{"id":110546,"date":"2009-12-28T16:45:40","date_gmt":"2009-12-28T21:45:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.wsj.com\/economics\/2009\/12\/28\/budget-cuts-pushing-governments-toward-four-day-week\/"},"modified":"2009-12-28T16:45:40","modified_gmt":"2009-12-28T21:45:40","slug":"budget-cuts-pushing-governments-toward-four-day-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/110546","title":{"rendered":"Budget Cuts Pushing Governments Toward Four-Day Week"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Growing budget deficits are prompting some state and local governments to consider a four-day work week for government workers, and in some cases even for school kids.<\/p>\n<p>Utah is the only state in the nation with the four-day work week, but governors in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stateline.org\/live\/details\/story?contentId=446862\">Iowa<\/a> and Washington have started touting the idea as a way to save money. Legislators in New York have <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2009\/01\/12\/nyregion\/12workweek.html\">floated a similar idea<\/a> while Mesa, Ariz. \u0096- profiled in <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB126178934938205455.html\">this WSJ story<\/a> on cities grappling with budget problems \u0096- has already switched to the four-day, 10-hour workday.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the idea: By having employees work four days instead of five, cities and states save on energy and building maintenance costs. (Utah implemented its four-day work week two years ago to offset rising gas prices.) Commuting traffic is reduced, less gas is consumed and in Utah the program has been <a href=\"http:\/\/nymag.com\/news\/intelligencer\/61749\/\">shown to reduce overtime<\/a> because few employees want to stick around after an already long day.<\/p>\n<p>Across the country, several school districts are trying <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newson6.com\/global\/story.asp?s=11666790\">the four-day school week<\/a>, which has gotten mixed reviews from students that have already <a href=\"http:\/\/www.helenair.com\/news\/local\/education\/article_bb9389dc-dcb5-11de-a29c-001cc4c002e0.html\">moved to the less frequent schedule<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~at\/9k4BC8KQZqSNs_vMTrNLFIasb1o\/0\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~at\/9k4BC8KQZqSNs_vMTrNLFIasb1o\/0\/di\" border=\"0\" ismap=\"true\"><\/img><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~at\/9k4BC8KQZqSNs_vMTrNLFIasb1o\/1\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~at\/9k4BC8KQZqSNs_vMTrNLFIasb1o\/1\/di\" border=\"0\" ismap=\"true\"><\/img><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"feedflare\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/wsj\/economics\/feed?a=4IhjD5XUuHY:olR-1K9zINE:yIl2AUoC8zA\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/wsj\/economics\/feed?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/wsj\/economics\/feed?a=4IhjD5XUuHY:olR-1K9zINE:F7zBnMyn0Lo\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/wsj\/economics\/feed?i=4IhjD5XUuHY:olR-1K9zINE:F7zBnMyn0Lo\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/wsj\/economics\/feed?a=4IhjD5XUuHY:olR-1K9zINE:V_sGLiPBpWU\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/wsj\/economics\/feed?i=4IhjD5XUuHY:olR-1K9zINE:V_sGLiPBpWU\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/wsj\/economics\/feed?a=4IhjD5XUuHY:olR-1K9zINE:qj6IDK7rITs\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/wsj\/economics\/feed?d=qj6IDK7rITs\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/wsj\/economics\/feed\/~4\/4IhjD5XUuHY\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Growing budget deficits are prompting some state and local governments to consider a four-day work week for government workers, and in some cases even for school kids. Utah is the only state in the nation with the four-day work week, but governors in Iowa and Washington have started touting the idea as a way to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":850,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/850"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110546\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}