Is the 15-hour work week closer than we think?

Friday, October 19, 2012 - 12:45 Oli Scarff/Getty Images John Quiggin takes a look at why the 15-hour work week predicted by economist John Maynard Keynes, hasn't come to pass -- yet. You don't work as hard as you say you do, according to the U.S. Labor Department. They just released a study that found the typical worker claims to work 40 hours a week -- while actually working around 37. But either way, your work week is still a lot longer than the 15-hour work week that economist John Maynard Keynes predicted we'd all be working by now. So what happened? Prof. John Quiggin's an economist at Queensland University in Brisbane Australia and author of "Zombie Economics: How Dead Ideas Still Walk Among Us . " He looked into the 15-hour work week and found that part of the problem lies in an increase in consumption that Keynes hadn't predicted. Keynes predicted that new technologies would allow workers to become more productive. This would mean they wouldn't have to work as many hours and could ...

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