Leadership Conference on Civil Rights

Here is a shameful fact that Connecticut's politicians should ponder: Over the past two decades, of all the 50 states, income inequality increased the most by far in Connecticut — and not only because of the outsize gains of the state's many hedge fund managers.

The gap between the rich and everyone else in the United States keeps widening. But in most other states, the poor have made at least meager gains since the late 1980s. Not in Connecticut. From 1987 through 2006, income in the bottom fifth of the state's families fell by 17.4 percent. Over the same period, the top fifth saw their income rise by 44.8 percent. So what's going on?