The Overworked And The Idle

A society of the increasingly overworked and involuntarily idle is not a stable or happy one.

Though I don't have any data on this, anecdotal evidence suggests the nation's workforce is dividing into two classes: the overworked and the idle. The overworked work more than 40 hours a week and are increasingly given impossible workloads, while the idle can't find any work or can only get part-time jobs with limited hours.

This bifurcation crosses income and class lines: highly paid and poorly paid workers alike are overtasked, and both the highly trained and low-skilled are idled.

The income stratification in the U.S. workforce suggests that America is now a Three-and-a-Half Class Society (October 22, 2012):
The entrenched incumbents on top (the "half class"), the high-earners who pay most of the taxes (the first class), the working poor who pay Social Security payroll taxes and sales taxes (the second class), and State dependents who pay nothing (the third class). 
This class structure has political ramifications. In effect, those paying most of the tax are in a pressure cooker: the lid is sealed by the entrenched incumbents on top, and the fire beneath is the Central State's insatiable need for more tax revenues to support its entrenched incumbents and growing army of dependents.

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