[DesertCat]

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- I never said that politicians didn't "propose new programs". What does this have to do with reducing labor hours? Name me a major American politician who advocates shortening the work week or increasing mandatory vacation time.


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I never said they did. I said that politicians use untrue scare statistics claiming the middle class is earning less and that we are working more so they can campaign for more government "solutions" the problems they just made up.

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- Those labor statistics are completely off point. They are only the stats for "production workers". These are mostly union jobs, and they are disappearing. It may be true that the average production worker works fewer hours now than they used to, but (a) a much smaller % of people work in production, (c) a much greater % of the population overall is now employed, which is bound to increase average labor hours, and (c) those stats say nothing about hours worked in service or professional industries; these are the growing industries that I cited when I was talking about trends in labor hours. Why would you make a point of citing only the least possible relevant statistics unless to be deliberately deceptive?


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Wrong. Here are just some of the categories you claim this doesn't cover.

Retail trade
Information
Financial activities
Professional and business services
Leisure and hospitality
Other services

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- Finally, it is certainly true that labor saving devices have reduced the need for work in the home. But why has work in the home been replaced by work outside the home, rather than increased free time for both sexes?

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Maybe they replaced more work in the home with less work out of the home? You are forgetting how brutal our existence was just a hundred years ago, how few luxuries and labor saving devices we had, and how hard people had to work just to feed, clothe, and care for their families.