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Found this one: https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/
I think I have seen similar or parts of that type of data before, but not all of it in one place
This is a good analysis, but it's slightly different from OP's statement.
Median real wages actually are up since 1979. It became something of a meme post-2008 to say that median wages have been flat since that time. That was true for a few years following the Great Recession, but they caught up and went quite a bit higher. It's possible the numbers will cycle around to that again, but it's not where we're at right now.
What the graphs in the article are arguing is that wages over that time are much lower than they should be given productivity increases.
Let's say you work for one hour making a widget, and you get $1 for that time. Your boss sells the widget for $5 and pockets the difference. Now there's an increase in productivity, and you can make two widgets in the same hour. You still get paid $1 for that hour, but your boss is selling those two widgets for $10 total now. You're not getting a raise just because of that productivity increase.
You might get a raise due to inflation. With 4% inflation, you get to make $1.04/hour, but your boss is now selling those widgets for $5.20 each. This is more or less the story since 1979.
That difference between productivity and real wages is what's charted out above. It tells you exactly who the real moochers are in society.
This all tracks very neatly with a decline in union membership.
Does the median income track the boss's newly increased wages, then?
It's something I've been thinking about for awhile now. That labor wages are stagnating but because "management" level, and higher, salaries are increasing with productivity, these Median Real Wage statistics are skewed, showing the increase.
I would have no way of separating out labor wages from the management level wages though, was just curious how it's calculated.
It's all included, but median tends to be less susceptible to a few outliers skewing the numbers. That's why it's preferred over averages.
That's great info, thanks. I'll pursue that angle next time.