And even though incomes have steadily risen in recent years, the gaps between top earners and median earners and lower income workers have widened: While the state’s median family income increased by about 22 percent from 1980 to 2017, top-income families earned 50 to 60 percent more in 2017 than in 1980.

Ms. Bohn attributed much of that widening inequality to a trend that is playing out across the globe. The value of a college education is rising as demand for highly skilled workers — many in tech fields — grows. On the flip side, lower skilled work has become less valuable as automation shifts the kinds of jobs that are available.

Californians — more so than those in many other places in the U.S. — must set aside too much of whatever income they make just to stay in their homes, which means that income inequality is much more prominent in our daily lives.

But we know that the struggle to afford housing and shifts in the work force are just a couple of ways that inequality affects how Californians live.

We need your help to find more.

Times reporters are taking a deeper look at the issues driving inequality in California, and we want to know what questions you’d ask if you were assigning our stories. What have you always wondered about inequality in communities across California and the factors that contribute to it?

Using this form, tell us what you’re wondering about and what questions you want our reporters to dig into. Our reporters will comb through your queries and choose a selection to pursue. If you’re up for it, they may even bring you along during the reporting process, drawing on your experiences and expertise.

We’ll keep you posted as we go.

Click here to open the form.