The 40-hour work week has been around for nearly a century, which comes as no surprise seeing why many, including myself, see it as outdated. With the passing of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, Henry Ford’s model of the eight-hour work day and 40-hour week was adopted. Since then, many advancements in technology and society have been made, so why not a new work week model?
Many people feel that in the modern age that there are too many errands in our busy schedules to work with an eight-hour shift, transportation to and from work and any after work obligations. Most people have more than one job as well due to the current economic landscape, and have to juggle all of these responsibilities.
I have personally worked at jobs with the eight-hour work day model, and rarely is your work day only eight hours. Most days you get at least 30 minutes of overtime, 30 minutes of unpaid lunch and 90 minutes for travel. This adds up to about 11 hours involving work and with eight-hours accounted for sleep that leaves just five hours left in the day.
Some may say that it is plenty of time, but for the average single adult, that means chores like laundry, cooking, cleaning and any errands you may need to leave home for. This does not leave much time to actually decompress, leading to those stress and burnout issues. With a four-day work structure, that leaves an entire extra day for these tasks to get completed, and improved worker health.
Most Gen Z workers live with a roommate, or still at home in order to make ends meet. The lack of support for young workers needs to be addressed. Other countries like Japan and France have already started to improve work life balance by moving to four-day work weeks.
There are less and less ways for workers to advocate for themselves, and one of the most important topics such as mental health and quality of life get overlooked. By paying employees more, offering more resources and especially changing the model of the work week, I believe that these changes will vastly improve the lives of the average American.
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