That ship has sailed and is sinking in deep water. People expect more for less every year, while inflation drives up the cost of living faster than wages. The only way to improve productivity is with better tools that let the same number of people, or fewer, do more. Sure, we could do like Asimov's series and ban robots from doing human work, but as that showed, it would stagnate the economy and could only work if the whole world buys in. China, for example, is going all in on replacing humans with robots. Factories can get a robot that can do most of what a human can do right now for $5K/mth. They work 24/7 and swap their batteries in just 3 minutes of downtime. How is a human going to compete with that? That is $6.94/hr plus electricity. Not training time or time off. So if you want a job that will probably still be around in a decade, you'd better learn a trade like plumbing. Something that requires some training, that the average person will not learn, and that interacts directly with people. But even those jobs will probably give way to economic pressure in the following decade. The real question is: how do all those unemployable people live? UBI paid for by these almost totally automated companies. Either directly by taxes on US factories or the sellers of goods imported from automated factories overseas. The 2030s are not going to be fun for the average person while all this transitions. And you will be glad for anything helping stem crime for the next decade or so as this shakes out with all the unemployed and unsupported about.
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