It sounds to good to be true. But to California Congressman, Mark Takano, this long overdue change will “improve the quality of life of workers, meeting the demand for a more truncated workweek that allows room to live, play, and enjoy life more fully outside of work.” Here, here!
While Americans have certainly adopted a global title as “workaholics” and people who “live to work,” promising results from a recent four-day workweek pilot in the UK convinced employers that the shorter week actually meant happier employees and improved productivity. 15% of those employees said no amount of money would convince them to work a 40-hour week ever again.
Even better, 92% of the companies that tested the 32-hour workweek in the UK pilot program adopted it permanently after completing the 6-month study that ran from June to December of 2022.
The Congress bill, officially called the Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act was first introduced in 2021 as an obvious move. Takano said, “‘we have before us the opportunity to make common sense changes to work standards passed down from a different era.”
There is no info yet on if and when this bill is predicted to be passed, but it is likely that California might be one of the first states to implement the suggestion and hopefully a nationwide adoption after.