Every unnecessary delay, form, and regulation is a hidden tax on our most precious resource.

M odern discussions of inequality focus on wealth gaps and wage stagnation. But there’s an equally sinister version of inequality that doesn’t pit billionaires against the poor. It involves the administrative state’s pilfering a valuable resource from anyone trying to get ahead: time.

“Time inequality” is less visible, harder to measure, and arguably more corrosive than income inequality. One of the greatest achievements of liberal markets has been the steady increase in individuals’ leisure time. Whereas people with fewer means once labored from sunup to sundown to survive, they now enjoy more time for family, rest, and self-improvement. Liberal markets delivered this miracle, but government bureaucracies are quietly taking it back.

For working-class Americans, navigating government systems is like a second job that doesn’t pay the bills. Need to renew your driver’s license? That’s half a day gone. Start a side business? Expect to spend months navigating complex licensing processes, completing paperwork, obtaining approvals, and making repeat visits. File a zoning variance? Bring snacks.

These aren’t mere annoyances. They’re regressive, invisible taxes on time — imposing the greatest burden on those with the least resources. A 2016 study by researchers at the consulting firm Management Lab revealed that bureaucratic waste — including delays and overregulation — costs America 17 percent of its GDP. This number represents real hours lost, opportunities denied, and lives hindered.

The wealthy have ways around all this. They can hire assistants, pay for expedited services, or simply take time off without financial strain. But for the poor, every government-imposed delay comes at a real cost: lost wages, missed shifts, and less time with family.

Consider the maze of occupational licensing laws that govern over 20 percent of U.S. jobs. Want to braid hair, drive a food truck, or give tours? In many states, you’ll need to pay fees, pass tests, and complete hundreds of hours of training. In these cases, it’s not just money being extracted. It’s time. To obtain a cosmetology license in New Mexico, for example, one must complete more than 1,600 hours of instruction. Burdensome requirements such as this are designed to protect incumbents, who benefit from high hurdles that keep out new competition.

Worse still, even after meeting every costly, time-consuming requirement, many find themselves blocked by arbitrary bureaucratic vetoes. Policies like “certificates of need” let government officials decide — often with no justification — that an individual’s services aren’t needed, regardless of that person’s qualifications. That’s precisely what happened to Ursula Newell-Davis, a licensed social worker in Louisiana who has spent years fighting to provide respite care for vulnerable children, only to be told the state doesn’t believe that those children “need” her help. The prospect of having to navigate this rigged system often leads people to give up before they begin.

Some people who are hurt by arbitrary hurdles seek help from the courts. But legal recourse, too, can be a marathon. Take the Supreme Court case Sackett v. EPA. The Sacketts wanted to build a modest home on their land in Idaho. However, the Environmental Protection Agency claimed jurisdiction over their property and threatened to fine them tens of thousands of dollars per day unless they got an expensive permit. The couple fought back — and won. But it took a full 16 years to vindicate their rights.

Here’s the good news: There are solutions.

First, lawmakers should kill deadweight licensure requirements. There’s no reason for someone to need government permission to, for example, do makeup, arrange flowers, or braid hair. There should be no public gatekeeping if there’s no significant public risk. And if some states don’t regulate an occupation and have no problems, that’s a good reason for all other states to rethink their restrictions.

Second, everything should be streamlined. If a government process takes more than 30 days, requires multiple in-person visits, or can’t be completed online, then it’s broken. Implement response-time caps, default approvals, and digital filing for everything. If Amazon can process millions of orders daily, our local governments can issue building permits without dragging the process out for months. Furthermore, regulatory audits shouldn’t measure only monetary costs — they should also measure time burden.

Finally, courts should treat bureaucratic time-wasting — particularly when it burdens people’s right to earn a living — as a matter of constitutional concern. Courts reflexively defer to regulators’ determination that a law is necessary, even when rules arbitrarily block people from earning a living. But if a law consumes people’s time without a clear public benefit, courts should strike it down.

Every unnecessary delay, form, and regulation is a hidden tax on our most precious resource: time. And that tax is anything but equal. The time tax is real — and it’s time to treat it that way.