Current government policies penalize income (39.6% at the top bracket) and subsidize company-sponsored non-monetary benefits (health, dental, vision, meals, commuter benefits, ESPP, 401k matching, ISOs, NSOs), so not all that surprising that workers see less income and more of non-monetary benefits as a result.
The workable solution through a tax policy might include reducing the number of brackets for personal income tax, dropping personal income tax rates within those brackets, and removing deductibility of all aforementioned corporate benefits as a trade-off.
I don't see a wave of pent-up consumer demand though, as cheap and easy credit de-couples spending and earning. A lot of economists predicted boost in consumer spending as oil (and gas) prices fell over the past few years, but in reality all that spending had already taken place years before, and consumers simply used gas savings to deleverage their credit accounts. Household debt is peaking again https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/17/business/dealbook/househo... so any additional savings or boosts in earnings will likely go towards deleveraging.
It seems likely that consumer confidence has a lot to do with willingness to take on debt? So the liming factor wouldn't be availability of credit, it's what payments you think you'll be able to afford later.
In the case of student loans, that amounts to confidence in being able to find a good job to pay them off.
I think you are confusing the wealth (the richest) and the high-income individuals.
Membership in the first club is more or less permanent, while the second club has a revolving door. A bunch of members of the high-income club - employees of a high-tech startup, hedge fund managers, movie producers, inventors, lottery winners, wrongfully imprisoned individuals, victims of malfeasance or drug side effects - get one large paycheck once in their life, representing sometimes decades of work at below-market rates.
They won't have another Powerball jackpot, court settlement or a startup IPO next year.
The workable solution through a tax policy might include reducing the number of brackets for personal income tax, dropping personal income tax rates within those brackets, and removing deductibility of all aforementioned corporate benefits as a trade-off.
I don't see a wave of pent-up consumer demand though, as cheap and easy credit de-couples spending and earning. A lot of economists predicted boost in consumer spending as oil (and gas) prices fell over the past few years, but in reality all that spending had already taken place years before, and consumers simply used gas savings to deleverage their credit accounts. Household debt is peaking again https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/17/business/dealbook/househo... so any additional savings or boosts in earnings will likely go towards deleveraging.