How do people make sense of wealth and poverty?

Economic outcomes reflect an intricate mixture of people's internal dispositions and external circumstances that are beyond their control. How, then, do people make sense of wealth and poverty? I suggest that attributions of economic outcomes are susceptible to various influences that can be grouped into two broad categories-who people are (i.e. personal influences) and what people see in the world (i.e. societal influences). Personal influences include people's ideological leanings and worldviews, socioeconomic standing, and experiences of economic success or failure. Societal influences include macroeconomic circumstances, cultural narratives, structural prejudices, and salient consumption behaviors by the rich and the poor. I discuss how these influences shape (and distort) attributions of economic outcomes and lay beliefs about wealth and poverty.