That works out to a total lifetime income loss of $96,100 to $243,350 — even after accounting for the rise in the value of nonwage benefits. The decline was mainly a result of lower pay after adjusting for inflation, and not from reductions in weekly hours or years in the work force. Over the same period, the median lifetime income of women increased by 22 percent to 33 percent, as more women spent more hours and years in the labor force. But the gains, from a very low starting point, were smaller than men’s losses and were not enough to eliminate the historic gap in hourly pay between men and women.

Will lifetime income continue to lag? The answer, unfortunately, appears to be yes. The researchers found that declining lifetime income among men after 1967 was almost entirely attributable to lower incomes at younger ages, without any offsetting increases at later ages. Similarly, among women, the gains in lifetime income had slowed over time, in large part because of slowing growth after age 45. Since today’s workers face those same trends, the same downward trend in lifetime income is likely.

As workers lose ground, inequality deepens, because money that would flow to wages tends to flow instead to those at the top of the income ladder. Indeed, the researchers found that incomes of younger workers entering the labor market are more unequal than in the past, suggesting that inequality in lifetime incomes will persist and even worsen.

The study shows that stagnating wages and rising inequality are deeply entrenched. There is no cure-all, but there are policy remedies. Updated overtime pay standards would raise pay broadly in the service sector, as would closing the gender pay gap, through better disclosure of corporate pay scales, anti-discrimination legislation and litigation. Exposure of the differences between the pay of executives and the pay of workers would shed light on some unjustifiable gaps, and call into question tactics like share buybacks that reward shareholders even as workers are shortchanged.

Reasonable people can disagree on how to approach the problem. But no one can deny that a problem exists and that it demands a response.