Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA) reintroduced the Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act on September 8, 2026 — a bill that would rewrite the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, the law that sets when hourly workers are owed overtime, so the standard workweek drops from 40 hours to 32 without cutting anyone’s pay or benefits.
Sanders framed the push around artificial intelligence and automation. “At a time when artificial intelligence and robotics will radically transform our economy, it is imperative that the financial gains from this new technology benefit working families, not just a handful of billionaires and corporate CEOs,” he said. “One important way to do that is through a 32-hour workweek with no loss in pay or benefits.”
It’s the fourth time a version of this bill has reached Congress since 2021. Takano introduced it in the House that year, brought it back in March 2023, and Sanders added a Senate companion in March 2024 that got a single hearing in the Senate’s health, education, labor and pensions (HELP) committee and never came up for a vote. This latest version arrives with Sanders now the HELP Committee’s ranking Democrat rather than its chair — the top Democrat on the panel, but without the chair’s control over its schedule. Republicans also control both the House and Senate. Together, those two facts point to slim odds of passage.
Key facts
- Bill: the Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act, reintroduced September 8, 2026, by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA)
- Change: the overtime threshold under the Fair Labor Standards Act would drop from 40 hours a week to 32; available reporting conflicts on whether the phase-in would take three or four years, with no cut to pay or benefits
- History: the fourth version to reach Congress since 2021 — none has ever gotten a committee or floor vote
- Backers: a coalition of unions including the AFL-CIO, SEIU (Service Employees International Union), UAW (United Auto Workers) and UFCW (United Food and Commercial Workers)
- Critics cited: Club for Growth’s David McIntosh and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins criticized the plan; Sen. Bill Cassidy’s quoted criticism dates to the 2024 HELP Committee hearing
- Status: no CBO score, hearing date, or markup has been scheduled as of September 12, 2026
Timeline
- 2021: Takano introduces the bill in the House for the first time
- March 2023: Takano reintroduces the bill in the House
- March 2024: Sanders adds a Senate companion; it gets one HELP Committee hearing and no vote
- September 8, 2026: Sanders and Takano reintroduce the bill again, its fourth appearance in Congress
What the bill would change
The bill would lower the point at which hourly workers become legally owed overtime pay. Right now that line sits at 40 hours a week; the bill would move it down to 32 over a phase-in period, but available reporting conflicts on whether that phase-in would take three or four years. Once phased in, non-exempt employees would be owed time-and-a-half for hours beyond 32 in a week or 8 in a day, and double pay for any shift stretching past 12 hours — the same basic overtime structure workers have today, just triggered sooner. The stated goal is that workers keep their current pay and benefits at the shorter week rather than take a proportional cut.
Worth knowing for scale: how many hours Americans actually work depends on who’s counting. Bureau of Labor Statistics payroll data put the private-sector average at 34.4 hours a week as of August 2026, while a Gallup survey of full-time workers found they reported averaging 42.9 hours — a gap that reflects different measurement methods, not a sudden change in how much people work.
The argument behind it
Supporters point to a long-running gap between how much more productive American workers have become and how much their pay has grown — though that’s a real dispute, not a settled number.
- Productivity-pay gap: Economic Policy Institute data cited by supporters show productivity has climbed roughly 90% since 1979 while typical hourly pay has risen only about 33% over the same period.
- A rebuttal: A commentary from the American Enterprise Institute, drawing on research by economist Robert Lawrence and by Anna Stansbury and Larry Summers, argues the gap is inflated by how it’s measured — a narrow worker definition, benefits left out, an inflation index that doesn’t match. Corrected for those choices, it argues real wages have risen roughly 20% to 32% since 1990, depending on which inflation measure is used, tracking productivity much more closely than the raw comparison above suggests.
- A four-day-week trial: A 2022 UK trial of a four-day week across 61 companies and about 2,900 workers found roughly 71% of employees reporting less burnout, and, according to researcher Juliet Schor, most participating companies held or grew revenue — though it was a voluntary pilot with employers who opted in, not a government mandate.
The bill is backed by a coalition of labor unions, including the AFL-CIO, SEIU, UAW and UFCW, among others.
Who’s against it, and when they said so
Opposition surfaced quickly after the September 8 announcement. David McIntosh, president of the conservative group Club for Growth, told Fox Business’s “Varney & Co.” that “a lot of people will lose their job, lose their benefits when they implement something like that,” arguing AI will already raise pay without a government mandate. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, appearing on “The Sunday Briefing,” rejected the idea on different grounds: “We believe in the dignity of work,” she said. “The American dream does not include a four-day work week from my perspective, at least.”
A sharper line of attack predates this week’s reintroduction. When the Senate HELP Committee held its one hearing on an earlier version of the bill in 2024, Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana argued that requiring 40 hours of pay for 32 hours of work amounts to roughly a 25% mandated wage increase that would “devastate small businesses running on thin margins and fuel inflation.” That line is circulating again alongside coverage of the new bill, but it dates to the 2024 hearing on the prior Senate version, not a fresh statement about this week’s reintroduction.
What’s actually likely to happen
No vote count or floor schedule has been set this time. Neither the 2023 House version nor the 2024 Senate version got a committee vote, let alone a floor vote, and both expired at the end of that Congress. No CBO score, hearing date, or markup has been scheduled as of September 12, 2026. For now, the bill stands as a marker of where Sanders, Takano and their union allies want the wage-and-hours debate to go.
Sources and further reading
- progressives.house.gov
- Ranking Member Cassidy Delivers Remarks During Hearing on Fringe 32-Hour Workweek Proposal
- NEWS: Sanders, Takano Reintroduce Bill to Move Toward 32-Hour Workweek, Ensure America’s Workers Benefit from AI and Automation
- Ranking Member Cassidy Delivers Remarks During Hearing on Fringe 32-Hour Workweek Proposal
- S.Hrg. 118-329: Workers Should Benefit from New Technology and Increased Productivity: The Need for a 32-Hour Work Week with No Loss in Pay
- NEWS: Sanders, Takano Reintroduce Bill to Move Toward 32-Hour Workweek…
- Rep. Takano’s Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act Gains Senate Companion Bill Introduced by Sen. Sanders