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.