The Time Tax Quotes

“With forms, summonses, and sanctions, the government impresses upon poor people that it is their fault they are poor. It applies skepticism to the needy, the overwhelmed, and the unlucky that it does not apply to the powerful and wealthy. The time tax reflects and reinforces the country’s racial caste system too. Programs for white people are easy to access; programs for Black people are hard to access. As Moynihan and Herd put it, in an article authored with the sociologist Victor Ray, “racialized burdens neatly carry out the how in the production of racial inequality while concealing, or providing an alibi for, the why.”64 Broadly, the time tax serves as a hidden engine of American inequality, a regressive filter on every progressive policy we have. In the same way that time taxes accrue to the impoverished, they accrue to the sick, loading people up with stressful logistical tasks when they are least capable of handling them. Administrative burdens make it harder for people with cancer to access health care and harder for people with workplace injuries to enroll in safety net programs. They are an acute and chronic stressor, sapping a person’s energy and bandwidth.”
― Annie Lowrey, The Time Tax: How the Government Wastes Our Time—and How to Fix It