The Understanding Society blog has an interesting post on the influence of Marx on Rawls. It isn't a connection I'd ever made for myself, although I did read both in a 'set text' way when I was an undergraduate, with both youth and context militating against understanding. Recently I re-read Rawls's Theory of Justice alongside Amartya Sen's The Idea of Justice and Michael Sandel's Justice. Daniel Little's main point in his blog is:

The conception of individuals forging themselves through labor is
central; it reflects a line of thought extending from Aristotle to
Hegel to Marx, and it seems to be foundational for Rawls himself when
he describes his theory of the good.

Hard to argue with that thought.

The blog has a few other recent posts on Rawls for those interested in theories of social justice. Some might argue that this subject is only of minor interest to economists, but I would strongly disagree.