You should use nominal dollars. That would probably make it clearer that from around 2001 the profit started to skyrocket while compensation started to plateau.

You should use nominal dollars. That would probably make it clearer that from around 2001 the profit started to skyrocket while compensation started to plateau. I wouldn't be surprised if the compensation in real dollar when down. Also, your graph doesn't show people who lost their job. If you layoff people who make the less in the company, the average compensation goes up even if nobody got a wage increase.