One Underappreciated Way to Reduce Inequality: Work More
Economists tend to focus on structural changes to address differences in income, but a recent paper shows the simple value of working more hours.
You can usually get more by working more.
Photographer: Scott Eells/Bloomberg
The various bestselling books on income inequality cite a variety of driving factors. Robert Kuttner blames global capitalism. Paul Krugman pins it on bad domestic economic policies. Thomas Piketty writes of capitalists as if they are rentiers, extracting royalties from the system.
There is another factor that tends to go unrecognized: the time-honored virtue of hard work. If you work harder — and smarter — you will earn more money. This would not have surprised my grandmother, but in today’s intellectual world, old truths sometimes need to be repeated. And studied.