Economic inequality (also known as the gap between rich and poor, income inequality, wealth disparity, or wealth and income differences) comprises disparities in the distribution of economic assets (wealth) and income within or between populations or individuals. The term typically refers to inequality among individuals and groups within a society, but can also refer to inequality among countries. The issue of economic inequality is related to the ideas of equity, equality of outcome and equality of opportunity.

Observers differ on both the morality and utility of inequality, whether, and/or how much inequality is necessary in society and how it can be affected. It has been praised as necessary and beneficial, and attacked as a social problem.

Economic inequality varies between societies and historical periods; between economic structures or systems (for example, capitalism or socialism), ongoing or past wars, and differences in individuals' abilities to create wealth are all involved in the creation of economic inequality.

Robert Bernard Reich ( /ˈraɪʃ/; born June 24, 1946) is an American political economist, professor, author, and political commentator. He served in the administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter and was Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997.

Reich is currently Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. He was formerly a professor at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and professor of social and economic policy at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management of Brandeis University. He has also been a contributing editor of The New Republic, The American Prospect (also chairman and founding editor), Harvard Business Review, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.

Reich is a political commentator on programs including Hardball with Chris Matthews, This Week with George Stephanopoulos, CNBC's Kudlow & Company, and APM's Marketplace. In 2008, Time Magazine named him one of the Ten Best Cabinet Members of the century, and The Wall Street Journal in 2008 placed him sixth on its list of the "Most Influential Business Thinkers". He was appointed a member of President-elect Barack Obama's economic transition advisory board.

John Edward "Ed" Broadbent, PC CC (born March 21, 1936) is a Canadian social democratic politician and political scientist. He was leader of the federal New Democratic Party (NDP) from 1975 to 1989. In the 2004 federal election, he returned to Parliament for one additional term as the Member of Parliament for Ottawa Centre.

Broadbent was born in Oshawa, Ontario. His father Percy Edward was a General Motors clerk, his mother Mary Welsh an Irish Catholic homemaker. Ed is the middle of three children. He studied philosophy at Trinity College in the University of Toronto, graduating in 1959 first in his class.

Broadbent trained as a Pilot Officer in the RCAF's University Reserve Training Plan.

In 1961, he married Yvonne Yamaoka, a Japanese Canadian town planner whose family was interned by the federal government in World War II. They divorced in 1967. On September 22, 1988, when the Mulroney government apologized for the internment, Broadbent brought up Yamaoka's experiences during his remarks in the House of Commons.

Nick Hanauer is an American entrepreneur and venture capitalist living in Seattle, Washington.

After earning his Philosophy degree from the University of Washington, Hanauer got his business start at the family-owned Pacific Coast Feather Company, where he continues to serve as Co-chair and CEO. In the 1980s he co-founded Museum Quality Framing Company, which has become a large West-Coast franchise.

In the 1990s, Hanauer was one of the first investors in Amazon.com (where he served as adviser to the board until 2000). He founded gear.com (which eventually merged with Overstock.com) and Avenue A Media (which in 2007, under the new name aQuantive, was acquired by Microsoft for $6.4 billion).

In 2000, Hanauer co-formed the Seattle-based venture capital company, Second Avenue Partners. The company advises and funds early stage companies such as HouseValues Qliance, and Newsvine.

Hanauer is co-founder of The True Patriot Network, a political action tank framed upon the ideas he and Eric Liu presented in their 2007 book, The True Patriot.

Joseph Eugene Stiglitz, ForMemRS, FBA, (born February 9, 1943) is an American economist and a professor at Columbia University. He is a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2001) and the John Bates Clark Medal (1979). He is also the former Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank. He is known for his critical view of the management of globalization, free-market economists (whom he calls "free market fundamentalists") and some international institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

In 2000, Stiglitz founded the Initiative for Policy Dialogue (IPD), a think tank on international development based at Columbia University. Since 2001, he has been a member of the Columbia faculty, and has been a University Professor since 2003. He also chairs the University of Manchester's Brooks World Poverty Institute and is a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. Stiglitz is an honorary doctor of Durham Business School, an honorary doctor at the Charles University, an honorary professor at Tsinghua University School of Public Policy and Management and a member of the Executive and Supervisory Committee (ESC) of CERGE-EI in Prague. Stiglitz is one of the most frequently cited economists in the world.