Every time I hear someone argue that the distribution of income is unjust and must be remedied by high taxes on the rich, I think back to a time when I was recruiting economists for the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve.

Resident Scholar Kevin A. Hassett

About ten years ago, we made an offer to a hot young economist. We proposed an extremely healthy salary, about 50 percent higher than his next-best offer, a teaching position at a small college. The two jobs offered very different lifestyles. At the Fed, he would work hard and have only a few weeks of vacation each year, but he would be at the front line of American economic policymaking. At the small college, he would teach a few classes and have plenty of free time, but be far from the action.

After much agonizing, the nice fellow decided to be a professor. The freedom of academe, he argued, was too attractive to pass up.

Given the vagaries of the tax tables at the time, the Federal Reserve salary would have put him in the top bracket. The small-college salary put him near the bottom. He had simply decided to work less for a smaller income. A bit later, someone else took the Fed job he had refused. These two economists now had salaries at opposite ends of the spectrum. But would it have been fair to take money from the much harder-working Federal Reserve economist and give it to his tennis-playing peer?

Poverty and need undoubtedly still exist in the United States. But with almost all taxes being paid by those who receive the top half of total income, the tax code is far from just. With the exception of the very poorest, people’s income largely reflects the choices they freely make in their pursuit of happiness. A well-known example of this is education: As a general rule, the longer you go to school, the higher your wage.

But a less well-appreciated factor is the amount of work you actually do. This can be seen in the accompanying chart, which shows the average number of hours people work, broken down by their level of education. High-school dropouts worked on average 38.5 hours per week in 2005. Those with a high-school degree worked 39.8 hours. The number increases each time we jump to a higher level of education: The longest work weeks belonged to those with an advanced degree, who spent an average of 42.4 hours per week at their jobs--10 percent more than those without a high-school diploma.

As people's income increases, they tend to work more. In part, this may be because they like their jobs. But higher wages also compensate them for taking jobs that require longer hours. Those who would redistribute from the "rich" to the middle class will inevitably favor taking money from those who work hard and giving it to those who work less hard. Fighting poverty is one thing. Redistribution for redistribution’s sake is unjust.

Kevin A. Hassett is a resident scholar and director of economic policy studies at AEI.