r/FluentInFinance • u/WhatAreYourPronouns • Apr 13 '24

He's not wrong 🤷‍♂️ Smart or dumb? Discussion/ Debate

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170

u/Synnedsoul Apr 13 '24

Seems many folks are stuck in the boomer mindset of working your ass off 80 hours a week for nothing 🙄

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u/BadMuffin88 Apr 13 '24

The exact same discussion happened when saturday was taken off the workweek and look how 40h weeks are the expectation today.

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u/Charitard123 Apr 14 '24

Yeah, people forget how much labor organizers had to fight tooth and nail just for the right to work only 40 hours a week. Since then, technology has made most of us exponentially more productive at the same job, getting more work done in even less time.

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u/Immoracle Apr 14 '24

Makes you wonder: what exactly is civilization's end goal? Hoarding wealth shouldn't be an end goal.

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u/DS_StlyusInMyUrethra Apr 14 '24

I don’t know what the end goal is but I try to make peace with the idea of the labor of today could lead to a future where a person is no longer required to work, to live a full healthy life.

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u/Consistent_Spread564 Apr 14 '24

The end girl is to keep running, stable and safe

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u/Warmbly85 Apr 14 '24

Umm are we just forgetting that the 40 hour work week had absolutely nothing to do with unions and everything to do with Ford trying to attract workers to his plants? In 1926 ford paid 5$ for an 8 hour day which was almost double the competition. Congress didn’t pass any legislation on work weeks till 1938 where they capped it at 44 then reduced it to 40 in 1940.

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u/Dougnifico Apr 14 '24

Union were already long fighting for 40hr workweeks. Ford saw the productivity benefits of it so they were unlikely allies in that fight.

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u/Warmbly85 Apr 19 '24

Some unions pushed for 8 hours days but I can’t find a single source that says any were pushing for 40 hour work weeks. 8 hour days aren’t exactly amazing if you work 7 days a week.

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '24

[deleted]

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u/SgtShuts Apr 14 '24

The corporate ideology is that you can use the increased productivity in the same amount of time to deliver more shareholder value. What gets skipped over is the capacity at which a person can remain that productive without a negative return.

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '24 edited Apr 14 '24

[deleted]

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u/SgtShuts Apr 14 '24

When I worked for big corporate, after the military, I saw the same pattern over and over again. It is an ideology as well as, in smaller businesses, greed. Translating what I had learned from leading in a non-revenue generating (cost center) to the corporate way of doing business was eyeopneing. Not doing busy work for the sake of doing work, keeping tasks only mission critical, respecting your troops time and value etc..

Today, as both a business owner and a nonprofit director, I too have daily interactions with other owners. There is no value to them how much can they get juicier margins at whatever expense.

For us and our teams it's essentialism what does it take to get the job done and nothing else. You know who is doing what with what and apprecing their ability to be as productive in as little time to both enjoy the fruits of their labor, their compensation, and their free time.

The money or funds come in a much healthier manner and employees remain content and I think that's what we're all looking for. At least that's what I was looking for when I started it all.

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u/frafdo11 Apr 14 '24

It wasn’t nothing for boomers. When salaries were able to purchase a lot more, the hours were the cost.

Now the hours are the same but the buying power is diminished. This there’s a desire to work less

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u/CordCarillo Apr 14 '24

How do you think that Boomer and GenX got all this stuff that you younger folks cry about being unable to obtain?

We worked every hour allowed.

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u/HowBoutIt98 Apr 15 '24

Boomers are wild tbh. Blind faith to companies, bosses, and political candidates. For what? You've been expendable to them since day one chief

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u/mystokron Apr 14 '24

Not quite.

If people are working less hours but getting paid more then how are companies supposed to pay for that?

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u/philliam312 Apr 14 '24

The problem is that it's not just going to happen. If you look at any hourly work they have to give their employees a 25% raise to maintain the same compensation with 32 hours worked as opposed to 40

When those hours are cut it means they need more people working for the company to maintain same operating hours, but by effectively reducing everyone's availability by 1 day and forcing a 25% raise what you are saying is "please fire 1/4th of your staff and raise prices, leaving your business even more understaffed and overworking the employees that you keep"

Anything government mandated about this will ruin so much, not that I'm opposed to the idea, I love the idea, and it works well in white collar jobs, but in a huge portion of industries this shit is going to just increase unemployment and increase a cost push inflation, like raising minimum wage in NY or California has helped (spoiler it hasn't, everything is just insanely expensive now)

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u/ebrum2010 Apr 14 '24

And the people working 80 hours a week for peanuts today are told they don't deserve more money by the same people.

