A number of responses to this are arguing over whether real wages were really flat since the 1970s or how one would judge given the differences in the things we spend money on (larger houses, new tech, etc). But for any choice of how to calculate inflation which makes worker's wages go up over time, doesn't that imply that the total growth since the 1970s is also larger, and the absolute value captured by the capital-owning class is even larger? You can skew the picture to make the situation for workers less crappy, but not without making the success of the capital owners even more extreme.

Piketty frames stuff in terms of the share of growth that goes to labor vs capital-owners, and I can't stop viewing the situation in those terms. My understanding is that recent data shows that in general, companies selling a lot of consumer goods have improved their margins -- they're raising prices faster than their costs are increasing -- meaning effectively we're shifting money from consumers to shareholders. Every crisis is an opportunity to argue for the richest to enrich themselves further.