evidence: America’s financial sector is in the news almost every day, its role in the economy and relationship to government subjects of public debate. "Banks got bailed out, we got sold out!" is a common protest chant in the Occupy Wall Street movement, while Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke defends the Fed’s assistance to banks during the financial crisis in 2008. Meanwhile, the nation as a whole remains stuck in a recovery that feels like a continuation of the Great Recession. Is Wall Street benefiting at the expense of Main Street? [...] Perhaps surprisingly, the 2008 bank bailouts didn’t seem to prop up wages in banking, at least not immediately. But since the start of the recovery in 2009, bank employees have had bigger wage gains than other workers in most large metro areas. Maybe that’s one reason why the relative well-being of Wall Street and Main Street has received more public attention in recent months than it did when the bailouts occurred.