We hear it all the time: The rich need to pay their “fair share.” Republicans don’t care about burgeoning “income inequality.” These are oft-repeated mantras among the Left. But a new study recently published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour raises an interesting dilemma for those who continually push these talking points. The reality is that people interpret economic disparities much differently than what they’re being prodded to believe.

According to the researchers’ findings, “[W]hen people are asked about the ideal distribution of wealth in their country, they actually prefer unequal societies. We suggest that these two phenomena can be reconciled by noticing that, despite appearances to the contrary, there is no evidence that people are bothered by economic inequality itself. Rather, they are bothered by something that is often confounded with inequality: economic unfairness. Drawing upon laboratory studies, cross-cultural research, and experiments with babies and young children, we argue that humans naturally favour fair distributions, not equal ones, and that when fairness and equality clash, people prefer fair inequality over unfair equality.”

The Washington Examiner’s Emily Jashinsky speculates on how this philosophy might play out in real terms: “In an editorial published Monday, we noted the relative popularity of minimum wage increases. Per the study’s findings, it is possible that people believe workers who put in a full eight-hour day, say at McDonald’s, returning home with less than $100, is patently unfair. That is not a judgment on the philosophical fairness of those proposals, but a theory on the perceptions of them.” She also suggests that “it is possible these findings shed light on the pattern of people gravitating towards politicians, including the president, who frequently invoke the concept of ‘fairness.’”

Which raises the plausibility this view is equally applicable to myriad other issues. Take immigration, for example. Nobody is against legal immigration, but how is it fair that illegal immigrants are being allowed to abrogate U.S. laws? Or that sanctuary cities should get away with shielding them? Judicially speaking, why should Supreme Court justices have leeway as activists whose interests can blithely override Rule of Law?

What most Americans inwardly desire is a level playing field. That can be difficult to implement when it comes to policy (and no doubt many have a different idea of what “fair” means). But in order to be effective, we first need to understand how issues are perceived cognitively. And the broader perception regarding “income inequality” is hardly irrational. And it certainly defies the statist agenda.