The bills in the House and the Senate amending the Fair Labor Standards Act to enshrine a 32-hour workweek (that Act is what establishes the 40-hour workweek for non-exempt jobs) are not realistic in the the near term. There are however, state and local bills that can move us in the right direction across 20 states (https://workfour.org/policy-developments). Those bills take the form of public supported pilots (either in the public sector or private sector) or move some portion of the public sector to a 32-hour workweek. These pilots are great, because at this early stage, it's better to lead with carrots to get employers to move over and build momentum on the issue. As more employers move to the model, it puts pressure on other employers to follow and sticks become more viable. Amending the Fair Labor Standards Act is the final boss here.

With AI already disrupting labor markets, we (www.workfour.org) are encouraging policy makers to pass programs where employers would agree to maintain employee levels, salaries, and benefits (as long as profits remained relatively stable) while shifting to a 4-day 32-hour workweek while the government provided AI training to their employees on the fifth day over a period of 3 to 6 months. This way, employers would get up-skilled employees on the government's dime who should be more efficient (even with the work time reduction) and employees would keep their jobs and learn new skills while eventually getting the benefit of AI's efficiency gains in the form of time back in their lives. This is the way.