15 -hour work • week

noun

1. Exact­ly what it sounds like — less work for the same money

I work near­ly three times that much now. Is this normal?

Sad­ly, yes. The Orga­ni­za­tion of Eco­nom­ic Coop­er­a­tion and Devel­op­ment shows that Amer­i­can work­ers put in an aver­age of 1,786 hours annu­al­ly, 200 more hours than their British and French peers. Yet study after study reveals that work­ing more hours doesn’t increase pro­duc­tiv­i­ty—just stress, health issues and car­bon emissions.

How much less should I be working?

An often-cit­ed 2016 study found that work­ers per­formed best when they were clock­ing in just three days a week, five hours a day. Advo­cates of a 15-hour work­week, such as Dutch author Rut­ger Breg­man, argue that much of the work we do now is point­less at best and harm­ful at worst, so we should do much less of it. Major trade unions in Ger­many, the Nether­lands, Ire­land and the U.K. have all backed a four-day work­week, and the British Labour Party’s shad­ow chan­cel­lor, John McDon­nell, has promised to reduce the aver­age work­week to 32 hours with­in the next decade, pro­claim­ing, ​“We should work to live, not live to work.” Microsoft Japan exper­i­ment­ed with a short­er work­week and trum­pet­ed that it actu­al­ly boost­ed pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and cut down on time-wasting.

What about in the Unit­ed States?

Thanks per­haps to a nation­al case of worka­holism, until recent­ly it was self-pro­claimed do-good­er CEOs talk­ing about why we should work less (to increase their prof­its, nat­u­ral­ly). But there are signs the Amer­i­can labor move­ment could once again take up the fight for few­er hours. Notably, Bernie Sanders said he would con­sid­er a 32-hour work­week (for the same pay) at the Unit­ed Food and Com­mer­cial Work­ers 2019 fall forum in Iowa.

Sounds great to me. Is there a catch?

Some pro­gres­sive econ­o­mists wor­ry that enforc­ing a short­er work­week could lead to an eco­nom­ic con­trac­tion and pay cuts. One pro­pos­al for a ​“leisure agen­da” from the People’s Pol­i­cy Project rec­om­mends a mix of mea­sures instead, includ­ing more fed­er­al hol­i­days, more guar­an­teed vaca­tion time, and more paid parental and sick leave. How­ev­er we get there, the end goal is clear: We need to get a life.

This is part of ​“The Big Idea,” a month­ly series offer­ing brief intro­duc­tions to pro­gres­sive the­o­ries, poli­cies, tools and strate­gies that can help us envi­sion a world beyond cap­i­tal­ism. For recent In These Times cov­er­age of reduc­ing hours and rais­ing pay in action, see, ​”How Work­ing Less Can Help Pre­vent Cli­mate Cat­a­stro­phe and Pro­mote Wom­en’s Equal­i­ty,” ​“Cal­i­for­nia Work­ers Win Equal Over­time: ​‘This Bill Cor­rects 78 Years of Dis­crim­i­na­tion’” and ​“Long Hours, No Rest: Over­worked Amer­i­cans Still Dream of Vaca­tion.”