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Comment by RivieraKid | Hacker News Reader

In basic economic theory, high wages mean that there's insufficient supply. So I wonder why don't the "truly unemployed" people learn whatever the market rewards and compete with the highly paid workers.

If it is because they can't for whatever reason, 4 day working week doesn't solve anything.

(Genuine question, I'm not making some kind of a right-wing point.)

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Because learning involves being effectively unemployed for multiple years, and is only available to those who did well in school. Then, on the other side, you're still not guaranteed a job. Add to all of that the fact that you'll probably have to move and effectively restart your life elsewhere.

My fiancée is currently in the middle of this. I don't know if she would've been able to go through it alone.

Yeah, makes sense that this would be part of the reason. But the question is whether a 4 day week is the right solution.

People could use the fifth day to go to school.

Yeah go ask a homeless person why don’t they become a hedge fund manager or neurosurgeon. Are they stupid?

A homeless person usually isn't able to learn what is needed to become a neurosurgeon. So the issue isn't that we don't have enough highly paid jobs - it's that we don't have enough people able to do those jobs. Which makes sense, if everybody could easily become a neurosurgeon, it wouldn't be a highly paid job.

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