Background: Some moron came to social media to simp for passing a law reducing the work week to 32 hours. Some people complained that they wouldn’t be able to pay bills with a 20% reduction in income. The response from the advocates of this claimed the law would require an hourly raise so the fewer hours would not affect the employees’ take home pay. That’s the background.
I objected, asking how businesses would pay for this. The response was “studies have shown that this schedule increases employee productivity so that this plan has no net impact on business operations.” I called bullshit- if this were the case, businesses would already be doing this.
In response, they attached a “study” done by the government of San Juan county, Washington. Since 2023, the county has only required employees work 32 hours per week. They have made it permanent by claiming an increase of over 200% in job applicants and an increase in employee productivity.
The catch is in how the government defines productivity. I will quote it here:
Maintaining Productivity: Employee timesheet data shows an average of 18% less sick time used after adopting the 32HWW, and 21% less sick time used during flu season.
That isn’t productivity. That’s presence. Just because an employee doesn’t call in sick as often doesn’t mean he is doing anything while he is there. This is the kind of bullshit that people pass off as “scientific studies” today.
So I asked, if employee productivity goes up, why wouldn’t all businesses do it? His answer? Business owners are greedy. If by greedy, you mean “all business owners want to earn the largest profit they can,” Then I guess they are. However, if they are greedy and want to maximize profit, you do that by increasing productivity.
There are two types of costs that a business incurs:
- Variable costs. These are costs that vary with the amount of product you produce. Things like labor, raw materials, etc.
- Fixed costs: insurance, cost of the factory, administrative overhead like HR and accounting departments, things like that.
If a business is creating 3200 widgets and has 400 labor hours each week, there are 8 products being made per labor hour. That’s a measure of variable labor costs. If I could reduce that to 320 labor hours, but still manufacture 3200 widgets, I just cut my labor costs by producing 10 widgets per labor hour.
But there’s more. At the same time, the fixed costs stay the same, only now there is time in a week to work another 3/4ths of a shift in the three days remaining. If I hire a second shift to work an average of 240 hours per week and they can maintain the 10 widgets per labor hour, I am now producing 5600 widgets per week without increasing my fixed costs.
I just increased my profit margins. Why wouldn’t I??
The reason I wouldn’t? Because productivity doesn’t increase when you cut working hours. If a person can assemble ten widgets an hour, he won’t magically assemble 12 of them because you give him more time off.
So what happened? How did San Juan county’s government departments all meet their targets, even though they were working 20% fewer hours? Two ways: They made salaried employees work more hours, and they had an outsourcing contract that brought in outside contractors to complete the backlogged work.
That’s how leftists and governments define success. It’s all smoke and mirrors.
9 Comments
gary gray · September 19, 2026 at 6:20 am
It’s “ChildThink” and it’s in over abundance these days. There may be no recovery from this national malady. Only a massive reset. The burn-off will be glorious.
Grumpy51 · September 19, 2026 at 7:15 am
How did I know it was a BS study before even getting to the 3rd paragraph?? The government “study” confirmed it and from the state of WA no less.
NO government in the history of the world has moved from bloat to “productive” on its own accord. Government by its very nature is a parasite that eventually consumes it’s host. Look at the various “laws and regulations” on the books today. Even in the late 1990s, a common quote was 70K new laws and regulations are placed on the books (nationally) each year. REALLY?? 70 THOUSAND?? Man just can’t help telling other people what to do…..and has gotten worse with Karen.
Quoting CS Lewis’s God in the Dock: Essays on Theology: (1948) – “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”
oldvet50 · September 19, 2026 at 7:37 am
When I worked at an electric utility, we used a four day week because it was more productive. For construction crews, mobilization can use up to two hours each day, so working 10 hour days, we got 32 hours of production as opposed to 30 hours working five 8 hour days. That’s a significant number when translated to manhours of a crew. I think they took that first sentence I wrote as a blanket justification for all situations.
Divemedic · September 19, 2026 at 8:23 am
They aren’t talking about 4 tens, they want 4 eight hour days.
Mark · September 19, 2026 at 10:17 am
“That isn’t productivity. That’s presence.”
That’s the problem that people who want to work remote have. Management doesn’t have a good way to measure real productivity, so they measure presence instead. As if being in the office is the same as getting work done.
Divemedic · September 19, 2026 at 12:05 pm
Which is why mouse jigglers are sold and why many who work from home refuse to activate their Webcam.
Kentucky Headhunter · September 19, 2026 at 10:47 am
Sick time went down 20% at the same time that required attendance went down 20%? I mean you’re not gonna call in sick on a day you are already off. Isn’t that a completely obvious expected outcome. I bet cafeteria sales also went down 20% and they can’t figure out why.
Titan Mk6B · September 19, 2026 at 10:55 am
When I worked for the State of Oklahoma they could have easily dropped me to 32 hours because I only had about 20 hours a week of work. It was not just me as nobody else had much to do also.
I about went out of my mind I was so bored.
Anonymous · September 19, 2026 at 11:35 am
It is not possible for the country to survive when you have total corruption at every level of government, criminality at 99.99% of all government and governmental institutions and a population that is functionally illiterate on basic math, economics and history. Survival is impossible and things are never going to change except continue to disintegrate. Very sad because the fixes are obvious and basically require normal sane behavior.