quote]



I wonder what the point of the McMansion and the pair of sporty European cars is, when nobody is ever home.

I ask myself the same thing.

[Spartana]

I don't think you'll ever see an employer go for a 4 hour work day or even a 30 hour or so work week and continue to pay full benefits - especially if that means they need to hire even more employees to do the job. It's cheaper for them to have one employee work 40 hours a week plus overtime and pay one set of benefits, taxes, insurance, etc... then it is to have 2 employees working 30 hours per week or less and having to pay double benefits, taxes, insurance, etc... Plus it seems most employees want those benefits as well as more hours rather then less, so going part time with no or few benefits probably isn't an option for most. And again, once you add in commuting cost and all the other "real hourly wage" factors involved with having a job, going in for just 4 hours a day wouldn't be worth it financially. Although I can see a financial, as well as personal, benefit of working a 10 to 12 hour day twice a week

[catherine]

I don't think you'll ever see an employer go for a 4 hour work day or even a 30 hour or so work week and continue to pay full benefits - especially if that means they need to hire even more employees to do the job. It's cheaper for them to have one employee work 40 hours a week plus overtime and pay one set of benefits, taxes, insurance, etc... then it is to have 2 employees working 30 hours per week or less and having to pay double benefits, taxes, insurance, etc...

Spartana, that's EXACTLY why we need insurance to be de-coupled from employers! You said it! If we can get Obamacare to work, or something close to it, as a first step towards universal healthcare, how many people will have more options to work however much, or little, they want!

[bae]

Spartana, that's EXACTLY why we need insurance to be de-coupled from employers!

I've never quite understood why people want their health insurance attached to their employment. We don't generally want our housing, our food, our education, our transportation, our energy/communications, our clothing, and our entertainment/leisure provided by our employer.

[Spartana]

Spartana, that's EXACTLY why we need insurance to be de-coupled from employers! You said it! If we can get Obamacare to work, or something close to it, as a first step towards universal healthcare, how many people will have more options to work however much, or little, they want!
True but there are a lot more to employer benefits than just medical insurance. There's sick time and vacation time, and disability, life, and unemployment insurance, more money in matching towards 401ks or pensions and into social security, dental and vision coverage for some, and more I'm sure

[Spartana]

I've never quite understood why people want their health insurance attached to their employment. We don't generally want our housing, our food, our education, our transportation, our energy/communications, our clothing, and our entertainment/leisure provided by our employer.

I don't think anyone wants their medical insurance attached to their jobs, but up until the ACA many people couldn't find affordable coverage - or even any coverage - if they had a preexisting condition even for something small or not health related (say a broken leg once). So many people I know got dumped from their insurance once something happened too. It,s very risky to he self-insured. That stuff doesn't happen with employer sponsered health insurance policies so many people work f/t just to have that benefit even if they could work p/t or retire. .

[catherine]

True but there are a lot more to employer benefits than just medical insurance. There's sick time and vacation time, and disability, life, and unemployment insurance, more money in matching towards 401ks or pensions and into social security, dental and vision coverage for some, and more I'm sure

If an employer isn't paying for health insurance, then that money can go towards sick pay and unemployment. Disability can be part of a universal healthcare package. People can buy their own life insurance (it's not much if you start young).

If we're talking loosening the golden handcuffs, maybe the people who are working less will also be fine with having unpaid vacation, or maybe if they're working only 20-32 hours they won't have a burning desire to spend a measly 10 precious days a year trying to fit in recreation, cleaning out closets, just relaxing, etc. etc.

And, by the way, who has pensions anymore?

As for social security, it would be just prorated just as it would if you were working part-time--or at least 20 hours--isn't there some line between a less than 20 vs. more the 20 hour workweek?

And if everyone lived like you do, and worked 20-30 hours, you could fund your own 401k/Roth IRA.

If there was universal healthcare decoupled from employment, people could do the full boat 40 hours thing with all the benefits, or they could decide for themselves. But right now, individual healthcare is prohibitive. I pay, as a self-employed person with my spouse, $1400/mo. But the freedom is priceless.

