First, it doesn't control for increasing health costs. Employer-provided health plans have seen large amounts of cost growth and this depresses wages, for which

First, it doesn't control for increasing health costs. Employer-provided health plans have seen large amounts of cost growth and this depresses wages, for which they substitute. This is better than the raw story. Second, much of the top quintile gains have come out of the financial sector. You can see this in evidence by looking at the huge volatility in income through boom/bust cycles. This is bad. Third, we're in a lopsided labor period where lots of low-end labor is available but labor capital production is actually quite low. This puts upward pressure on the price of higher value labor capital but downward pressure on raw labor capital. This won't continue as it's a byproduct of peculiar historic issues (namely communism, etc.). Fourth, the information technology revolution has so far failed, I suspect for generational reasons. We've automated lots of low-end clerical jobs at large firms but that's pretty much where IT stalled. In technology companies themselves, this doesn't appear to be an issue and technology seems to increase employment. It also tends to encourage additional technical fluency, which is then rewarded. But outside of technology itself, this pattern doesn't seem to hold. I suspect culture play a role here.