News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split. Parent comment

Re:Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but... by handrous on Monday June 21, 2021 @11:00AM (#27579828)
The US provides EU-level social safety net benefits (healthcare, housing) to the lower classes—via employment in the military, which is in part a stealth jobs program that both major political parties support paying for.

We provide a jobs program for white-collar folks through our excessively-large and exceptionally expensive healthcare system. We pay for whole categories of jobs that don't need to exist and are only adding costs. A double-digit percentage of our healthcare costs are a white-collar jobs program paying people to do nothing useful whatsoever, and we spend a lot on healthcare so even 10% makes it a fairly big program.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but... by jannes on Tuesday June 22, 2021 @03:58AM (#27589108)
That’s not really a safety net, because not everybody is physically fit to join the military.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but... by handrous on Tuesday June 22, 2021 @09:03AM (#27591077)
Yeah, I'm aware. It's a really sick way to give working-poor families access to universal healthcare, housing, and free education, which other OECD states mostly manage to do without that. But, it's what we've got.
[ Parent | on HN ]