“In the op-ed, Sanders and Fain point to the country’s increased worker productivity in the years since the Senate passed a 30-hour workweek in 1933. ‘Today, American workers are more than 400 percent more productive than they were in the 1940s. And yet, despite this fact, millions of our people are working longer hours for lower wages,’ they wrote. ‘In fact, 28.5 million Americans now work over 60 hours a week and more than half of full-time employees work more than 40 hours a week.’ After adjusting for inflation, American workers make almost $50 less a week than they did 50 years ago, they said.”
The senator’s heart is in the right place, but getting a 32-hour work week through Congress is not realistic. Lawmakers representing business interests might counterattack by offering an amendment deeming that “a month, for the purposes of paying workers, shall be equal to six weeks.”
Working with the GOP to raise the minimum wage and allow more low-wage workers to benefit from the child tax credit is a better use of time/effort.