> how so?

Automation. Consider the number of jobs today that one can do singly today that didn't even exist then.

> W2 vs. 1099 and/or business owners? 99.78% to 0.22% roughly?

There are about 165 million workers in the American labour force [1]. There are 33 million small businesses [2]. Given 14% have no employees [3], we have a lower bound of 5 million business owners in America, or 3% of the labour force.

Add to that America's 65 million freelancers and you have 2 out of 5 Americans not working for a boss. (Keep in mind, we're ignoring every building, plumber or design shop that has even a single employee in these figures.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_force_in_the_United_Stat...

[2] https://www.uschamber.com/small-business/state-of-small-busi...

[3] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/04/22/a-look-at...