I recently read this essay that Alan Kreuger, whom President Obama nominated to lead his Council of Economic Advisers, presented at a 2002 Alvin Hansen Symposium on Public Policy. It's called "
Inequality, Too Much of a Good Thing" (PDF, ~50 pages). If you read Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett's book
The Spirit Level, this Kreuger study has a similar message as it explores the educational inequalities between children in low- and high-income families and advocates for the Head Start and Job Corps programs. This essay
was also published in book format.