The average postwar economic expansion lasted 4.8 years, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. The current expansion, which is just 27 months old, may already be petering out. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said Oct. 3 that the U.S. would be "on the edge of recession" by early 2012, adding that the firm now expects first-quarter growth to be 0.5 percent.

Some say the wider rich-poor gap is an additional impediment to recovery. "Very high levels of inequality seem to be associated with slower economic growth," said Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist for JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Raghuram Rajan, the IMF's former chief economist, says countries with high levels of inequality tend to produce ineffective economic policies. Political systems in economically divided countries grow polarized and immobilized by the sort of zero-sum politics now gripping Washington, he said.

"It makes the politics more difficult, and that makes it more difficult to grow," said Rajan, now a finance professor at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business. "There is no consensus on any of the solutions that are proposed."

As rich and poor drift apart, the constituency for redistributive tax and spending policies grows. The 30.5 million American households that earned less than $25,000 in 2010 were almost seven times the number making more than $200,000, according to new Census Bureau figures. In 2000, the ratio was 5.6-to-1.

"The guys who are falling behind don't see much hope of getting ahead and therefore are more focused on redistribution," Rajan said.

Ultimately, unbridled inequality threatens social stability as rich and poor separately nurse their mirror-image resentments. Bernanke last year told CBS's "60 Minutes" that rising inequality was leading to "a society which doesn't have the cohesion that we'd like to see."

In the U.S. and Europe, austerity policies may be exacerbating the trend. Already, European capitals, including London, Madrid and Athens, have witnessed street protests in response to reduced government spending and subsidies.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg -- speaking in September before the confrontations between police and "Occupy Wall Street" demonstrators -- alluded to the danger that persistent unemployment could spark social unrest.

"You have a lot of kids graduating college, can't find jobs," he told WOR radio, before mentioning protests that topped Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Spanish anti- austerity demonstrations.

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