For all those who get themselves into a frenzy about income inequality, Ross Douthat makes this interesting observation in an interview in The Kenyon Observer:
The income gap between the richest 1 percent of Americans and the rest of the country rose faster in the late 1990s than it did in the late 1980s. But nobody in their right mind would prefer the economy of the late 1980s to the economy of the late 1990s: The former featured a slide into recession; the latter featured robust wage growth across the board and historically low unemployment rates. If income inequality were the crucial issue, we’d look back on 1998 as a dreadful year, and 1991 as a great one. But wages and widely-shared growth are actually the most important issues, so we remember 1998 as a lost golden age, its rising inequality notwithstanding.

The interview is here.