Ask any Democrat, any Democratic socialist, how the wealthy in America actually got their money, and you are likely to hear the same story every time: they exploited their workers, they stole it from someone else's labor, they inherited it, or some combination of the three.
Nothing could be further from the truth. As a matter of fact, the wealth earned by richer Americans is directly tied to something far simpler: how many hours they actually work in a week. According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, higher-income Americans consistently work more hours than lower-income Americans do.
The rich are rich because they work.
— Daniel Di Martino (@DanielDiMartino) July 13, 2026
The poor are poor because they don't. pic.twitter.com/XKFvmruK6A
"The rich are rich because they work, while the poor are poor because they don't," Daniel Di Martino, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and economist, said. "The truth is, the richest 10 percent of Americans work on average seven hours a week more than the poorest 10 percent of Americans. And while 91 percent of Americans with an advanced degree have a job, only 72 percent of Americans with just a high school diploma have a job."
"So perhaps the problem with the so-called working class is that they don't work."
The story of poorer Americans is complicated even further, as data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that those lower on the income scale spend more time on average in leisure activities than their wealthier counterparts.
Why point this out? Because it recenters something many people discussing economics love to forget: the power of individual agency and accountability in a free market.
To many, even conservatives, the idea that wealthier Americans work more than poorer Americans is hard to accept at first. Picture the average blue-collar job standing next to the average white-collar job, and the instinct is almost automatic to assume the man swinging a hammer all day is working harder and should be earning more than the man in a suit, and to scoff at the idea that the office worker could possibly be putting in more hours, let alone earning his wealth through effort at all.
But in the United States, the system is largely working as intended. Work more, produce more, and you are rewarded for it. Work less, produce less, and you aren't.
The only criticism possible to this has been that the "message" is not useful. But it is the truth.
— Daniel Di Martino (@DanielDiMartino) July 14, 2026
Poor people work less than rich people.
And many more people without college degrees don't have a job or look for one than those who do.
Recognize the truth to do something. https://t.co/xZD63B7Jvb pic.twitter.com/kqAcxcKrOe
So ask again how the wealthy in America got their money, and this time, answer with the data instead of a simple and made-up story. Not exploitation. Not theft. Not some inherited head start that explains it all away. Just hours, and the choice to work them.
The Democrats and Democratic socialists who built their entire economic worldview on a myth of extraction have it backward: the market isn't rigged against effort in this country. It's still one of the last places on Earth where effort is rewarded almost exactly in proportion to how much of it you give.
Recognizing that doesn't require abandoning compassion for those who are struggling. It simply requires abandoning the lie that struggle is something being done to them, rather than something tied to a choice still theirs to make.
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