Global trends see rising economic inequality over the past half century. Researchers have examined the effects that this situational shift is having on individuals' thoughts, behaviors, and well-being. Most find that higher economic inequality is related to poor outcomes in domains of health and social behavior. Previous work finds that one pathway by which higher inequality causes poor outcomes is more monetary risk taking (Payne et al., 2017). This paper will expand on that work by examining other pathways through which economic inequality can cause poor outcomes in domains of health and social behavior seemingly unrelated to wealth. We offer the explanation that high economic inequality is perceived as high inequality in hedonic experience, and that this will drive a riskier pursuit of pleasure. In three experiments and two observational studies, we found evidence supporting this hypothesis, economic inequality is interpreted as hedonic inequality which drives the risky pursuit of pleasure.