An interesting TED talk on the more general effects of equality that talks about many of the issues you raise. It is titled "How economic inequality harms socie

An interesting TED talk on the more general effects of equality that talks about many of the issues you raise. It is titled "How economic inequality harms societies" [1] (link below). Looks at correlations between income inequality (defined as the average income of the top 20% / average income of the bottom 20%) versus measures such as homicide rate, mental illness, social mobility, high school dropout rates, prisoner counts, infant death, etc. All the data is both compared on a country level and on a US state level. [1] http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson.html http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson.html