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My step son works for that big fruit company in California and hasn't said anything about salary, I know he makes a princely sum.  My daughter had her benefits cut, but they were temporary as an inducement to move to Vancouver, and she just got a rather large raise (working in tech).  Median salaries overall appear to be close to matching inflation.  It could be that health care salaries have gone up more than inflation and tech has not.

In Austin, Tech is stagnating.  Lots of layoffs, supply of people outstripping demand, resulting depression of salaries and the works.  My evidence, too, is only anecdotal, but then again, I wasn't speaking for the broad economy, only for those in this particular category.  Many of my friends are working for the same income they were 4 years ago.  A couple are working for less, as their companies have asked for broad salary cuts rather than layoffs.  And some, aren't working at all, having been laid off.

None of those people are finding any "relief" that consumer prices have "only" gone up 1% over the past year. 

Got it. I thought you were talking more broad-based.

Tech has been a mess. Pretty sure you and I have been in this industry long enough we've seen hard times, but this was the worst I've personally seen since the dot com bubble burst. And then there's an entire generation of workers in Silicon Valley at the big-name companies who thought it was going to be up and to the right, forever. 

Yeah, it's not that wages pleateaued for like 40 years, adjusting for inflation.  You're right.

Um, WHY?

I think this chart that @Cincydawg posted is useful:

I can only eyeball it and it appears to only go to 2016 but here is how it *looks* to me:

• The bottom 20% have seen little-or-no growth in inflation-adjusted income in ~50 years.  
• The 4th Quintile has seen only very slight growth in inflation-adjusted income in ~50 years.  
• The middle Quintile has seen slow growth over the past ~50 years.  Eyeballing it, it looks like it went from around $45-48k up to maybe $60k.  So that is something on the order of 25-33% growth in 50 years or around 1/2% per year.  
• The 2nd Quintile has seen real growth in inflation-adjusted income.  Again eyeballing it, it appears to go from maybe $65k up to around $95k so that is close to 1% annual growth.  
• The top Quintile has seen substantial growth in inflation-adjusted income.  Again eyeballing it, it appears to go from around $135k to about $215k so that is a bit over 1%.  
• The top 5% has seen astronomical growth.  Again eyeballing it, it appears to go from $175k to $375k so annual growth of over 2%.  

Part of the problem for the working poor is that there are simply more things to buy now.  A working poor family in the late 1960's probably had a phone but just one for the whole family.  They maybe had a TV but the content was free OTA.  They didn't need internet access because Al Gore hadn't invented the internet yet (technically there was an internet but it wasn't generally accessed or even available).  So the ~$1,100 a month that they earned paid for rent, utilities, and groceries and not much else.  With a "need" today for cell phones, cable TV, internet access, etc. their "necessities" for rent, utilities, groceries, phones, internet, cable exceed their income even worse than they did in the late 1960's.  

A second problem is that people judge their status by their surroundings.  Ie, if you make $100k/yr and live in a community and neighborhood where the median is $50k, you will feel rich.  If you make the same $100k/yr and live in a community where the median is $200k, you will feel poor.  This is true EVEN IF the costs of goods are identical.  On that front, the working poor have dropped MUCH further behind.  Compare the figures I eyeballed above, in 1967 (I think that is the first year shown):

• Top 5% made $175k.  Top Quintile made $135k so 77%.  2nd Quintile made $65k so 37%.  Middle Quintile made $48k so 27%.  4th Quintile made $30k so 17%.  Bottom Quintile made $13k so 7%.  
• Top Quintile made $135k.  2nd Quintile made $65k so 48%.  Middle Quintile made $48k so 36%.  4th Quintile made $30k so 22%.  Bottom Quintile made $13k so 10%.  
• 2nd Quintile made $65k.  Middle Quintile made $48k so 74%.  4th Quintile made $30k so 46%.  Bottom Quintile made $13k so 20%.  
• Middle Quintile made $48k.  4th Quintile made $30k so 63%.  Bottom Quintile made $13k so 27%.  
• 4th Quintile made $30k.  Bottom Quintile made $13k so 43%.  

Today:

• Top 5% make $375k.  Top Quintile makes $214k so 57% down from 77%.  2nd Quintile makes $95k so 25% down from 37%.  Middle Quintile makes $59k so 16% down from 27%.  4th Quintile makes $35k so 9% down from 17%.  Bottom Quintile makes $13k so 3% down from 7%.  
• Top Quintile makes $214k.  2nd Quintile makes $95k so 44% down from 48%.  Middle Quintile makes $59k so 28% down from 36%.  4th Quintile makes $35k so 16% down from 22%.  Bottom Quintile makes $13k so 6% down from 10%.  
• 2nd Quintile makes $95k.  Middle Quintile makes $59k so 62% down from 74%.  4th Quintile makes $35k so 37% down from 46%.  Bottom Quintile makes $13k so 14% down from 20%.  
• Middle Quintile makes $59k.  4th Quintile makes $35k so 59%, down from 63%.  Bottom Quintile makes $13k so 22% down from 27%.  
• 4th Quintile makes $35k.  Bottom Quintile makes $13k so 37% down from 43%.  