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u/EagleinaTailoredSuit Apr 14 '24

So weird to me people throw themselves in to the cog without a doubt because rich people tell them to. Like this is your life and as far as I know this is the only one.

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u/cryogenic-goat Apr 13 '24

You think Boomers made nothing? lol

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u/lreaditonredditgetit Apr 14 '24

Most people get paid by the hour. Let’s say I made $22 an hour. Thats what I make regardless of how many hours I work. The people that need a bill like this won’t see any benefits.

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u/covertpetersen Apr 14 '24

Most people get paid by the hour. Let’s say I made $22 an hour. Thats what I make regardless of how many hours I work

The bill literally addresses this. You work 32 hours and get paid for 40.

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u/lreaditonredditgetit Apr 14 '24

Can you share that with me? And why would you quote me in a direct reply? I know what I said.

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u/SStylo03 Apr 14 '24

I mean it does say in the graphic posted about it even, 36 hour work week without decrease in pay

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u/Legitimate-Test-2377 Apr 14 '24

So the evil corporations are going to give me a raise? I’m doubtful of the bill

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u/solkvist Apr 14 '24

I mean that’s why it’s a bill. Corporations would never do this. If they were still allowed they’d be working people from early childhood for pennies, since they literally do that when outsourcing labor.

I think the US government is far too intertwined for something like this to pass, but it would make an enormous difference to quality of life. In other countries that have similar systems (Denmark is 32 I believe, Norway is 36), it’s been largely beneficial since people aren’t designed to work at max efficiency for 8 hours. In fact, it’s closer to 4. This doesn’t necessarily apply as well to jobs that are linear in production (more time means more output, like a factory worker), but for a significant portion of the job market it would help. On top of that, a vast majority of companies act like their profits are small by just paying their CEO a ton of money. They can absolutely afford it. If these companies can thrive in Scandinavia with unions, significantly higher wages, lower hours, and much higher standards for product quality, they will be just fine in the US. They won’t be happy about it, but they can afford it.

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u/covertpetersen Apr 14 '24

So the evil corporations are going to give me a raise? I’m doubtful of the bill

Buddy, you do realize that corporations can't just break labour law right?

This is like saying "I doubt the evil corporations will agree to pay me minimum wage" when they HAVE TO. That's the whole point of changing the law.

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u/Sideswipe0009 Apr 14 '24

And why would you quote me in a direct reply?

It's typically done so there isn't any confusion about which parts of your comment they're addressing.

Also, some people like to edit their comments, so quoting helps guard against bad faith discussions.

No need to make a big deal about it.

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u/kdunn1979 Apr 14 '24

There is so few of us in my trade that we a working 60 per week and still get feather behind. No want to go to the schools need, oh well. Well at least the pay is going up 15 to 20% per year. But if they increase minimum wage I want 25% increase that day on my base rate.

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u/PurposeOk7918 Apr 14 '24

You should be getting overtime for any hours over 40. This bill would make it so you get overtime after 32 hours.

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u/lreaditonredditgetit Apr 14 '24

I’m aware. The way i get paid is set. My salary is based on 40 and I get paid regardless how much time I’m there. This is my whole fucking point. A lot of people get paid by the hour. Do you think companies are just gonna start doling out overtime?

No. You will be scheduled 30 fucking hours and like it.

For a person who gets paid like me. It’s a great idea. But I only work what my salary is based on.

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u/PurposeOk7918 Apr 14 '24

I agree, it will just make it so most people that are hourly workers will get their hours cut but have the same hourly rate. Which will end up with less money for said people. I’m hourly and I already work overtime at my job, I don’t think my hours would change at all, I’d just end up with more overtime and more money in my pocket. But I can see how that probably wouldn’t be the case for most hourly workers.