Here is a large caliber smoking gun. The BEA series for real personal income less transfer payments is a pretty serviceable proxy for private market output before the impact of Washington stimmies and distortions caused by transfer payments and government borrowing. After all, earned income – wages, salaries, bonuses, profits, interest and dividends – is the payment to factors of production for output and therefore its reciprocal.

The long-term trend is slouching definitively southward. Since the pre-lockdown peak in February 2020, in fact, the growth rate has slowed to just 17 percent 0f its pre-2000 average.

Per Annum Growth of Real Personal Income Less Transfer Payments:

Feb. 1960 to Feb 2000: +3.62 percent;
Feb. 2000 to Feb. 2020: +2.08 percent;
Feb. 2020 to May 2023: +0.61 percent.