1. Employers, workers, researchers, and policymakers have debated whether a shorter workweek can improve well-being without reducing productivity or pay. Supporters point to pilot programs in which employees reported lower burnout and companies kept or improved performance, while skeptics warn that the model may not fit every industry and may intensify work if employees are expected to complete the same tasks in fewer days.

Unit practice: Synthesis paragraph. This is a three-point paragraph task, not a full AP exam essay. Read the supplied sources about a four-day workweek. Write one paragraph making a defensible claim about one potential benefit or limitation of adopting it without reducing pay. Use specific evidence from two sources, identify them by letter, and explain how the evidence supports your claim.

Office of Senator Bernie Sanders. “NEWS: Sanders Introduces Legislation to Enact a 32-Hour Workweek with No Loss in Pay.” U.S. Senate, 13 Mar. 2024, www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releases/news-sanders-introduces-legislation-to-enact-a-32-hour-workweek-with-no-loss-in-pay/.

WASHINGTON, March 13 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) today announced that this Thursday he will introduce legislation to establish a standard 32-hour workweek in America with no loss in pay – an important step toward ensuring that workers share in the massive increase in productivity driven by artificial intelligence, automation, and new technology. Sanders is joined on the Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act in the Senate by Sen. Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.) and in the House of Representatives by Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) who introduced companion legislation.

“Moving to a 32-hour workweek with no loss of pay is not a radical idea,” said Sen. Sanders. “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. The financial gains from the major advancements in artificial intelligence, automation, and new technology must benefit the working class, not just corporate CEOs and wealthy stockholders on Wall Street. It is time to reduce the stress level in our country and allow Americans to enjoy a better quality of life. It is time for a 32-hour workweek with no loss in pay.”

This legislation comes ahead of a HELP Committee hearing Chairman Sanders is leading this Thursday on the same issue. Witnesses who are set to testify at the hearing include Shawn Fain, International President of the UAW; Dr. Juliet Schor, Professor of Sociology at Boston College and Lead Researcher Four Day Week Global Trials; and Jon Leland, Chief Strategy Officer of Kickstarter and Cofounder of the WorkFour-The National Campaign for the 4-day Workweek.

“While CEOs’ wages continue to increase, our workers are finding themselves doing more, yet earning less than they have in decades,” said Sen. Butler. “The Thirty-Two-Hour Workweek Act would allow hardworking Americans to spend more time with their families while protecting their wages and making sure profits aren’t only going to a select few.”

Rep. Takano said: “As the lead sponsor of the Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act in the House of Representatives and a Senior Member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, I am thrilled Senator Sanders is leading the Senate companion to this transformative legislation that will be a win for both workers and workplaces.”

In 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) into law establishing the 44-hour workweek through overtime protections – the first broadly applicable federal standard for working hours in the U.S. Just two years later, the FLSA phased-in today’s 40-hour workweek to the American people, which has remained the federal standard ever since. Before these federal labor standards were established, workers – including children – in the early 19th century were on the job more than 70 hours a week, often in horrendous and dangerous working conditions. In the late 1800s, workers conducted major strikes for an 8-hour workday, coining the historic slogan, “Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what you will.”

Autonomy Institute. “Four Day Weeks in the UK: Data Tables” (appendix to “The Results Are In: The UK’s Four-Day Week Pilot”). Nov. 2023, autonomy.work/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/4DW-TABLES-APPENDIX.pdf.

Autonomy Institute, “Four Day Weeks in the UK: data tables” (Nov. 2023), Tables 15–16.

Thibodeau, Patrick. “4-Day Workweek Productivity Claims Gather Criticism.” TechTarget, 26 Sept. 2022, www.techtarget.com/searchhrsoftware/news/252525395/Four-day-workweek-productivity-claims-gather-criticism.

For employers, implementing a four-day workweek might seem like getting something for nothing. Employees work fewer hours, but more efficiently, improving work-life balance with no productivity drop. That's the case 4 Day Week Global is attempting to make with a series of four-day workweek pilot programs.

Last week, the group reported on the "positive experiences" of a pilot in the U.K. with about 70 participating companies totaling 3,300 workers. Three months into the six-month pilot, 46% of the respondents said business productivity at a 32-hour week maintained around the same level as a 40-hour week, 34% said it improved slightly, and 15% said it improved significantly.

But this survey has left some economists saying that 4 Day Week Global hasn't proved much of anything. The main complaint is that it hasn't provided rigorous evidence that a four-day workweek won't hurt productivity.

The survey "merely demonstrates that people are willing to participate in the experiment," said Daniel Hamermesh, professor emeritus of economics at the University of Texas at Austin, who recently co-authored a research paper that looked at the four-day workweek. "I would give the finding very little, if any, weight," he said.

"There is no way of evaluating how beneficial it is or, if beneficial, how widespread its benefits could be," Hamermesh said. "The U.K. project tells us nothing about that question."

Hamermesh's own paper, published in June by the National Bureau of Economic Research, looked at patterns of work in the U.S. from 1973 to 2018 and found that among full-time workers, the numbers working four-day weeks tripled to more than 8 million. It did not try to answer the 4 Day Week Global question.

The research found that workers on four-day weeks "earn less than otherwise demographically identical workers in the same industry who work the same hours," Hamermesh said. That finding "suggests that there is some hit to productivity."

Other critics say this effort has no control group of randomly selected employers, and it is unclear how productivity is measured.

"A policy that could lead to an increase in productivity of 25 percent, overnight, is impossibly great," wrote Dean Baker, senior economist and co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in a blog post last week.

