The aim of this paper is to understand how individuals justify economic inequality across occupations. I seek to explore the acceptance of inequality through the lens of meritocratic beliefs. I contribute to this literature by challenging the traditional conceptualization of merit in political economy and behavioral economics, where merit has largely been reduced to the notion of effort. The empirical part of the paper is divided into two sections. The first section, which is primarily descriptive, is based on an original survey conducted in the UK (n=1,000). Respondents were asked to rate ten occupations based on different components of merit elucidated in the theoretical framework. The findings reveal that respondents do not perceive merit as a unidimensional concept; instead, they attribute merit to various job-related factors beyond effort or skills. Interestingly, and contrary to current conceptualizations of merit in the scholarship, the aspects of a job least associated with merit are level of education and physical effort. The results also underscore the importance of two factors often overlooked in the literature: a job's contribution to economic growth and its contribution to societal well-being. The second section employs a conjoint analysis conducted in the UK (n=1,500) to isolate the effects of merit-related factors of a job on the acceptance of market inequality, as compared to non-merit-related factors (e.g., the supply and demand of a job).