Americans Should Work More Than Forty Hours

Work-life balance has been a popular topic for employees across all age and occupations for years, representing a rising concern of contemporary human resource management and labor policies. This topic has attracted the attention from the millennium generation, who is stepping into the market and beginning to grow a career. Therefore considering the increasing demand, well-designed workforce planning with diverse scheduling options offered to employees appears to be extra credits for most companies. This research paper aims to communicate the positive effects of four-day workweek, and providing support for why employers should adopt this schedule for employees and themselves through 1) introducing background and history of four-day workweek as a work schedule option and 2) demonstrating benefits of four-day workweek from both employer and employees’ perspectives.

“Despite huge advancements in technology and productivity, millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages. The real median income of male workers is $783 less than it was 42 years ago; while the real median income of female workers is over $1,300 less than it was in 2007. That is unacceptable and that has got to change.”

There is a woman I know by the name Arla Finney. She has a full time job, she is a full time mother, and a part time student. Out of seven days a week, she hardly has any time for relaxation, not even on the weekends. She raises four young women to the best of her abilities as well as working her tail off to make sure they have entirely everything they essentially need. Often times she feels that she has to work over her regular time just to make ends meet when they have already been met. As far as free time goes, I’m not sure she even knows what that is. The only free time allotted to her is at night when she lays her head on her pillow. Yes, the woman I speak of is my mother. Another overdosed with work American. Many days I can see it in her eyes how exhausted and stressed out she is. Lucky for her she has a daughter like me and I try to help out in every single way that I can. But not everyone is that fortunate. It may not be a widespread subject in the news, but an excessive percentage of people won’t acknowledge that they are overworked Americans. Their stress levels are intensifying, their families are dwindling away from each other, and for some even their well-being is weakening. Some people are working so much and scarcely have anything to show for it. While people need a job to make a living, too many Americans are working entirely too much.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that as of 2015, 100% of married couples had at least one family member employed, including 19.4% of married-couple families had no one working. In 36% of that 100, the man was employed in that relationship. The possible reason why so many Americans aren’t working could be due to the fact that the way money is distributed in America isn’t what the people think it is, and it isn’t even close to the ideal. Uneven distribution of wealth is the cause of poverty is the United States, and here’s why.

Americans should debate the costs and benefits of different ways to ensure workers have support during times of leave. We should do so with an understanding of how flexible and competitive work environment, this allows people to negotiate different ways of take-home pay and benefits. Then if the government believes it is necessary to create a mandate to help ensure that workers have enough paid time off, then that intervention should at least be targeted to those who need it the most. Like it was said before, this one-size-fits-all mandate will not work for

When employed labor is involved, productivity in terms of time becomes important, because the employer generally pays the worker in terms of time. For many jobs, then a shift from task-orientation to timed labor occurs, as the laborer’s time becomes the employer’s money. Thus, a separation between work and leisure occurs, as

Everyone in the world wants and needs to make money one way or the other. People in the world say that money is not everything. Money does not equal successs. Money does not It give back themselves an oppurtunity to feed themselves, or enjoy the luxuries that America has to offer. When reading Wilson's Article, “When work disappears” According to the trading economies in the United States of America, the US unemployment rate was recorded at 4.9 percent in August of 2016, which not been changed two months prior. 7.8 million people in the United States are without jobs. Making it hard for an Average American to live comfortable. William Julius Wilson’s article “When Work Disappears” discusses the disappearance of work in the industrialized

Our country is quickly turning into a welfare state; this process by which the government takes more and more of our income and thus the benefit of our work for the common good doing this deters people from working for themselves to achieve a better life at all. This self perpetuates simply by the fact that if you’re not working then you becoming one of the multitude of individuals needing help. Requiring people to work twice as hard to reap a certain level of benefit is a stifling concept those without the fortitude to do this will simply accept a meager existence and be sustained upon the handouts given.

This means that an income should operate in a way that rewards people who work more hours with more money. However, today people work more hours than ever before but are making less every hour. The only time period that rivals this low of pay for the middle class is during the Great Depression. The government’s solution to this problem is to create “New Deal” style programs with tax exceptions, and to create jobs to aid the middle class.

For most Americans, their reality is that they are working longer hours for lower wages. In inflation-adjusted income, they are earning less money than they used to, years ago, in spite a huge increase in technology and productivity.

In 2014 President Obama directed for the regulations on overtime to be updated, from there came the Overtime Rule which allows for anyone making under 50,000 dollars a year, on salary, and working more than 40 hours a week to get paid overtime. Essentially “working extra hours= extra pay”. (The Overtime Rule, 2016) This new policy will impact the middle class population and “… will extend protection to 4.2 million workers across the country” (The Overtime

Employees work, on average, 34.4 hours a week, calculating down to 6.9, almost seven hours a day. These seven hours a day could be used spending time with family, friends, or even just alone time. By having a buy nothing day, employees could stay home, enjoying their time with the people who are most important to them. Family is an important aspect to one’s life. By restricting family time, especially in a family of two working parents and kids, they lose that aspect. Having relationships are also important. Though co-worker relationships are important and healthy, having a love life and a family gives tighter, more successful relationships. Studies have shown that in order to be in the self actualization phase of your life, you have to

Every American dreams of finding a job that pays well enough so that they may comfortably take care of their loved ones and themselves for years to come. Most Americans hope to find some way to make a living that they enjoy, something that they view as productive. Unfortunately, many do not have this luxury. In our society, a good portion of the population is forced to hold the base of our country in place while hardly being redeemed for their time and effort, and thus the problem of income inequality. Numbers of these people live from paycheck to paycheck, barely getting by, not because they manage their money poorly, but because the value of their time at work is negligible.

When I first read those numbers, it was a complete eye opener. It is absolutely unbelievable that so much of our lives are spent away from our families and the things we love doing. What is even more unbelievable is that spending so much time at work is unnecessary in the 21st century. 200 years ago when one had to farm all day to provide for their family, sure, a 10 hour workday made sense. But now? We have the technology to do many of the menial tasks that used to burden us. Not only is the long work week unnecessary, it is damaging to our health and our

          Personally, I felt that as a worker that I spent my leisure time more constructively. I had once worked as a tollbooth worker in a local amusement park. I enjoyed that job and had nothing if little to say bad about it. I noticed that when I had time off, I took more time to spend it with my friends. I read more and did the things that I wanted to get to that I previously didn’t have time for. I am presuming that these events occurred because I didn’t have to worry about going back to work the next day. That my next hours of work wouldn’t be a personal hell, but rather a place where I can consider something that I like doing, I get paid for.