For a four day work week!

When I was little, I can remember older people saying all sorts of cryptic things that didn’t make sense, with one of the key offenders being the expression “youth is wasted on the young.”

At the time this was a befuddling and slightly offensive thing for someone to say. “How is youth wasted on the young?” I can remember thinking, somewhat hurt, “Weren’t you young once, too? Was that a waste also?”

Now that I’m a bit older, a tiny bit wiser, (and suddenly jealous of 18 year olds that have their whole life ahead of them— I’m 28)—I am starting to appreciate the meaning behind the expression. In short, it just is a way of lamenting how quickly life goes by…

In this vein, it has always seemed like a cruel joke that the majority of our adult lives are spent unhappily doing something other than what we want. Consider; out of the 7 days that make up a week, only 2 of those days are free to be lived however one chooses. You are told during your “prime” working years to work as hard as you can, so that you can save as much money as possible for your life after retirement—so that the period of your life when you are at your physical peak, you are slaving away to prepare for a time when your quality of life may not be so naturally easy. All of this makes it seem to me that the expression should really be something like, “youth is wasted at work.”

After being fortunate enough to schedule and experience such a thing in college, I often day-dream about how awesome it would be in the real world to have a standard work week that consisted of 4 long, hard days, with a 3 day weekend. As I have sadly accepted my “grown-up” status, this fantasy has been mentally filed away, next to the “Surprise! You’re really a princess!” fantasy file.

It goes to show that anything is possible though—as I recently caught wind of news that my idealized 4 day work week scenario was actually a reality, and happening —right now— in major cities across our great country.

Due to budget concerns, the powers that be in Salt Lake City, Utah decided to do something a little different in the hopes of achieving something drastically different. As of August 2008, all state offices have been closed every Friday, in order to cut down the utility expenses by 20%. (One day less a week that the buildings need to be run and maintained.)

As would be expected, the employees loved this. A survey conducted by Brigham Young's Lori Wadsworth found that 82 percent of employees want to keep the four-day workweek. Their pay wasn’t being affected—they were still working 40 hours a week, their previous 8 hour days were extended to 10 hour days—and now their free time was being increased exponentially with which they could exercise, spend time with their families, volunteer, and travel. Aside from improved day to day morale, the new scheduling also seemed to have a positive effect on overall employee health, with fewer instances of sick days. Because of the longer days, productivity actually increased—for instance, there were shorter waits at the DMV due to the longer hours.


Bettering the quality of life for a large group of people is a wonderful thing, but this 4 day plan was implemented for financial gain (always comes back to money), and it is estimated that the city was able to save 1.8 million dollars just from this new scheduling. Having the office buildings closed on Fridays allowed the city to save all of the money that would have gone into keeping the place operational; now there was an entire day less to provide electricity for, an entire day less that the work force needed to be commuting, causing wear and tear on the roads, and an entire day less that required cleaning/security/maintenance services. Since the employees really enjoyed their new schedule, they were doing everything they could to empower the initiative, going so far as to make sure every appliance from computer to coffee maker was unplugged before they left for their long weekends on Thursday night. While the money saved made the local government happy, it was this saving of resources that piqued the environmentalists’ curiosity, and after a year’s time, Scientific American came in to research the effects— good or bad— that this 4 day work week was having on the surrounding environment.

Although the language is nerdier than mine (in my opinion?), I’m not sure I can explain it better that the Scientific American reports:

An interim report released by the Utah state government in February projected a drop of at least 6,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually from Friday building shutdowns. If reductions in greenhouse gases from commuting are included, the state would check the generation of at least 12,000 metric tons of CO2—the equivalent of taking about 2,300 cars off the road for one year.

And that’s just one nerdy-expert take on the situation. Aaron Newton, a frequent contributor to the GroovyGreen blog, did some different math and came out other inspiring statistics:

Approximately 106 million Americans drive to work alone each day, an average of 16 miles each way. Cutting out one workday's worth of commuting would not only lower U.S. oil imports by 5 to 10 percent, it would also prevent thousands of traffic fatalities, as well as cut down on the costs of road maintenance, since people tend to drive less on weekends. And workers would see a real income boost by saving on gas.

The 4 day work week has been going on in Utah for almost exactly a year at this point, and due to the positive outcomes shown so far, other citiess like New York and Boulder are considering trying it out themselves. (Mayor Bloomberg could nix the stupid soda tax, and save money for his city while keeping them happy.)

From my personal experience, I think this would also have positive implications for the economy from a consumer stand-point. With more free time on their hands, people would be more apt to spend money on fun things, like traveling, shopping, and all sorts of other entertainment ventures. The government could save money, positively affect the environment, make their people happier and more productive, while increasing cash flow into the economy.



Reviewing all of the facts pertaining to a 4 day work week, I can't help but wonder if I am being naive, or biased? Does my personal inclination for this prevent me from seeing the down-side? Clearly not every business could afford to adapt this new 4 day schedule, as restaurants, stores, and other service related industries would have to be open to serve the people who were now off from work, but perhaps the 4 day work weeks could just be staggered a bit (the way days off are now), and the people in those industries would take Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday off, since the majority of their clientele would be working on those days anyway.



I'm going to hold out hope that this practice will slowly but surely become a more wide-spread practice, so that we can have more freedom to enjoy more of what life has to offer.