Is the Four-Day Workweek Finally Within Our Grasp? | Hacker News Reader

Is the Four-Day Workweek Finally Within Our Grasp?

nytimes.com

8 pointsaarghh6 comments

When I mentioned at work, to fellow managers, a four-day week would be a good idea according to current research, they said the following:

My manager: “You mean like four ten-hour days? I could see that.”

Peer manager: “I would settle for five ten-hour days.”

It was… less than great.

Loads of companies are already offering this, with more switching almost every week

https://4dayweek.io/companies

I thought that permanent remote work was finally within my grasp but the world is pushing hard back against it for some reason.

Four day work week has never felt further out of reach

Are you kidding? Rick Scott, Florida Senator, is concerned about people getting covid assistance and therefore not working hard enough.

Our ruling politicians will not allow this.

Don't look at individual politicians, look for the emerging trends in the political class.

The NYT has a century-plus history of pushing the defacto national narratives used by politicians - while they might not be openly backed by any federal interest, they are certainly stochastically willing to play along. Therefore, if they publish something like this, take notice, because it's most likely that some group inside the power structure wants it to now become a political issue as a part of a future economic framework. The current framework is in a failure mode and this fact is becoming increasingly evident at all levels - support for a radical change of some kind must be built and factions are emerging across various sides of the issue.

As the article notes, the last time four-day normalization was floated was the 70's, also a period with substantial labor unrest. The resolution ultimately arrived at then was to cut safety nets, taxes and jobs, clearing the way for investment in the productivity booms of the 80's and 90's. This time might be when the issue is campaigned upon, since the prior doctrine has already run its course and the signals are raining down from up high to attempt a green-energy "own-nothing" economy. The contra faction of this, of course, is also something Rick Scott is pushing - the "crypto economy." The actual outcome is likely to have a blend of both approaches, as is typical with political realignments. Four-day normalization could be compatible. We shall see.

> The NYT has a century-plus history of pushing the defacto national narratives used by politicians - while they might not be openly backed by any federal interest, they are certainly stochastically willing to play along.

That's very much true of foreign policy. For domestic affairs, it's no longer true. The NYTimes has lost much of its prestige and influence, as has most of mainstream media, with the rise of the internet, and the conversion of the NYTimes to commentary and news-as-therapy. Remember the first epidemic of "mansplaining"? That was not some machinations of the political class, it was angsty young reporters fresh from Smith college using the Times as a personal blog. So you have to tease apart when something is a therapy article and when it still carries some ruling-class signaling weight.

> As the article notes, the last time four-day normalization was floated was the 70's, also a period with substantial labor unrest.

There is not substantial labor unrest in the country today.

This is again more of a personal blog view of the world, where people are promoting things like "striketober". Look at the BLS, which tracks work stoppages:

https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/WSU010

Something like 13.5K workers went on strike in October of this year, out of a labor force of 165 million workers. Go back and compare that to historical data.

https://www.bls.gov/web/wkstp/annual-listing.htm

So if there were only this many workers on strikes, why were there so many news articles predicting massive labor unrest and waves of strikes in October? Because when news turns to advocacy, then the articles reveal what the author wishes would happen, not what is actually happening. E.g. news becomes therapy rather than a description of reality.

So this notion that there is "unrest" is pure cope for a working class in which unions have been completely marginalized.

Instead, what you have is a tight labor market, due primarily to 6 trillion dollars of deficit spending in the last 2 years combined with extremely low rates.

In a tight labor market, wages go up as employers outbid each other for workers, but because in this case there was no increase in productivity, inflation follows and removes the real wage gains after a delay:

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/realer.nr0.htm

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q

That's the U.S. labor market today - a lack of labor power means no strikes, and a lack of productivity growth means no lasting gains in real wages.

Everything else is basically either advocacy or therapy, but it's not a description of reality.

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