The US Department of Labor measures wages, and adjusted for inflation the hourly wage is below what it was in 1973. It is even lower if you are only counting non-management roles then and now. Wages have not gotten better over the past half century they have gotten worse.

Workers now work more hours pee year to try to catch up to what they made back then, so working conditions are worse now as well.

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WalterBright 31 minutes ago | parent [-]

This corresponds with the increasing share of the economy consumed by the government.

> the hourly wage

This is a misleading statistic. The actual statistic is "total employee compensation", which includes the benefits packages, the (so-called) employer contribution to SS, 401k employer contributions, etc.

The TEC is often worth up to 150% of the wages.

	▲	anonymars 17 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		FRED shows Federal outlays as a percent of GDP broadly leveling off and declining. 2008 GFC and COVID being transient exceptions https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYONGDA188S Meanwhile here's employee compensation* over GDP (both seasonally adjusted) https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1XO2h Any chance you can share the sources for your assertions? * includes benefits as per https://www.bea.gov/resources/methodologies/nipa-handbook/pd...