[ApatheticNoMore]

I've never quite understood why people want their health insurance attached to their employment.

Mostly because people suspect they are going to get worse insurance coverage when their employer plans are dumped, and they are probably right (really high deductables, high copays, and narrow network plans - the exchanges are full of that). Nor will most employees have the bargaining power to make it up for the benefit cut by increased wages.


If we can get Obamacare to work, or something close to it, as a first step towards universal healthcare, how many people will have more options to work however much, or little, they want!

I find the tendency to think utopia might arise out of unlikely schemes to be bizarre. I mean yes decoupling healthcare from employment is one step to enabling more flexibility in employment, but is it really going to get us there? What if the healthcare plans we have are still pricey enough to require a lot of labor to afford? What if employers have other fixed costs besides health care that leads them to continue to prefer full time employees? I highly suspect they do and there is no organized movement to change basic structural incentives so that employers will be more open to part-time labor (it's pretty silly just to look the employee and not the employer costs and benefits of going part-time - a lot of employees would be part-time yesterday if it was up to them). Are there any legal protections for employees who ask for part-time work? See there are in some countries like Germany. If wages continue to decline relative to cost of living will most people be able to afford part-time work anyway? Etc.

[catherine]

ANM, many the other countries have what I'm talking about, though. This is not pie-in-the-sky. Our present system is just an outgrown vestige of the industrial age, when the growth of Blue Cross/Blue Shield coincided with the need for industrialists to reel in factory workers by offering health insurance as a perk.

I just find it really hard to accept "it's never been done so we can't do it." Our healthcare system is broken--badly. So do we have to live with it, or can we find solutions that we'll all be better off with? Let's just raze this sucker and start all over, because it's like living in a building that just patched on a piece here and then patched on a piece there to accommodate certain situations over time, but those situations no longer exist. We are in a new century now.

[try2bfrugal]

We struggle with the how many hours to work issue at our house. DH is not opposed to working if I want to keep the businesses going, but if it were only up to him he would be more in favor of just packing it in, enjoying life, and living on what we have. He is a true Your Money or Your Life type, though I am quite sure he has never read the book. :)

If I live as long at some of my relatives, i could reach six digits in age. So I feel like as long as we have relatively easy work we should make hay while the sun shines and keep working. Who know what tax law changes, Social Security benefits changes, inflation rates, housing busts, etc. the future may hold. Retirees from ten years ago could not have predicted the current low interest rate environment, but current interest rates sure are putting a dent in many retirement plans.

So we have control over our hours but I don't know what is a good amount. Maybe 4 hours 5 days a week is a reasonable target to save a bit more and still have time for other activities. Partly we need to downsize so we have more time for fun and money making work and not yard work and cleaning.

[Gregg]

Let's just raze this sucker and start all over, because it's like living in a building that just patched on a piece here and then patched on a piece there to accommodate certain situations over time, but those situations no longer exist. We are in a new century now.

That's true of more than just healthcare. In fact a good portion of our employment model is outdated. I'm not entirely convinced that any job should have benefits attached. If my vacation and sick pay cost 10% of my salary to provide then just eliminate them and give me a 10% raise. I'll take care of it from there. Same with any other benefit, including health insurance (if ACA or similar ever actually works). Of course I would advocate eliminating health insurance altogether in favor of providing health care, but that's another thread. As many jobs as possible need to have compensation tied to production, not face time. That allows the most flexibility for both the workforce and the employers which, in the end, is the biggest benefit of all. The straight up, everyone punching a clock at the lower levels of the corporate ladder is a product of a different time. On the other side of that, and at the risk of sounding liberal {{{shudder}}}, the minimum wage is way too low.

