[CalRobert]

Our entire economic system is built around ensuring we have scarcities of necessities (housing, mostly) so workers need to outcompete their peers to have access to said necessities. This results in reduced work weeks being a non starters as those who would like to avail of them are outbid by those who forego them.

[quesera]

I think this is probably correct.

But I'm not sure that 40hrs is the sweet spot. Other countries have chosen differently (with comparisons difficult to draw).

There are several competing influences here: inflation, AI productivity gains (TBD but nonzero), existing legislation around health insurance obligations, social/economic inertia, etc. And definitely others I'm not smart enough to think of!

It'd be interesting, if it was possible, to ramp down the 40hrs by an hour or two every year, keeping other components (esp healthcare) in step, to see where the inflection point is. I feel confident that we could get down to 32hrs without major negative drama. I agree that 18hrs (suggested elsewhere) would be violent.

[CalRobert]

I think a lot of people would love to live frugally and work less but it’s hard to pull off. Wage arbitrage in low CoL locations works with remote work but that’s been drying up. And of course access to health care and good education is an issue if you require either.