If a company with 40 employees needs 1,600 man-hours of work done each week, they would need each of their 40 employees to put in a 40-hour work-week, correct? This balances the labor force.

40 employees x 40 hours each = 1,600 work-hours

What would happen if they lost 10% of their normal business, requiring them to cut out 160 hours of work each week? They would now only need 1,440 man-hours of work done each week. Since available work-hours have changed, they only have two options if they want to keep the equation balanced. They can either decrease the number of employees (option 1) or decrease the number of hours in the work-week (option 2).

Option 1:

The company could elect to stay with a 40-hour work week, but they would have to decrease population. They would only be able to provide work for 36 of their 40 employees (36 employees x 40 hours each = 1,440 work-hours). They would have to layoff 4 of their 40 employees (put them on unemployment).

The employer, along with the 36 working employees, would then have to take care of the 4 former employees. Money doesn’t just appear out of thin air. The government has no money. Congress has no money. All money comes from us, the American taxpayers; the American workers (in some form or another).

As you can see, if the company stays with a 40-hour work week (and keeps government involved), not only would the employer and the 36 working employees have to take care of the 4 unemployed former workers, but they now would have to send additional money (taxes) to the government to fund the entitlement program.

This doesn’t seem like an efficient or fair way of doing things! This is how government grows and grows and grows: by adding more and more entitlement programs. I think the money required to fund this service could be put to a much better use by simply splitting it among all 40 workers as explained in option 2.

Option 2:

You could switch to a 36-hour work week, keep all 40 employees working and off unemployment (40 employees x 36-hours each = 1,440 work-hours).

If the company doesn’t have to pay unemployment insurance (to fund a government agency), that money could be split among their employees to help offset any decrease in their net pay.

If we downsize government, we pay less tax, which means we keep more of our hard-earned money in our paychecks. Now that makes Common Sense!