There is a proposal, and there's legislation in the house proposed by representative mark decano california, that would basically change the fair labor standards act. The bill would simply amend that act and say that 32 hours now constitutes a straight time and to start earning overtime pay after 32 hours. There was a big study in iceland where a whole swath of workers had their hours cut by a few hours each week,. And they did a 36 hour work week. Studies found that by enlarged productivity either stayed the same or it actually went up.
The pandemic has changed how we think about work. Vox’s Anna North says it might be time to change how much we work, too.
Today’s show was produced by Will Reid, edited by Matt Collette, engineered by Efim Shapiro, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram.
Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained.
Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices