Humanities desk
< November 4	<< Oct \| November \| Dec >>	November 6 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

November 5[edit]

5-day workweek in the US[edit]

I'm trying to find an actual legal definition of a full-time job in the US. Our article full-time job claims on the one hand that there would be no such definition, but on the other mentions that the FLSA defines the regular eight-hour workday, thus (indirectly) defining a 40-hour week (which is decidedly not even a maximum, as 58% of Americans officially work far longer per week). Our article Workweek and weekend#United States claims a 5-day workweek would be legally defined somehow, but that statement has a citation needed.

So, we have a legal definition of the eight-hour workday in the FLSA. It'd be great if somebody could find the official law defining the 5-day workweek, which together with the eight-hour workday would define a 40-hour week as full-time. 2003:EF:170A:9207:6473:4969:7E78:F45C (talk) 01:27, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

How do you know it's a matter of law? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:36, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Because a.) full-time is legally defined in most other civilized places on earth, b.) I've already found the right law for at least half of it, the eight-hour day, and c.), our article Workweek and weekend claims there would be a law for the 5-day week as well, but doesn't cite the exact law. --2003:EF:170A:9207:6473:4969:7E78:F45C (talk) 01:45, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Fact Sheet #22: Hours Worked Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) says nothing about an eight-hour workday. The only eight mentioned is "An employee required to be on duty for 24 hours or more may agree with the employer to exclude from hours worked bona fide regularly scheduled sleeping periods of not more than 8 hours". The FLSA specifies that "Unless exempt, employees covered by the Act must receive overtime pay for hours worked over 40 in a workweek ... An employee's workweek is a fixed and regularly recurring period of 168 hours — seven consecutive 24-hour periods. It need not coincide with the calendar week, but may begin on any day and at any hour of the day. Different workweeks may be established for different employees or groups of employees." So nothing about a five-day workweek or an eight-hour workday, which are both highly dubious. I'm pretty sure firefighters and other emergency workers and others in various other professions don't/can't adhere to that. Clarityfiend (talk) 02:17, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Business Insider article More leaders are scrapping the 40-hour workweek. Here's how it became so popular in the first place. does mention an eight-hour workday being legislated for certain categories of workers (e.g. interstate railroad workers / Adamson Act), but no blanket legal requirement for all professions. Clarityfiend (talk) 02:30, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"1890: The US government began tracking workers' hours. The average workweek for full-time manufacturing employees was a whopping 100 hours." That’s really crazy. Viriditas (talk) 02:46, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that something is a certain way "in most other civilized places on earth" is hardly an argument for the claim it is that way in the US. --Lambiam 09:11, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, the US is notorious for having very poor worker's rights. Fgf10 (talk) 10:38, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Bureau of Labor Statistics: “ Usual full time and usual part time In Current Population Survey (CPS) statistics published by BLS, people are classified as full- or part-time workers based on the number of hours they usually work each week.

