Bernie Wants You to Work Less. It’s a Lousy Idea…

32-hour workweek, productivity, Iceland, a politician’s idea of progress

“The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

~ Ronald Reagan

Bernie Sanders is at it again...

Last week, the Senator proposed a bill to change the Fair Labor Standards Act, cutting the full-time work week down from 40 hours to 32.

Bernie wants a national law to tell all businesses that their employees only have to work 32 hours a week "with no loss in pay". Anything over that, they get overtime pay.

I’ve never heard an idea that came from Bernie’s mouth that I liked, but let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and analyze his argument thoroughly.

Now, the 40-hour workweek, from 9 to 5, dates back to 1938 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Fast forward to today, and Bernie says that times have changed that Americans today are 400% more productive compared to the 1940s.

He is not wrong. In fact, as I've shown you, productivity has continued to increase over the decades, even as the real wages of the average worker have remained stagnant since the early 1970s.

Bernie argues that if you drop the standard from 40 hours to 32, people will have more time to spend with their family, pursue hobbies, and hang out with friends. This, he says, will make them happier and, in turn, boost productivity at work, leading to a healthier and happier society.

The question I have to ask is: why settle for 32 hours? Why not go for 24 hours, or even better, 16 hours?

In fact, if American workers are 400% more productive than they were in the 1940s, doesn't the math suggest that we should only be working eight hours per week?

That way everyone would have even more time for birthday parties and little-league games.

But here’s the inconvenient truth…

We could easily produce 1940s levels of output by working just eight hours per week. But that would also mean reverting to 1940s levels of living standards, technology, poverty, housing, you name it. And, nobody, not even Senator Sanders, would argue that anyone would want that.

Bernie completely ignores the reality that people work and innovate to improve our lives, not just to make a buck.

But then he hits us with a list of countries where government-mandated shorter working hours actually proved successful...

He points to nations like France, the 7th largest economy globally, which currently has a 35-hour workweek and is even considering reducing it to 32 hours. Additionally, Norway and Denmark have a 37-hour workweek. Why not try it here if it's working for them there?

But Bernie fails to mention the enormous government funding needed for something like this. In Iceland, when they moved to a 36-hour workweek, it costs the taxpayers an extra $30 million a year just to hire more healthcare workers. And that figure doesn't even include all kinds of other subsidies needed to implement this.

Turns out not all jobs can be done in shorter shifts, and Iceland had to learn it the hard way.

Now, $30 million may not sound like a lot; but for a country with a population of less than 400,000, it's a pretty penny. Translating this to a large and economically complex country like the U.S. would require spending hundreds of billions of dollars annually.

This exposes another flaw in Bernie’s plan. It just wouldn't work for many jobs... Not just healthcare workers, but also security guards, factory workers, truck drivers, utility workers, and many more. In fact, when you put it all together, most blue-collar workers couldn’t benefit from Bernie’s proposal. In reality, it would hurt them, as many of them would need multiple part-time jobs just to make ends meet. That’s because companies would be motivated to hire part-time workers, those working 20 hours a week, and save on benefits.

There’s a reason you have Panasonic, Buffer, Kickstarter, and all these tech companies piloting a 4-day workweek… not Mayo Clinic or Ford Motor Company.

All things considered, it's quite ironic that such a policy is coming from Senator Sanders, the supposed champion of the working class and equality.

But then again, he's also the guy with three homes, worth $3 million, making millions from books and speeches, all while being a career politician.

Doug Casey: Sanders is a lifelong government employee. The self-declared socialist is an economically ignorant, hostile, mildly demented old man. He gets traction by pushing the envy button effectively.

This works in a world where many are not only ignorant of economics but also possess a distorted set of moral principles and lack respect for property rights, while others cynically exploit the system to become super wealthy.

Ultimately, that's Bernie's idea of progress: draft a law, get a few hundred votes, and presto! Equal pay for less work. Simple. And if it doesn't happen, blame the greedy corporations. No need to overthink it...

Of course, this is all just political theater because even Bernie knows the chances of this thing becoming a law right now are slim to none.

Look no further than California, where politicians never met a bill they didn’t like and would pass anything, especially if it didn’t make sense. Even there, the idea of pioneering a 32-hour workweek in the U.S. died back in 2022.

Until next time,

Lau Vegys

P.S. The widening gap between productivity and wages, which I mentioned earlier, happened right around the time Nixon abandoned the gold standard. This was the start of the decline of the American middle class. All the worst thing have exploded since the 1970s. And, of course, it wasn’t because Americans couldn't work shorter hours; it was because America had abandoned the underlying measure of value. If any of this is new to you, I encourage you to give this essay a read.