Reducing Working Hours: American Workers' Salvation? - The Argument - Is an Hour Worked an Hour Worked?

Sep 21, 2026

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Analysis of labor policies aimed at reducing working hours to address unemployment and boost employment. It examines trends in unemployment and average workweek length, noting how firms may respond by extending hours rather than hiring. The discussion outlines the main work-sharing rationale, illustrates potential employment effects, and then evaluates key assumptions, especially the idea that one worked hour can substitute for another. It highlights skill-matching challenges using education, age, and occupation comparisons between unemployed and long-hour workers.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages5

Reading Time13 min

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Reducing Working Hours: American Workers' Salvation?

The Argument for Reducing Hours

Is an Hour Worked an Hour Worked?

There's no question that the long-termsalvation of work lies in reducing work-ing hours. —Thomas R.Donahue Former Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO¹ In March 1991—the trough of themost recent recession—the civilianunemployment rate stood at 6.8 percent.Fifteen months into the recovery,thatrate had increased to 7.8 percent,leadingmany in the media to decry the recoveryas “jobless.” Over this same period,many observersnoted that as the unemployment rate wasrising,so too was Americans'averageworkweek.Average weekly hours in themanufacturing sector rose by almost onehour,while average overtime increasedby more than 30 minutes. These facts suggest that rather than hir-ing additional workers,firms werechoosing to have their current employ-ees work longer hours.The Full Em-ployment Act of Fiscal Year 1994,intro-duced in the House of Representativesbut never passed into law,sought tocounter this trend by modifying the pro-visions of the Fair Labor Standards Actof 1938(FLSA).In particular,it wouldhave reduced the standard workweekfrom 40 hours to 30 hours and raised theovertime premium from one and a halfto two times the standard wage Proposals intended to cut working hoursand thereby boost employment,some-times referred to as work-sharing orwork-spreading,are not uncommon.Work-sharing legislation was introducedin the U.S.Congress in 1978 and 1985,and similar proposals have been hotly by Terry J.Fitzgerald # Reducing Working Hours:American Workers'Salvation? debated over the last two decades inmany European countries While none of these proposals has be-come law in the United States,the work-sharing movement is likely to gain mo-mentum if (or more realistically,when)the jobless rate begins to rise again.ThisEconomic Commentary describes thebasic rationale behind policies intendedto "spread the work,"and looks at someof the reasons why they are likely to beless effective at boosting employmentthan proponents claim. ## ■ The Argument for Reducing Hours Proposals to cut working hours arelargely motivated by two observations.First,during any given week millions ofpeople are unable to find work.Second,during the same week millions of otherswork more than the standard 40 hours.For example,while 9.7 million Ameri-cans were unemployed in March 1992, 33.6 million others reported workingmore than 40 hours per week.²Why,then,don't we change our labor marketpolicies to discourage firms from relyingon long working hours and thereby en-courage them to hire additional workers? Adding further momentum to the pushfor shorter hours is the fact that workinghours in the United States have remainedlargely unchanged over the past 35 years,while many industrialized countries haveexperienced a substantial decline.Figure1 shows that between 1960 and 1994,U.S.manufacturing workers went fromputting in the fewest number of hours peryear to the most hours relative to theircounterparts in Japan,Germany,France,and the United Kingdom.This fact issometimes interpreted as a "failure"ofU.S.labor markets—that somehow September 1,1996 In March 1992,9.7 million Americanswere unemployed.That same month, 33.6 million other Americans workedmore than 40 hours per week.Oneoften-heard solution to this seeminglyparadoxical situation is to encouragefirms to hire additional workers byreducing the standard workweek.This,however,could bring its own setof problems,including reduced out-put,lower productivity,and even adecrease in employment. America has fallen behind in the race forshorter hours.Proponents of cuttinghours argue that such a policy would notonly increase employment,but wouldalso help us catch up with the trend in therest of the industrialized world. While specific proposals to reduce work-ing hours vary,the basic intuition behindthem is fairly simple:There is some totalnumber of hours to be worked,and soci-ety would benefit by spreading thesehours across more people.The resultingdrop in the jobless rate would reducegovernment spe

FAQs

What trends in unemployment and workweek length motivate reducing working hours?

During recovery, unemployment rose while average weekly hours and overtime also increased. Observers interpreted this as firms choosing longer hours rather than hiring additional workers.

How does the work-sharing proposal claim to boost employment?

It assumes a fixed total number of economy-wide hours and argues that spreading those hours across more people lowers the jobless rate, reducing spending on unemployment insurance and welfare.

What limitation is raised about the assumption that an hour worked is an hour worked?

The argument questions whether the unemployed can perform the same work as those working long hours. It notes that skills may differ by factors such as education, age, and occupation.

Sep 21, 2026

Uploaded by Sage