Terrible essay.
please elaborate
Well, while I’m not ideologically inclined to agree with Voxette, I still think it’s misguided. The economies with more restricted worker hours below 40 seem to be underperforming and have lower employment, basic income plus fewer work hours simultaneously will cause a bigger hit on the economy, basic income (or other alternatives) already creates more worker leverage to negotiate for fewer hours and safer conditions, and slashing everyone’s Mondays across the board will hit a lot harder than alternatives, because not every worker’s time is equally valuable. Also, I don’t think it will sell well politically - and business will fight like dogs to prevent it from happening.
Which, is odd enough for me to say, seeing as with executive functioning stuff a 4-day workweek (perhaps leaving out Wednesday instead) would fit me well.
Additionally, just on shear economic cost vs efficiency, I can’t see a reason to prefer a combination of 4-day workweek + basic income in the short-medium term, given that the level of automation in the future is uncertain, over a low minimum wage plus direct-to-employee declining hourly livable wage subsidies.
Wage subsidies + low minimum wage would create lots of new jobs, which is a good sell politically, while also taking a lot of pressure off the poor and lower classes and giving them a lot more leverage. Businesses won’t fight it as hard, even though it will need a tax increase, since they’ll benefit from lower labor costs at the low end. It multiplies government spending with private spending for a larger potential effect. It can also be rolled out incrementally in different amounts to test out just how much economic efficiency is lost.
There are other potential advantages, I really should write a post on it specifically, but it doesn’t seem to be getting much coverage vs UBI. I think the Republicans might support it as their alternative to UBI come 2024/2028.
There’s a few points I could make, but one of the great things about giving people time off is that it doesn’t affect the value of time off, and it’s not something that can just cause a decrease in employer contribution leaving people no better off. Giving money, that’s not as straightforward.
Considering it hasn’t seemed to perform well in other countries, I’d rather make simpler overtime rules, then crack down hard on those that don’t follow them.
Anyhow, as part of how I’d sell this, I’d set the starting wage with subsidies higher than the current minimum wage, and since it would make labor relatively cheaper, there’s not much reason to expect a decrease in hours at the low end.
In addition to the risks involved with yanking 20% of the work hours out of the economy, killing Monday also incentivizes workers to work under the table in violation of the employment law in order to get enough money, since the employers can actually cut their salaries to compensate, either directly or through attrition.
With state-backed wage subsidies, there’s no incentive to work under the table, because if the income isn’t reported, you don’t get the subsidy. Though, it is key for this plan that subsidies taper off more slowly than employer wages increase, but that’s how it should be to prevent a new Welfare Trap.