[Spartana]

That's true of more than just healthcare. In fact a good portion of our employment model is outdated. I'm not entirely convinced that any job should have benefits attached. If my vacation and sick pay cost 10% of my salary to provide then just eliminate them and give me a 10% raise. I'll take care of it from there. Same with any other benefit, including health insurance (if ACA or similar ever actually works). Of course I would advocate eliminating health insurance altogether in favor of providing health care, but that's another thread. As many jobs as possible need to have compensation tied to production, not face time. That allows the most flexibility for both the workforce and the employers which, in the end, is the biggest benefit of all. The straight up, everyone punching a clock at the lower levels of the corporate ladder is a product of a different time. On the other side of that, and at the risk of sounding liberal {{{shudder}}}, the minimum wage is way too low. I agree with all of this. Personally, since I'm a bit more jaded then Catherine and you, I just don't see employers giving any benefits to it's p/t employees. I believe most would but that extra money back into company coffers for capital expenditures or greater bonuses for it's higher level employees. But, even though I wouldn't expect any benefits if I worked p/t, I like the idea of f/t employees getting some or all their benefits in cash to do with it whatever they want - as long as they can take unpaid sick and vacation time off as needed. However, unlike tax free benefits most f/t workers get now, getting those benefits in cash would raise your tax rate quit a bit

[ApatheticNoMore]

as long as they can take unpaid sick and vacation time off as needed.

yea that's the catch isn't it? Eliminate vacation and sick time and pay more and you'll only create a work culture in which taking ANY days off at all (yes even the measily two weeks total a year) is considered unacceptable. (What aren't you dedicated to your job? Then why are you taking two weeks off to go to Hawaii rather than showing your dedication huh? your coworker joe schmoe is committed to the company and never feels the need to take vacation ...). I often get the feeling vacation time is only begrudgingly tolerated as is.

[Gregg]

If productivity is separated from "time at work" then how many days off you take won't matter and probably wouldn't even be tracked. What difference would it make? More of a freelance model can make sense in a lot of applications. You can choose to take on projects as other parts of life allow. You can probably do some of them from the beach in Hawaii. Take on less when you want to dedicate more time to other parts of life or more when you need more income. That obviously won't work in service or retail, but it would in so many other positions. Even service and retail are evolving (think groceries from Amazon), but will require people to be on site for the foreseeable future. The best support for those folks I can think of is to get them higher wages and the opportunity to be more in charge of their own destiny.

[catherine]

If productivity is separated from "time at work" then how many days off you take won't matter and probably wouldn't even be tracked. What difference would it make? More of a freelance model can make sense in a lot of applications. You can choose to take on projects as other parts of life allow. You can probably do some of them from the beach in Hawaii. Take on less when you want to dedicate more time to other parts of life or more when you need more income. That obviously won't work in service or retail, but it would in so many other positions. Even service and retail are evolving (think groceries from Amazon), but will require people to be on site for the foreseeable future. The best support for those folks I can think of is to get them higher wages and the opportunity to be more in charge of their own destiny.

+1 Yes, that's how I see it as well.

[ApatheticNoMore]

I'm not sure what I'm even agreeing or disagreeing with anymore, which is quite horrible :~). The U.S. already has no legal mimimum vacation time. 2 weeks in just what is conventional, and even though 2 weeks is common for many, I suspect the lowest income workers aren't getting it anyway.

Australia seems about the only other country with no minimum vacation time required (but 28 days is conventional)
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/lab_vac_min_vac_tim_aro_the_wor_leg_req-time-around-world-legally-required

If the idea is by employers getting rid of vacation time people will work less ... uh that's the most paradoxical argument ever. Now I might rather a 4 or 6 hour day than vacation time, but all 2 weeks vacation time being taken away will mean is I'm expected to work full time with no vacation. Low income workers are paid poorly if that's just the point being made. I'd like for them to be paid better.

Anyway when I was working part time vacation time was reduced from an employer perspective anyway, even though I may have still got the same days, I was paid part time wages for them not full time wages (the whole paid vacation concept). So isn't that kind of a comparative cut in paid vacation time in a sense anyway?

[catherine]

Well, our parent site here may be looking over our shoulder because coincidentally New Road Map just posted this article on Facebook about companies that grant benefits to part-timers.

http://www.gajizmo.com/best-part-time-jobs-with-benefits/