“Christmas for Capitalists” Is the Worst Holiday for American Workers
For overworked Americans, October 25th is the day when they start working for free
When the American middle class was enjoying record levels of prosperity—roughly the 1950s to the early 1980s—magazines would publish dreamy pieces predicting the future of work in the far-off year of 2000. Most economists agreed that thanks to productivity gains created through technological improvements, the American workforce would soon enjoy a 4-day workweek.
Fast-forward to today, October 25th, 2018. Worker productivity in the United States is at unprecedented levels. But Americans still work 5-day workweeks, and in fact we now cram an additional day’s worth of work into our busy schedules. Gallup says that Americans are working longer than ever before—the average salaried American worker puts in 49 hours per week.
But even worse than that: because our federal overtime regulations have weakened to the point of disuse, most American workers are still only getting paid for 40 hours of work every week. Back in those halcyon days when economists were predicting the 32-hour workweek, 62 percent of Americans were covered by a strong overtime threshold, meaning they earned time-and-a-half for every minute they worked over 40 hours per week. Now, that number has atrophied to a meager eight percent.
Yesterday was the 80th anniversary of the Fair Labor Standards Act going into effect in the United States, which established an overtime rule and created the concept of the 40-hour workweek as a right for all Americans. Unfortunately, overtime basically doesn’t exist in the United States anymore, and now the 40-hour workweek is losing relevance.
And it’s ironic that yesterday was overtime’s 80th birthday because today, October 25th, is Pay Freedom Day, also known as “Christmas for Capitalists.” Say you work 49 hours per week, but—like the vast majority of Americans—you don’t qualify for overtime. Today marks the day that you’ve officially worked a full year’s worth of 40-hour workweeks. And because you don’t earn overtime, that means that the rest of the year, you’re working for free. (If you work more or less than 49 hours per week, Working Washington made a clever calculator to help you determine your own personal Pay Freedom Day.)
Let’s be clear: you’re working longer. And that work is creating value. But without strong overtime protections, the value that you’re creating is rising to the top—to the top one percent and the wealthiest corporations. That’s your money, but you don’t get to keep it anymore.
So how do you get your time and your money back where it rightfully belongs? Well, you need to start advocating to restore the overtime threshold to its historical levels. President Obama put the wheels in motion to raise the overtime threshold, but President Trump killed that rule.
Like the $15 minimum wage fight, when the federal government fails to take the lead, it’s up to the states to stand up for the American worker. Here in Washington State, Governor Jay Inslee has asked his Department of Labor & Industry to look into raising the overtime threshold. Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf, too, is starting the process to raise overtime in his state.
If you don’t live in states with strong overtime protections—basically every state other than New York or California, unfortunately—you should let your elected officials know that restoring overtime is a priority for you. Tell your story on social media with the hashtag #RestoreOT. And don’t vote for any politicians who helped kill the Obama overtime rule, like Ohio gubernatorial candidate Mike DeWine, Republican candidate for Michigan governor Bill Schuette, Nevada gubernatorial candidate Adam Laxalt, and Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel.
In this country, we agree that your time is money. That’s been a fundamental fact of labor in America for eight decades. It’s time to restore that contract, and to make sure that your time counts again.
