ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates that inequality in recent years was getting a "bum rap," or as the author put it," inequality is an economic 'good' that has received too much bad press. Using the most comprehensive income data that the government produces, the income changes that took place in the closing two decades of the twentieth century passed the Pareto criterion indicative of an improvement in overall economic welfare. This was a period of "good" growing income inequality. The legacy of supply side economics and its impact on economic welfare will be the subject of countless doctoral dissertations and scholarly papers in the realm of economics for years to come. The idea that economic behavior motivated on the basis of one's self-interest will eventually lead to overall economic growth and prosperity blossomed a few centuries ago in the writings of Adam Smith.
