Given high employment, and the substantial gap between the wage costs of production and what we pay, owing to taxes, overheads, profit, etc, I think the there is substantial evidence that what most ordinary people produce is worth a great deal more than what they are paid. So their hidden costs would have to be high if they are worth less than their output. Also population pressure keeps the wages of basic labour down - after the Black Death which killed off about a third to half the population in several European countries (and as much as 70% in some), the wages of labour increased substantially.

This kind of thought led some (eg Marx) to argue that it is the "workers" who produce the value, and the managers and financiers who are the parasites.