You do sometimes get meals but they’re the old standard inedible coach meals I mostly pass on.
Added: Wasn’t aware of mostly recent premium economy additions on some airlines. I was taking it as a synonym for Economy Plus.
On domestic flights there's "Comfort" seats, which give you more legroom (and free snacks and drinks on US domestic flights). On international flights "Comfort" seats still exist, but on some flights there's true premium economy, which does have wider seats (e.g. the A350 on Delta's fleet is 2-4-2 seating in premium economy vs 3-3-3 in coach).
You get better meal service (my experience on Delta is it's plated and brought out in a similar fashion to domestic first class) and domestic parts of the journey will sometimes book into first class.
Comfort pricing is usually $50-150 more per leg vs coach. Premium economy is usually somewhere in between coach and business, leaning a bit more towards the coach side.
Reminds me of the ol’ USB High Speed vs. USB Full Speed. I still don’t remember which one is faster.
Added: Ah, haven’t seen it because it’s just starting to roll out on United.
I've flown PEs more like yours but this seems to be a factor more of US domestic airlines and is certainly not universal.