Talks & Entertainment

From doing our taxes to applying for financial aid, housing assistance, unemployment, disability, or Medicaid, dealing with government bureaucracy can be a nightmare. The hoops we must jump through—the paperwork, aggravation, and mental effort imposed on citizens to access their rights and benefits—are what journalist and Atlantic staff writer Annie Lowrey has termed the “time tax.” So how did the world’s wealthiest country end up with such a convoluted, punitive, and inept system of public admin­istration?

In The Time Tax: How the Government Wastes Our Time—and How to Fix It, Lowrey traces the history of administrative burdens in the U.S. from the Civil War to today, revealing how they were historically built as a tool of discrimination. She examines the effect of time taxes on civic life, from how they amplify inequality and entrench poverty to how they reduce trust in government. Lowrey shows that it doesn’t have to be this way and provides a point-by-point guide for reclaiming our precious time.

Lowrey, also the author of Give People Money, will be in conversation with her husband Ezra Klein, a columnist and podcast host at The New York Times and the co-author of Abundance.