Nine in the morning to nine in the evening, six days a week. It's the current corporate fad in AI, in China, and it's seemingly starting to spread among companies and governments looking to squeeze blood out of the working-class stones.

Quite frankly, anyone advocating for it shows how completely out of touch they are with modern economics and popular opinion in general, and are highlighting to their boards, investors, and governments that they shouldn't be allowed to run a sandwich line, let alone a corporation.

I've written some lengthy posts this week, so I'm just going to keep it short and sweet this time - with lots of pretty graphs. It's also going to be an Americentric perspective, but the broad strokes are shockingly universal in the current neoliberal Capitalist hellscape gripping the globe.

Productivity vs Wages

The Economic Policy Institute has been highlighting the disconnect between wages and productivity for years, now, so I'm just going to crib their graphic to set the baseline, here.

Worker productivity has never been higher, and worker compensation has...stagnated, effectively, growing a modest ~57% in compensation since 2000, while productivity has skyrocketed ~139%. If it feels difficult making ends meet in 2026 on even a six-figure job, it's because you should honestly be making twice as much money. No wonder workers were pissed over RTO: clawing back the hour of unpaid commuting time every day was the equivalent of a 12.5% raise in terms of saved time alone, nevermind the savings on lunches, vehicle wear-and-tear, fuel, and insurance.

Alright alright, let's look at some other numbers to put this into context. How about the cost of housing?

You sure about that, chief?

Median housing sales appreciated by 248.5% since 2000. Now obviously a significant part of that appreciation is a shortage of affordable and suitable housing stock, but still, it would take two workers working full-time, with wages appreciating in-line with productivity gains, to have a chance of affording the median home sale price in 2026.

Surely that's a one-off though. Let's take a look at another sector that's not in a systemic shortage, and of a similar "staple" to housing: healthcare!

Oh dear. Up 230%. Well to be fair, that's because American Healthcare is broken as hell. Surely grocery prices will support this idea of productivity being the problem and not compensation, right?

191% increase compared to a paltry 57% increase on wages over the same time period. But to be fair, it's not like extensive industry consolidation and monopolization are destroying entire towns in the name of shareholder returns. Must just be, like, totally normal economy stuff.

Has anything kept pace with - or at least grown slower than - worker wages? Are any staples of the American household doing better? What about education?

Shit, uhm, what about car maintenance?

Well, fuck, what about transportation in general? Y'know, new cars, used cars, airplane tickets, maintenance, fuel, public transport-

Well, there is this one area...

We did it, guys. Communication costs have plummeted as a result of the boom in the communications sector. Can't afford housing, or groceries, or transportation, or healthcare, but we can at least afford our cell phone bill.

Wasn't this about 996?

You're right, it was.

My point is fairly simple: fuck longer working hours in general. If your employer wants 996, you should tell them to fuck off or pay up. There is literally no data supporting 996 as a means of extracting more productivity or improving the odds of successfully competing in the marketplace. It's just rich fucks demanding more of your time for even less pay in an environment where you already can't afford basic staples of survival without multiple roommates and a spouse, or very rich and generous parents.

We have very real problems facing society at present: high costs of living, ballooning national debts, generational hostilities, an aging population, climate crises, energy transitions, shifting geopolitics, and many, many more. Not one of these issues is solved by dedicating more time to private employers for no increase in wages, as 996 schemes demand. We definitely don't need to work longer hours for more productivity when companies are firing workers while raking in huge profits. So long as there's unemployment, added productivity comes from hiring more people, not working longer hours.

If anything, we need to increase our productivity in our community, rather than our employers. We need more productivity in installing newer and more efficient infrastructure (e.g. mass transit) or making existing infrastructure less costly (e.g., fixing the potholes and roads), neither of which are things private enterprise are going to step up and do on our behalf. We need to rebuild and modernize our schooling infrastructure and improve the quality of high school graduates as workforce participants - or make higher education compulsory and gratis. All of these issues are best addressed by reducing working hours in the private sector (thus driving more employment) and promoting community support and volunteerism in the downtime of the workforce.

With the current gap between productivity and wages, workers are already effectively working two and a half days every week, for free. Forcing employers to make up the gaps in pay or shifting the definition of full-time work to 24 hours per week would be initially tumultuous, but communities could take advantage of the additional availability of highly-skilled workers for jobs and tasks they'd normally never consider due to the (comparatively) abysmal pay. Workers could start new businesses in the community, filling out vacant commercial space. They could volunteer at schools, in community organizations, or just act as childcare providers while their peers are working, bringing neighbors together into larger communities without the risk of burnout in the current work-first economy. Hell, having all that excess time means existing shitty housing stock could be revitalized and renovated without compromising on their day job work or social life.

Fuck 996.

You're simply not being paid enough for 955, nevermind something as absurd as 996. Private employers don't need more of your time, your community does - and your employer needs to either pay up, or step back from this insanity.