These policies did not remotely attain their ostensible goals of more growth, more jobs and more purchasing power in worker pay envelopes. What they did do, of course, was to freight down the main street economy with crushing debts, dangerous financial bubbles, chronic inflation and stagnating living standards.

For want of doubt, go straight to the most basic economic metric we have—real compensation per labor hour. The latter metric not only deletes the inflation from the pay figures, but also measures the totality of worker compensation, including benefits for health care, retirement, vacation, disability, sick leave and other fringes.

Needless to say, the purple line below makes crystal clear that historic worker gains have ground to a complete halt.

Per Annum Increase In Real Hourly Compensation:

Q1 1947 to Q1 2001: +1.79%.
Q1 2001 To Q1 2020: +0.71%.
Q1 2020 to Q2 2024: -0.01%.

It doesn't get any cleaner than this. No matter how the White House, the Fed and the fawning financial press cherry pick the "incoming data" you flat-out can't say the US economy is "strong" when the growth of the inflation-adjusted pay envelope of 161 million workers has deflated to the vanishing point. Indeed, it has literally been dead in the water for the last 52 months running.