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'Last week, at a hearing before the Senate Budget Committee, Kent Conrad, the chairman of that committee, laid out the issue as many Americans see it: "The growing gap between the very wealthy and everyone else has serious ramifications for the country. It hinders economic growth, it undermines confidence in our institutions, and it goes against one of the core ideals of this country - that if you work hard and play by the rules, you can succeed and leave a better future for your kids and your grandkids."

Study, conducted by Stanford University and released by the Russell Sage Foundation and Brown University in Nov., 2011... shows a changed map of prosperity in the United States over the past four decades, with larger patches of affluence and poverty and a shrinking middle.... The study also found that there is more residential sorting by income.... It raises, but does not answer, the question of whether increased economic inequality, and the resulting income segregation, impedes social mobility.