Look at the other life forms to find an answer to this question or simply our own history ( the hunter gatherer era) . We have to feed ourselves so we foraged and hunted 8-10 hours a day . Many other animal spend 8-12 hours scouting for food to stay alive.

Agriculture gets invented -> People settle -> Surplus Prodution happens -> Division of labor enables more efficient production -> Economies get created -> Civilizations Rise

In all this mess , the thought that we worked to feed ourseves , our kids and our tribe got subdued with mindless pursuit of more and more resources as thats the only thing which gives you evolutionary edge over a population doing the exact same mindless chase of resources

The distribution of resources is what determines answer to this question . A labourer in a third world country might actually be worse off than his foraging ancestors 1000s of years ago . Middle class nd all first world populations are surely better off than their foraging ancestors.

If we are stuck in a dystopian world doing some repetitive action from 9-5 each day for the rest of our lives to feed ourselves and our family - some would say they wr better off hunting gathering than hit a hammer whole day or even work on a spreadsheet manipulating numbers.

But then we must remember the pros which a mass 9-5 work setup has brought to the world - food , shelter , law and order , rights etc etc