That's a study that underestimates growth in cost of living, i.e. gouging by rent seekers and businesses, and ignores changes in status, i.e. people leaving the job market or moving down to something worse. It's not surprising that the lowest income earners got a substantial boost in that period, since life is getting substantially more expensive. Importantly, I don't think their "real wage" inflation adjusted values are fair. People being told inflation was one amount when their actual CoL was vastly outpacing that was part of what fueled the anger that got Trump elected again, not that he has helped (or will help) anything since '23 where that analysis ends.

Anecdotally, many people I know would be in dire straits if they didn't own appreciating real property, because their cost of living adjustments at work aren't coming close to matching inflation. Others I know are actually in dire straits. Some are doing fine and getting the benefit of profitable work. Overall things have been awful economically post-COVID, and there are a lot of causal factors, from the policy decisions of the last decade, to the surprises of COVID, natural disasters and geopolitics, to the AI investment bubble and the changing zeitgeist. (Oh and let's not forget simple demographics, birth rate, etc...)