Full-time workers are those who usually work 35 or more hours per week. Part-time workers are those who usually work fewer than 35 hours per week.” 40 hours is related to overtime pay. https://www.bls.gov/cps/definitions.htm#employed DOR (HK) (talk) 08:55, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This is for statistical purposes; it is not a legal definition. In general, if some term has a legal definition in some jurisdiction, the precise definition may vary for different laws ("X, for the purpose of this Law, shall mean Y"). If there are no US laws in which the effect of a clause depends on whether a worker is employed full-time, there is no need to give legal definitions. --Lambiam 09:21, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Don’t forget to check in various STATE labor laws… it is quite possible that the Federal government never defined the workweek because it was deemed an issue for State government to define. Blueboar (talk) 11:45, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Before we accuse our American cousins of being uncivilized, note that there was no regulation of the working week in the UK before we were forced into it by the European Union's Working Time Directive of 1993, which mandated a 48-hour week with four weeks holiday and didn't make it into British law until 1998. Now that we have left the EU, there's talk of it being scrapped, [1] although I don't see that as much of a vote winner. Alansplodge (talk) 12:23, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The various Factories Acts, Shop Hours Acts, Shops Act 1911, did regulate working hours to some extent. DuncanHill (talk) 12:33, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ah yes, quite right. I believe those set compulsory breaks with a maximium 12-hour day and a 5½-day week. Alansplodge (talk) 19:25, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Also explore Blue laws in the United States. The idea of legally mandating a day/days of rest at the end of the week (a weekend) originally stems from religious observances. Blueboar (talk) 15:14, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep in mind that this is about hourly workers. Salaried workers can theoretically be made to be available 24 x 7. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:58, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Can you cite any evidence for that? It's certainly not true in many other countries. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:38, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Stephan Schulz, it's in the exemptions at 29 U.S.C. § 213. John M Baker (talk) 16:04, 8 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Are you sure? It's very convoluted, but as far as I understand the text, it only exempts the employer from some of the provisions of this particular act, not all labour regulations. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:13, 8 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It specifically exempts employers from the requirement to pay time and a half for time worked in excess of 40 hours in a week. There are other provisions that are not subject to the exemption. John M Baker (talk) 19:19, 8 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The simplest way of explaining what being salaried means, as opposed to hourly, is something I once heard an upper-management guy say: "We get paid for results." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:09, 9 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Well, at least in Germany the number of hours worked and the number of hours paid are independently regulated. A normal workday has 8 hours. It can be extended up to 10 hours if workers get comp time. Legally, there are 6 workdays per week, and 48 hours is the maximum allowed working time per week. Again, this can be extended, but needs to be compensated in time, not money. For statistics, full time employment starts at 30h/week, but the "normal" contract has between 35h (what unions have been pushing for for a while) and 40h (what used to be the norm until ~50 years ago - boy, am I old!). Nearly everyone is salaried, and "reasonable" overtime can be included in the base pay (this can be a matter of individual contracts and collective contracts), with the level of "reasonableness" being determined based on salary level (in the case of conflicts by the courts). But in practice, for normal manual labour, overtime (as ordered by the employer) is always paid at a premium, while for higher pay levels, flex- and comp time are normal, and are paid (if not compensated) at the normal hourly rate. But I'm rambling - the core point is that pay is one issue (let's call it "fairness" or "compensation"), but maximum working hours are another ("health and safety"). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:38, 9 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If you are looking for a legal definition, it very much depends on content. If you mean the point at which a non-exempt employee (which in general means an hourly rather than a salaried employee) is entitled to overtime (time and a half) pay, that is 40 hours and is so provided in Section 7(a)(1) of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, as amended, 29 U.S.C. § 207. John M Baker (talk) 23:30, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Commonly accepted norms are accepted in court. Full time work is generally 37.5—40 hours a week. Every workplace and job requirement is different. But it's widely accepted to be 40 hours.Jondvdsn1 (talk) 08:10, 9 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Economic crisis[edit]

When countries face economic problems, they can easily print large amount of currency notes and deposit in their banks. This will increase their wealth, but they don't do it. Why? Rip van 5476 (talk) 13:24, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm no economist, but what makes you think it increases their wealth? It certainly didn't do that in 1920s Germany. As far as I can see, it merely devalues the currency and causes economic chaos. Clarityfiend (talk) 14:42, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

See: Inflation and the related Hyperinflation… essentially, if you print too many notes, each note becomes worth less in terms of the goods it will purchase. Blueboar (talk) 15:24, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

See also The link between Money Supply and Inflation for an explanation in simple terms. Alansplodge (talk) 19:16, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Short answer: supply and demand. If the supply of cash (and other money) rises faster than overall growth in the economy, there won’t be enough (goods, services) produced to meet the newly arising demand. So, prices will rise, and inflation seems to make people more unhappy than unemployment or deflation. DOR (HK) (talk) 10:26, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]