Economic Theory of the Shorter Work Week

Abstract

IN the United States there has been much agitation of late for a shorter work week. In the spring of 1933 Senator Black of Alabama introduced a bill in the United States Senate to limit the work week to thirty hours. This bill passed by a vote of 53 to 20, but was held up on a motion to reconsider. Simultaneously Representative Connery introduced a similar bill in the House. Support given to these bills undoubtedly assured the passage on June 13, 1933, of the National Industrial Recovery Act, one purpose of which was to increase purchasing power by decreasing working hours (thus spreading work) and by increasing wages. Decreasing hours without increasing hourly wage rates to compensate was impossible politically. Prior to the Black and Connery Bills, the United States had been literally covered with the publicity and propaganda attendant upon the pronouncements of Technocracy. Although most of the claims of Technocracy have been proved to be false, the notion persists that great strides have been made in improving machines during the last decade, especially during the depression. In view of the debatable character of shorter work week proposals, it seems desirable at this time to examine some of the facts and to see how these are related to economic theory. In particular, it seems desirable to consider the economic experiment of the shorter work week carried out by the N.R.A., and to discover how hour shortening and attendant wage raising might lead to recovery or further depression. Figure I shows how gainful workers by the different classes of workers varied from 1880 to 1930. In 1880 about 8 per cent of all gainfully employed were professional workers compared with about 25 per cent in manufacturing and mining. About 47 per cent were engaged in agriculture and fishing. Employment percentages, however, did not remain static. The change has been very considerable in the last thirty years. For example, percentage of those engaged in agriculture and fishing in 1930 was 23 per cent, compared with 47 per cent in 1880. In manufacturing and mining a slight decrease occurred over the previous ten-year period. Table IV shows changes in workers in manufacturing and man-hours required during the period 1920-1933. During the period of industrial expansion, we were opening new manufacturing industries and building up our own industrial plants. Improved manufacturing technique and things of that sort were displacing workers and thus fewer were needed in manufacturing, but employment in trade