Imperfections aside, the pilots have value

Juliet Schor, professor of sociology at Boston College and lead researcher of 4 Day Week Global, acknowledges some of the data issues, but said these pilots are needed to convince companies to at least consider the four-day workweek concept.

In response to emailed questions, Schor said a randomized control trial (RCT) is the gold standard. "But how do you get companies to agree to submit to RCTs?" she said. "This is the kind of research that has to be done first to convince institutions and companies to do RCTs."

Hsu, Andrea. “A Manufacturer Tried the 4-Day Workweek for 5 Days’ Pay and Won’t Go Back.” NPR, 11 Nov. 2023, www.npr.org/2023/11/11/1207991399/4-four-day-work-week-manufacturing-work-life-balance.

For six months, businesses agree to reduce working hours while maintaining the same pay. The goal is not to do less with less but to maintain 100% productivity by bringing more energy and efficiency to the workplace, while lessening fatigue and burnout.

The success stories coming out of the trial have offered a work-weary public hope that a better work-life balance is achievable. Of the 41 American and Canadian companies that began the trial in 2022, none has reported going back to working 40 hours a week.

. . .

The idea resonated deeply with Neundorfer.

"Think about it. What more impact could a person have on a number of people that work for them than giving them 50 holiday days a year, a three-day weekend every weekend?" says Neundorfer. "It just seemed like the most significant thing I could do as a business owner and manager."

. . .

Neundorfer, who founded Advanced RV in 2012 after leading other successful businesses, had never envisioned the company as a 24/7 kind of operation. His employees don't work more than 40 hours a week, even though that has meant customers wait two years for their custom RVs.

"We could probably make more money and figure it out if we did overtime, but we never do," he says.

Instead, in April 2022, he decided to try the opposite, moving everyone to 32 hours a week without any cut in pay.

Neundorfer knew it was a gamble, one he thought had a 50/50 chance of success.

. . .

"I raised my hand and I said, I don't think we should do this. This is not going to work," says Tricia Eller, who joined the company in 2014 and is primarily responsible for customer relations.

She strongly believed everyone needed to be at the office five days a week.

"This is how business is run," she insisted at the time.

. . .

Neundorfer says Advanced RV did see a dip in output as a result of moving to a 32-hour workweek.

"You lose productivity," he says. "And when you lose productivity, you lose some volume, and you lose profit."

Now a year and a half into this experiment, he says the company has nearly recovered those productivity losses.

"And I think that at some point, some of the improvements will take us beyond what we were able to do in 40 hours," he says.

Judging by employee satisfaction, the experiment has already been a resounding success.

. . .

On her Mondays off, Eller in customer relations still checks her email — she says she just can't let go — but she'll also spend time with her mom, who is retired, or go to the movies.

"Talk to me on a Sunday, and you'll find me in the best mood because I know I have Monday to myself to relax," she says.

Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Table B-2. Average Weekly Hours and Overtime of All Employees on Private Nonfarm Payrolls by Industry Sector, Seasonally Adjusted.” The Employment Situation, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Feb. 2026 release (Jan. 2026 preliminary data), www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t18.htm.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Statistics, Table B-2 (Jan. 2026 preliminary).

Veal, Anthony J. “The Success of Iceland’s ‘Four-Day Week’ Trial Has Been Greatly Overstated.” The Conversation, 13 July 2021, theconversation.com/the-success-of-icelands-four-day-week-trial-has-been-greatly-overstated-164083.

It almost seems too good to be true: a major trial in Iceland shows that cutting the standard five-day week to four days for the same pay needn’t cost employers a cent (or, to be accurate, a krona).

Unfortunately it is too good to be true.

While even highly reputable media outlets such as the BBC have reported on the “overwhelming success” of large-scale trials of a four-day week in Iceland from 2015 to 2019, that’s not actually the case.

The truth is less spectacular — interesting and important enough in its own right, but not quite living up to the media spin, including that these trials have led to the widespread adoption of a four-day work week in Iceland.

Four hours at best

The media reports are based on a report co-published by Iceland’s Alda (Association for Democracy and Sustainability) and Britain’s Autonomy think tank about two trials involving Reykjavík City Council and the Icelandic government. The trials covered 66 workplaces and about 2,500 workers.

They did not involve a four-day work week. This is indicated by the report’s title – Going Public: Iceland’s journey to a shorter working week. In fact the document of more 80 pages refers to a four-day week just twice, in its first two paragraphs, and only then as a reference point for what the trials were actually about:

. . .

Read on to the third paragraph and you’ll learn the study “involved two large-scale trials of shorter working hours — in which workers moved from a 40-hour to a 35-or 36-hour week, without reduced pay”.

A four-day week trial would have involved reducing the working week by seven to eight hours. Instead the maximum reduction in these trials was just four hours. In 61 of the 66 workplaces it was one to three hours.

Which is not to say the results – no adverse effect on output or services delivered – is unimpressive. Nor is the upshot. As a result of the trials, unions and employers have formalised country-wide agreements to make reduced working hours permanent.

But these have provided for a reduction of just 35 minutes a week in the private sector and 65 minutes in the public sector (though larger reductions are available for shift workers). That’s a long way from making a four-day week the norm.

. . .

In interpreting the results of such studies, we always need to be cautious.

In regard to this and similar experiments, it is always possible the “Hawthorne effect” might have been at work. This effect refers to 1930s experiments with factory workers in the US that showed how their awareness of being the subject of experiments affected their behaviour, and hence productivity levels.

Could this have been at work in the Iceland trials? The work units involved volunteers to take part in the experiments and so might well have been motivated to make them work as intended. This may not be replicated in more widespread changed working arrangements.