<p>Economic inequality for income and consumption raised aggerated at poor and rich countries; however, little is known about the roles of working hours in this trend, for example, increasing work hours can affect the heterogenous of consumption time and income. Based on data from the 1990 to 2019 panel data across 28 countries, we show that increasing work hours usually expands consumption inequality through two-fixed effects model. Furthermore, we find a nonlinear “U-shaped” relationship between income inequality and work hours through nonlinear effects model, even after controlling for various covariates. We also novel explore the mechanism of labor substitute effects from unemployment rates and digital developments, revealing that overwork hours would increase unemployment rates. However, the digital technology development only impacts on the income inequality. The main contributors are proving increasing work hours will expand consumption and income inequality, which explain the “Rat Race”—inefficiency competition and inequality after semiparametric regression and heteroscedasticity instruments.</p>