To examine the impact of rising wage inequality on lifetime wage growth, a study compared the wage mobility experienced by two cohorts of young white men from the National Longitudinal Surveys. The original cohort entered the labor market in the mid-1960s at the end of the economic boom and was followed through the end of the 1970s. The recent cohort entered the labor market in the early 1980s after the onset of economic restructuring and was followed through the mid-1990s. For each cohort, wage profiles were analyzed across 16 years using a mixed-effects model. Analysis indicated that wage growth during the critical years of career development had been hit on two fronts: it had both stagnated and become significantly more unequal. To the extent that wage growth represented upward mobility, the prospects for such mobility had clearly deteriorated in recent years. (Appendixes contain 48 references, 3 data tables, and 8 figures.) (YLB)