While wage income overall has seen anemic or stagnant growth over the past few decades, a working paper at the National Bureau of Economic Research says that if one counts the rise of equity-based compensation, this effect is largely mitigated, said Bloomberg. The study noted that a growing percentage of income for high-skilled workers has been in stock, sometimes up to 40 percent, the value of which confounds traditional income data because of both the way it is taxed (capital gains versus ordinary income) and the timing of the investments (they tend not to become income right away). The researchers believe this has obscured the true picture of labor's share of national income, which they believe is not so dire when one considers stock income, of which 78 percent is given to non-executive employees.

The paper emphasizes the caveat that this only applies to high-skilled workers; for everyone else, the story remains the same. Wage growth has ranged from anemic to stagnant, resulting in a less economically secure population overall. This in mind, one may wish to note that many people in the country have no interaction with the market at all, as only a slight majority, 55 percent, have any securities inestments at all.

Futher, the degree to which one is invested in the market has wide gaps based on income. Families in the top 10 percent of incomes held 70 percent of their value in stocks with a median portfolio of $432,000, said US News and World Report. In contrast, the bottom 60 percent of earners held only 7 percent of stocks by value. Overall, it is estimated that the wealthiest 10 percent of the country owned about 84 percent of all stocks in 2016; it is unlikely that this proportion has dramaticall changed in the intervening time.