Dear Reader,

A bill went into Congress this month that would drop the overtime threshold from forty hours to thirty-two.

We read four articles about it. Not one had a number in it. The closest anybody came was a senator warning that employers could raise prices or cut hiring — which is a forecast, not arithmetic.

So we pulled our own payroll and ran it.

Before we show you: we're not going to tell you whether this is good policy. That isn't what you come here for, and our opinion doesn't move one line of your payroll. What we can do is show you what it would cost one small laundromat, and how to find your own number in about ten minutes.

What it actually does

The Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act, introduced by Representative Mark Takano with Senator Bernie Sanders carrying a companion bill. The overtime threshold steps down over three years — 38 hours, then 36, then 34, landing at 32. It adds daily overtime as well: time and a half past eight hours in a day, double past twelve. Employers can't cut pay rates in response.

It amends the Fair Labor Standards Act, so the existing exemptions ride along — executive, administrative and professional. A laundromat attendant is none of those three. That's the carve-out most operators will assume covers them, and it doesn't.

The number everybody would look at

August: 256 paid staff hours. That's 59 hours a week across our entire staff.

Here's what surprised us. Spread across two people, that's 29.5 hours each. Across three, 19.7. At either of those this bill costs us nothing — at any threshold, right down to 32.

But that is not the shape of our payroll. In one pay period, one person carried 68% of every hour worked in the building. That's 40.2 hours a week, sitting right on the line, while everybody else splits the remaining nineteen.

So the premium, on that one person, as the threshold steps down. Year one at 38 hours is 2.2 overtime hours a week — $1,009 a year. Year two at 36, $1,937. Year three at 34, $2,864. Full phase-in at 32, $3,792.

That's real money. And it's the small number.

The number nobody would look at

The obvious move is to cut that person to 32 and hand eight hours to somebody else. The bill allows it — you can't cut the rate, you can cut the hours.

Except we've spent a year publishing why that doesn't work on our floor.

Thirty-five pounds an hour is not a speed. You cannot get there by telling somebody to fold faster. You get there by running four orders at once. One order at a time is 24 pounds an hour. Two together, 31. Four, 36. The whole gain is in stacking orders and running them as one job.

Shorter shifts stack fewer orders.

If splitting that shift drops our average batch from four orders to two, our floor goes from 33 pounds per paid hour to about 31 — and covering the same 8,536 pounds then takes an extra nineteen hours a month. $4,143 a year. If the schedule fragments further than that, $8,209.

We'd have paid more avoiding the overtime than the overtime was.

And the part that isn't in the bill at all

My wife and I work about 55 hours a week between us. Neither of us is clocked. My own draw divided by my own hours is $10.00 an hour — less than every single person who works for us.

A thirty-two hour workweek law does not touch owners.

The person in our building working the longest hours for the lowest rate is the one no version of this can reach. I'm not complaining; under-drawing while you build is ordinary and we chose it. But it's worth saying out loud, because every conversation about hours laws skips the person who locks up.

Here's the actual finding

The bill wouldn't create our problem. It would reveal one we already have.

Fifty-nine hours across three people is invisible at any threshold. Fifty-nine hours with 68% on one person is exposed in year one. The exposure isn't the law. It's the concentration.

And we already knew about the concentration, because somebody carrying two-thirds of your hours is a single point of failure whether or not anybody passes anything. The flu does the same thing to us that the bill does. The bill just puts a price on it — $3,792 a year, for a risk we've been carrying for free.

What we'd have you do, and it takes ten minutes

Pull your payroll for one month. Find the person with the most hours. Divide by 4.33.

Under 32, and this whole conversation costs you nothing.

Over 38, and you already pay overtime and already know it.

Between 32 and 40 — where most small operators live, and where we live — you now know two things. Roughly what a phase-in would cost you. And that the way you'd naturally avoid it might cost you more than paying it.

Where we're thin, and you should know it

Two places. This is a bill in committee, not a law. Versions have been introduced since 2023 and none have passed, so we're not predicting anything and you shouldn't plan on it.

And our batching loss is modeled, not measured. We have never actually split a shift and watched the pounds-per-hour move. We know what one order at a time costs because we put a stopwatch on it; the rest is inference. If you've run shorter shifts and watched your own floor, we'd rather have your number than keep quoting ours.

Hit reply with your biggest single week and we'll run it for you.

— Rebecca & Nicholas
Super Kleen Laundry, Lake City, MI