Literally everyone has dropped relative to the groups that they could aspire to but it has hurt those at the bottom the worst.  A bottom Quintile earner in ~50 years has:

• Dropped from 43% to 37% of a 4th Quintile earner.  
• Dropped from 27% to 22% of a Middle Quintile earner.  
• Dropped from 20% to 14% of a 2nd Quintile earner.  
• Dropped from 10% to 6% of a Top Quintile earner.  
• Dropped from 7% to 3% of a Top 5% earner.  

The question is why.  

Automation and computerization are a big part of it.  We simply don't need as many unskilled and semi-skilled laborers because a lot of that labor has been replaced by mechanical and electronic devices.  Jobs like @utee94 's and @betarhoalphadelta 's probably didn't even exist in 1967 so it is hard to compare those but Civil Engineers like @847badgerfan and accountants like me were around in 1967.  The difference was that in 1967 Civil Engineers and Accountants oversaw and managed a group of draftsmen and bookkeepers respectively.  Draftsmen and bookkeepers have largely disappeared from the workforce because instead of directing them to do the drawing or number crunching like Engineers/Accountants did in 1967, now he uses a program like CAD and I use a program like Excel.  

Instead of clerks we have self-checkout.  Instead of three garbage men on a truck with the two on the back throwing trash, we have one driver and the truck picks up the cans.  Etc.  

Demand for unskilled and semi-skilled labor has flatlined and the solution of those who favor ever-more immigration is to . . . bring in ever more unskilled and semi-skilled laborers for ever less jobs.  I wonder why their wages flatlined.  

So yes Sherlock / @OrangeAfroMan / Captain Obvious:  "wages pleateaued for like 40 years, adjusting for inflation."  That isn't up for debate, it is a pretty well established fact.  The question here is why and what to do about it. 

They do pay FICA.  And some state tax. 

As a libertarian you cannot possibly see this as a good thing. 

Honestly in our society, it's probably a necessary thing. Even if it creates a bunch of distortions and externalities.

But the point is that it is, in fact, A thing.

Whereas folks like OAM use "real wage stagnation" as a doom and gloom thing about how the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting screwed, it's a little bit more nuanced than that. The rich are getting richer but not as much as shown (due to taxes), and the poor are actually getting slightly richer, even if they're still mostly getting screwed.

Honestly in our society, it's probably a necessary thing. Even if it creates a bunch of distortions and externalities.

But the point is that it is, in fact, A thing.

Whereas folks like OAM use "real wage stagnation" as a doom and gloom thing about how the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting screwed, it's a little bit more nuanced than that. The rich are getting richer but not as much as shown (due to taxes), and the poor are actually getting slightly richer, even if they're still mostly getting screwed.

My issue is the gap because it has serious detrimental impacts on social cohesion and society at large.  

This is one area where I think @OrangeAfroMan has made a valid point.  The posters here are pretty darn well off.  Substantially all of us have college degrees and there seem to be a higher than normal number with graduate degrees such as lawyers.  Furthermore, it seems to me that we have a pretty high concentration of highly employable undergrad degrees in things such as Engineering and Accounting.  

I would guess (this is nothing but a WAG) that our median income is AT LEAST at the 2nd Quintile level and that few if any posters here are below the Middle Quintile.  

If that sentiment is accepted then "we" are wealthier than those in the 4th and 5th Quintiles.  This has, of course, always been true but the gap is substantially larger than it was 60 years ago.  Assuming "we" are 2nd Quintile, at the beginning of @Cincydawg 's graph (approximately 1967) "they" (4th and 5th Quintile earners) made roughly 1/2 and roughly 1/5 respectively of what "we" make.  Today that is down to around 1/3 and 1/7.  

There are also other separations that have made this worse.  Fro won't appreciate this but even as late as when I was growing up in the 70's and 80's nearly everyone in my town went to Church on Sundays.  To be fair this tradition was fairly heavily racially segregated but it was notably NOT segregated by income.  There were rich and poor Catholics, rich and poor Methodists, rich and poor Baptists, etc.  This matters because it meant that rich and poor people were socializing with each other on a frequent basis at Church Services, potlucks, Sunday schools, etc.  

Churchgoing has nearly disappeared (compared to where it was when I was a kid) and it hasn't been replaced by any similarly class-mixing social activity.  

Another area where we have separated is in marriage rates.  The percentage of college-educated white women who are married at first childbirth is nearly as high today as it was when Leave it to Beaver was on TV.  The difference is that back when Leave it to Beaver was on TV the rates for less educated white women and even the rates for minorities were not all that much lower than the rate for college educated white women.  Today marriage is a rarity among the poor (they can't afford it because they are poorer than they used to be even if some think that government transfers have made up for their income losses).  Among blacks married fathers are so rare as to practically be unicorns (ie, everyone knows what one is but you almost never actually see one).  

Our society is tearing itself apart.  The similarities that we used to share have vanished.  

Ask yourselves (ye top and 4th Quintile posters here), when is the last time you socialized willingly with anyone below the middle Quintile?  

Actually, scratch that. You said "willingly". I guess they don't count then