Given that productivity, especially due to mechanization, will continue to increase, how many employees would forego part of their salary if they were able to work shorter hours? The top 20% income earners can choose to work part-time but most people have to do their 40 hours to make the mortgage & utilities, and raising a family is 2 full-time jobs. Productivity would have to be much greater than it is today for those folks to have the basics and still only work part-time but it seems inevitable that it will be.

The question still remains: how many would? Some countries have mandated shortened work weeks: workers in the Netherlands work 29.5 hours per week, and several other countries are in the low 30s. How would it work? Would employers offer a salary for a job that is split among multiple employees who choose to work only part time? Many people, it seems, would want the full salary and work the entire time. Would the strategy be that they would have to be paid overtime on anything over the shortened work week, like now? That’s definitely a worker-centric attitude rather than one promoting free agency & efficiency because it means that a person who wanted to work extra hours would have to get another job, perhaps several, like they do now. Some employers want the reduced benefits costs that come from fewer employees, so that would need to be addressed; healthcare being the biggest expense. Would there be shortages? Other things may still cause shortages, such as transportation disruptions or political policies, but Americans not being able to produce enough for other Americans, even the whole world, working less hours is not one of them.

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