Sen. Bernie Sanders has reintroduced a bill that would phase in a 32-hour workweek over four years, a new push that pairs shorter hours with time-and-a-half pay for any time worked beyond 32. Darren Botelho reported the move during the August recess, giving the proposal a fresh opening just as labor politics are back in view.
The timing matters because Sanders is not treating the plan as a stand-alone idea. He is linking it to a broader argument that workers should share in the gains from AI, and he says those gains have been flowing upward instead. He has said U.S. workers are now more than 400% more productive than they were in the 1940s, but that the benefits have gone to corporate CEOs and wealthy stockholders rather than the people doing the work.
The original Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act, first introduced with Laphonza Butler and Mark Takano, would amend the Fair Labor Standards Act and bar employers from cutting pay or benefits as hours fall. That structure is meant to make a shorter week more than a pay cut by stealth, with the overtime rule doing the heavy lifting: hours above 32 would be paid at time-and-a-half, not at straight time.
That is exactly where the critics are pressing back. During The Sunday Briefing, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said, “We believe in the dignity of work. It is a biblical foundation,” and added that “The American dream does not include a four-day workweek, from my perspective, at least.” On Varney & Co., Club for Growth President David McIntosh said AI would make people more productive and better paid, but argued that Sanders’ idea would hurt the workers it is supposed to help and could lead businesses to cut jobs and benefits to comply.
Sanders is also tying the workweek fight to the Restoring Overtime Pay Act, which would raise the overtime salary threshold and, sponsors say, could extend eligibility to up to 29.3 million workers. He has said that move is necessary because over 60% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. The pitch is simple: if productivity keeps rising, work should shrink and pay should not.
Shorter workweeks are already in place in France, Norway, Denmark and Belgium, where officials have reported productivity gains. That comparison is doing a lot of work for Sanders, but the unanswered question is not whether the idea can be described. It is whether Congress will accept a four-year glide path toward it, or whether the current pushback is enough to stop the bill before it gets any further.
