Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Wednesday introduced a bill to establish a standard four-day workweek in the United States without any reduction in pay. The bill, over a four-year period, would lowe…
Nobody suggested that a each business would have a fixed price for labor nor that new employers would have to apply to the government for a defined wage. Just that existing businesses and positions would be subject to such regulations and that businesses couldn’t pay new workers less than existing.
Prices for labor are inelastic. If you have 1M people in an industry nationwide making 50k for 50 weeks x 40 hours. If you scale down year by year your workers down from 40 -> 32 ultimately you end up with 1.25M workers earning 50k plus inflation if the size of the market served remains the same. In actuality labor effects price and price effects quantity demanded so you actually end up with 50k+inflation 1.10M or some such.
In this environment you could perfectly legally start up a new outfit paying 40k x 32 hours. However the well paying outfits need new workers at 50k to keep rolling and are aggressively hiring so the logical conclusion is that folks paying 40 wont be able to meaningfully hire. Even if you do manage to get SOME useful hires you will live in fear of them jumping ship at any moment for an instant life changing raise which will happen constantly until your business closes and you cry on social media that the government destroyed your business.
Actual up and comers will start out paying similar wages as the rest of the market and the price for labor is stuck at the new level.
Nobody suggested that a each business would have a fixed price for labor nor that new employers would have to apply to the government for a defined wage. Just that existing businesses and positions would be subject to such regulations and that businesses couldn’t pay new workers less than existing.
Prices for labor are inelastic. If you have 1M people in an industry nationwide making 50k for 50 weeks x 40 hours. If you scale down year by year your workers down from 40 -> 32 ultimately you end up with 1.25M workers earning 50k plus inflation if the size of the market served remains the same. In actuality labor effects price and price effects quantity demanded so you actually end up with 50k+inflation 1.10M or some such.
In this environment you could perfectly legally start up a new outfit paying 40k x 32 hours. However the well paying outfits need new workers at 50k to keep rolling and are aggressively hiring so the logical conclusion is that folks paying 40 wont be able to meaningfully hire. Even if you do manage to get SOME useful hires you will live in fear of them jumping ship at any moment for an instant life changing raise which will happen constantly until your business closes and you cry on social media that the government destroyed your business.
Actual up and comers will start out paying similar wages as the rest of the market and the price for labor is stuck at the new level.