Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced legislation to enact a 32-hour work week in the United States, with no loss in pay. This is a sharp decline from the 42 hours a week that Americans work. The bill is in response to some startling facts about the plight of the American workers: since the 1970s, the number of hours that all wage and salary workers work has increased, and low-wage workers have experienced the biggest increase in the amount of time spent at work. Not only have working hours increased, but for low-wage workers, their schedules are increasingly volatile and unpredictable. Since the 1970s, low-wage workers have not had a raise in their real pay. The net impact is that workers are working more, for what they earned in the 1970s. The biggest example of this is that the successful United Auto Workers (UAW) strike last year only restored wages and benefits to where they were under President Ronald Raegan! The UAW has come out in support of the senator’s bill. More damning still is that, as Sen. Sanders noted, “Today, American workers are over 400 percent more productive than they were in the 1940s.” American workers have not benefited from this era of productivity and prosperity. Profits have risen and gone up the economic hierarchy, but low-wage workers have gotten poorer and work more.
The Overworked American Worker
To put the bill into perspective, let’s look at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which represents the 38 wealthiest nations in the world, and collects data on the economies it represents. Within the OECD, the average American worker works 1811 a year, compared to an OECD average of 1752 hours. That is 204 more hours than the Japanese, 300 hours more than the French, and 470 hours more than the Germans! Despite this, Americans enjoy a worse quality of life than their OECD peers. According to the OECD’s Better Life Index, 10.4% of American workers are overworked. The United States is among the worst of the wealthy countries in terms of the amount of time that workers have for leisure and personal care. Workers do not have access to meaningful services and benefits to help them with childcare, and although the United States spends $160,000 on child welfare and education, well ahead of the OECD average of $149,000, much of that spending only kicks in relatively late, leaving families vulnerable when children are very young. Among the OECD countries, the United States is the only one without a national paid parental leave policy, although three states do provide leave payments. Parental leave is not only unpaid at the federal level, at 12 weeks, it is short, and only exists for workers in businesses with over 50 employees. This, of course, means that mothers often cannot return to work after child birth. As a result, female employment has actually declined in the last decade.
The Evidence is Compelling
These facts alone show that it is possible to build an economy that at once serves its people and does not need low-wage Americans to work hundreds more hours than everyone else, at 1970s wages. Not only that, there is strong evidence that when working hours are cut, there is no corresponding decline in the profitability of businesses. This has been shown in experiments across Europe. For instance, in Germany, which has a 34.2 work week, 45 companies are participating in a pilot project in which workers only work for four days of the week. In France, which has had a 35-hour work week since 2000, there are already companies who allow workers to work that 35 hours in four weekdays.
While it is impossible to copy and paste the European model to America, it is clear that Europeans enjoy superior living standards and a better work-life balance than Americans. They are not stopping there. For once, we need to tackle the question of creating a humane capitalism that addresses the needs of its low-wage workers. This decades long slide into oppression of the worker even as we rejoice in the accomplishments of the rich, is a travesty. Americans deserve better, and low-wage workers deserve to be placed at the center of our political discourse.