Sanders, Takano reintroduce Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act tied to AI gains

Sanders's pitch draws a direct line from the labor battles of the late 19th century to today's AI boom. Eugene V. Debs, whom the article describes as one of the country's biggest proponents of the shortened workday, argued in an 1890 essay that shorter hours were a matter of basic dignity. Ford Motor Company established a five-day, 40-hour week for factory workers in 1926, and Congress cemented the 40-hour standard through the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938. Sanders now argues that standard has outlived the economy it was built on.

The proposal arrives as companies race to use generative AI to produce more work with fewer people. The article cites Economic Policy Institute data showing that since 1979 net productivity climbed roughly 90% while typical workers' hourly pay rose about 33%—a gap shorter-workweek advocates cite. A six-country study of nearly 2,900 workers at 141 companies, coauthored by Boston College sociologists Wen Fan and Schor with 4 Day Week Global, found that cutting schedules by about five hours a week led to less burnout and better health, job satisfaction, and work ability after six months.

The open question is whether those voluntary trial results can survive being written into federal law. Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, who now chairs the Senate HELP Committee that would consider a Senate version, argued at a 2024 hearing that added labor costs could raise prices and threaten businesses on thin margins. Whether the bill advances may hinge on how that cost argument fares against the efficiency evidence from the trials—and on whether lawmakers accept Sanders's framing that the gains from AI should accrue to workers rather than only to executives and billionaires.