Time is something that most people take for granted. In the American workforce, time is often treated as personal responsibility and people are blamed for managing it poorly or wasting it. For millions of Americans, especially low-wage workers, time management is not a choice, but a constraint. Time is neither flexible nor abundant; it’s scarce.

On Wednesday 2/18, Sharon Goldfarb, a speaker at the League of Women Voters healthcare and equity meeting, emphasized a powerful but often overlooked idea: time is infrastructure. Time is a resource that determines who can stay healthy, who can voice their opinion and participate politically, and who gets left behind.

Time scarcity has a significant impact on health outcomes. For many people, working longer hours directly results in less sleep, higher stress levels, and poorer health. A typical workday does not end when someone clocks out. Many workers go home to cook dinner, care for children or family members, commute long distances, or work additional jobs. This creates an extremely long and emotionally exhausting day, leaving little time for rest or medical care. Poor health, in this context, is not the result of bad choices, but of a lack of time.

This problem is especially severe for low-wage workers and those in the gig economy. These workers often lack benefits such as paid sick leave, health insurance, or flexible schedules. Missing even one day of work due to illness or a family emergency can result in termination. People are often blamed for their status in the work force, but the reality is that the system offers little equity or consideration for those who are less privileged or facing unavoidable hardships.

The time crisis is also directly reflected in the healthcare system. Many hospitals are chronically understaffed, and nurses may be responsible for more than 20 patients a day. Refusing to work an unexpected but mandated double shift  can result in accusations of patient neglect. Conditions such as these force workers to minimize sleep and experience burnout, which in turn worsens the quality of care.

Delayed care is one of the most serious consequences that results from time scarcity. When people cannot afford to miss work or to pay for medication, conditions that were initially manageable become life-altering. These outcomes are not caused by a lack of effort or lack of medical knowledge, but by the systems that make care inaccessible.

–Himansu Shrestha & Zoe Clark