I think I’ve heard that the USA federal gov is bigger than in the past, as in controlling more of an American’s life than in its history.
My first thought was that this is really two separate questions but then I realised a stat like this might answer both:
the number of public sector employees as a percentage of the total workforce.
If we view government’s role as intruding on our freedoms and controlling our lives (I don’t), then the more people they employ the more able they are to assert that control.
Its the ratio of the workforce that have their working hours dictated by government, its hard to be more controlling that that.
(Its not considering the non-working population, and with variations to lifespan, unemployment, etc that may be relevant … I don’t know.)