I now think that he had it backward. I would say that a distribution of income that I find unlovely is extreme. But, of course, as the word unlovely suggests, such judgments are highly personal. I don't find the richness of the very rich unlovely, and so I don't find it extreme. But I do find the poverty of the very poor unlovely, and so I find it extreme.
Poverty is a relative concept.
The poor in America are not poor by the standards of Bangladesh. But their poverty is not measured by the contrast between their incomes and that of Bill Gates. That comparison is irrelevant. We do not consider a person handicapped if he cannot run as fast as Carl Lewis. We consider him handicapped if he cannot walk as easily as the average person.