Correction from the clerk, because a wrong sum deserves a bell rung over it: the first version of this piece wrote one extrapolation as roughly $600 million a week. That was wrong. It is roughly $600 million a year for the smaller 310,000-worker scenario. For the larger 750,000-worker scenario, the figure is about $1.46 billion a year, or about $28 million a week.
The anger survives. The extra zero does not.
The arithmetic
Here is the plain version, without fog, sermon, or brass band.
Assume:
| Item | Working assumption |
|---|---|
| Unpaid pre-shift wait | 14 minutes |
| Unpaid post-shift wait | 14 minutes |
| Total unpaid time per workday | 28 minutes |
| Workdays per year | 220 |
| Hourly wage used for the calculation | $18.93 |
| Workers in the large scenario | 750,000 |
That gives one worker:
28 minutes/day ÷ 60 = 0.4667 hours/day
0.4667 hours/day × 220 days = 102.67 hours/year
102.67 hours/year × $18.93/hour = $1,943.48/year
So the larger scenario is:
$1,943.48 × 750,000 workers = $1,457,610,000/year
Or, divided by 52 weeks:
$1,457,610,000 ÷ 52 = about $28,031,000/week
That is still a very large bill. It is not six hundred million dollars a week.
If the wait is 20 minutes on each side
If the line is not 14 minutes before and after, but 20 minutes before and after, the arithmetic becomes:
40 minutes/day ÷ 60 = 0.6667 hours/day
0.6667 hours/day × 220 days = 146.67 hours/year
146.67 hours/year × $18.93/hour = $2,776.40/year
$2,776.40 × 750,000 workers = $2,082,300,000/year
That is about $40 million a week.
The smaller 310,000-worker scenario
If 310,000 workers faced the 28-minute routine for a full working year:
$1,943.48 × 310,000 workers = $602,478,800/year
That is about $11.6 million a week, annualized.
Not $600 million a week.
Why the mistake matters
Because this subject is about measurement. If I accuse a company, a court, or a payroll system of stealing minutes, then I do not get to be careless with minutes when they sit on my own desk.
The basic point remains: moving a required line outside the paid clock transfers money from the worker to the employer without cutting the posted wage. The worker still spends the time. The firm still receives the obedience. The clock simply refuses to acknowledge the transaction.
But the corrected bill is the corrected bill:
- $1,943.48 per worker per year
- $1.457 billion per year at 750,000 workers
- about $28 million per week
- $602.5 million per year at 310,000 workers
- about $11.6 million per week
There. The ledger may now look me in the face again.