A 32-hour workweek could be on the horizon for millions of Americans, but one GOP senator says that the plan “will never work.”
Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., criticized the 32-hour workweek proposal that his Democratic colleague Sen. Bernie Sanders put forth, arguing that “productivity would go down” as a result, during an appearance on “Cavuto: Coast to Coast” Thursday.
“If you’re wanting to take advice from a place like this that now is borrowing $1 trillion every six months, I’d say don’t put much credence in the people that [have] been committee chairs or running this place to take advice for Main Street,” Sen. Braun said.
Sen. Sanders’ bill, titled the Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act, would reduce the standard workweek from 40 hours to 32 hours over four years by lowering the threshold for overtime pay for non-exempt employees.
The legislation would require overtime compensation at time and a half for workdays longer than eight hours, and overtime pay at double a worker’s regular pay for workdays longer than 12 hours.
The Indiana senator argued that the shortened week proposal should never be pushed as a mandate and that small businesses shouldn’t be hit with this “nonsense.”
In a press release, Sanders said “moving to a 32-hour workweek with no loss of pay is not a radical idea.” The Vermont senator went on to add that “today, American workers are over 400 percent more productive than they were in the 1940s. And yet, millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages than they were decades ago. That has got to change.”
“This place is getting less productive, productive over time,” Sen. Braun stressed. “Our economy is [has] now got more government jobs than we’ve ever had where they don’t even come into the buildings to work,” he said.
