Nancy Folbre's New York Times Economix blog this week looks at the correlation of economic equality and high trust and its complement, income inequality and low trust among people and nationally. The active principal is that people identify (and trust) those whom they presume are similar to them in income level and the economic problems they face. Here in the U.S. where income inequality has increased substantially in the past three decades, it stands to reason that distrust among our citizens may well be at an all-time high. All you have to do is look at the nation's fractured politics of division to see distrust play out.
