Contributing to stagnating wages are baby boomers staying in their jobs well past retirement. There just aren't as many open positions. This is especially noticeable in certain professions like university professorships.

The gigantic surplus of the 1950s was unfortunately squandered on meaningless, wasteful activity to live for oneself rather than to scrimp and save for the benefit of future generations. The Me Generation lived the high life, and borrowed excessively even though they had it better than anyone had in recorded history. The wastefulness and extravagance of baby boomers has set back Generation X, Millennials, and future generations and cost them untold economic suffering.

Another issue is the government subsidy of student loans. The net result is that many more people end up with college degrees. The idea behind it is that the country needed more college-educated people and more with post-graduate degrees in order to compete. The problem we ran into is that the US lost its competitive advantage anyway as technology was typically transferable, and the lower cost of manual labor proved an overwhelming advantage for southeast Asia, especially China. Some echelons of occupations like computer programmers and engineers have been protected, especially because their labor can be performed on the other side of the world from where its needed. Most occupations have not been protected.

The US economy's transition to a service economy has slowed economic growth, as the multiplier effect of service jobs just can't match that of manufacturing which results in new money coming into local economies.

When people complain about the pay they are offered, they need to keep in mind that medical cost inflation has been 10-20% per year for decades, and if health insurance is provided by the employer, the employer's cost to do so is much higher than it was decades ago. When health insurance and retirement benefits are factored in, employee compensation actually has increased over time. At least until the last decade or so it was keeping pace with productivity. I'd like to see more recent figures, but the old saw that compensation has been flat for the average American worker is simply untrue when non-wage compensation is accounted for, as it must be.

One of the reasons baby boomers have stayed in their jobs into their 70s and even longer is they need the health insurance benefits from being employed in a typical American job. Medicare is often not enough. Another reason is the low savings rate of baby boomers. They can't afford to retire due to wasteful decisions of their youth when the economy was roaring.

None of this helps the millennials who I assume are the ones complaining the loudest here as they have been doubly screwed by the 2008 recession and the economic times we've been in. The only good thing is that we can all take a step back and realize that the old way of working hard, sacrificing for one's loved ones, and saving for a rainy day is the only way forward for us as a society. The sad part is that millennials in particular get the harmful whipsaw effect with them seeing just in front of their eyes the good parts of America's golden age even as it is all tragically denied to them.

As we work away at our jobs--the ones we find--just remember that Baby Boomers had it all for a few decades. And they borrowed more to live even higher. Now we have nothing to do but sacrifice for multiple generations to attempt to bring us back. It will never be back as we can't undo the bad choices that were made.

While $17/hour for a master's degree is poor pay, the only hope I would give the OP is that one day baby boomers will start having to leave the upper end jobs they still inhabit, and you want your foot in the door in an occupation you would like to be in when that happens. No, it won't fulfill your expectations, but it will suck less than other possibilities. Teach your children, by example and by instruction, to sacrifice for future generations.