Increasing the money supply doesn't inherently cause "the rich to become richer". Yes, asset prices (both stocks and real estate) tend to go up, but that's bec

Increasing the money supply doesn't inherently cause "the rich to become richer". Yes, asset prices (both stocks and real estate) tend to go up, but that's because the underlying asset has about the same value but that value requires more dollars to represent - it's not the asset value that has gone up but the dollar value that has gone down. What it does do is advantage debtors (since the intrinsic value of their outstanding debt, which is a fixed number of dollars, has gone down) and disadvantage creditors and holders of cash (since the intrinsic value of their loan/deposit or cash, which is a fixed number of dollars, has gone down). Some rich might be debtors (those who've borrowed to invest in assets), but some poor might be debtors too (eg. student loans, large credit card debts). It would seem less likely for poorer classes to be creditors or holders of large quantities of cash, though. Wage stagnation is a different matter. A priori, you would expect increasing the money supply to cause wage price inflation alongside asset prices. The fact that this isn't occurring means some other effect is in play.