WASHINGTON – The country that gave the world the concept of a weekend is now hesitatingly auditioning a proposal for a four-day work week.
So many people are going to work exhausted physically and mentally that it is time to switch to allow for more leisure and relaxation, said Senator Bernie Sanders, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labour and Pensions Committee, as he introduced a Bill on March 14 to shrink the work week.
He proposed cutting it down, over four years, from 40 hours to 32 hours without loss of pay. Shifts longer than eight hours and weeks that go beyond 32 hours of work would be eligible for overtime pay.
“To suggest we have to maintain what we put in place 84 years ago (defining the work week) does not make a lot of sense,” he said, noting that the Senate last held a hearing on this subject in 1955.
“So I think maybe the time is now to renew that discussion.”
In the early 1930s, the Senate passed a Bill to establish a 30-hour work week, but it did not win support in the House of Representatives.
In 1938, then President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Fair Labour Standards Act and a 40-hour work week was established in 1940. It was an idea that eventually spread across the globe.
The Singapore civil service shifted in 2004 from a 5½-day to a five-day work week and gradually other employers also adopted that practice, allowing for a two-day weekend.
Data from the Manpower Ministry shows that actual hours worked per week by employees have fallen from 44.3 hours in 2022 to an average of 43.8 hours in 2023.
Mr Sanders’ logic for advancing shorter working hours rests on the finding that American workers are now more than 400 per cent more productive than they were when the 40-hour week was mandated.
They can take advantage of technology to work less, he argued. It was a fair outcome only, the progressive senator from Vermont said, pointing to the widening pay and wealth gap between the average worker and corporate chiefs.
A recent study cited by Mr Sanders found that 35 million workers in the United States – or 28 per cent of the total workforce – could have a four-day work week within a decade due to productivity gains led by artificial intelligence (AI), without loss in productivity or livelihoods.
Currently, the average full-time worker in the US works 42 hours a week, while 18 per cent of workers put in more than 60-hour weeks, and 40 per cent work at least 50 hours weekly.
“Despite these long hours, the average worker in America makes almost US$50 (S$67) a week less than he or she did 50 years ago after adjusting for inflation,” Mr Sanders said.
Bringing up global comparisons, he said employees in the US logged 204 more hours a year in 2022 than employees in Japan, 279 more hours than workers in Britain and 470 more hours than workers in Germany.
The US is no longer in the standard-setting role for work norms. France legislated a 35-hour work week in 2000 and is now weighing reducing it to 32 hours. Denmark and Norway are among other nations that have adopted a 37-hour work week, while Britain, Spain, Portugal and others have undertaken pilot studies.
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