11/21/2021
Sharing my insight:
We, in the US, are being told that many, many (possibly 1/3 or more) of jobs will be eliminated by robotics. Many are lower paying service jobs, more on this latter, but some are higher wage non-college degree jobs like trucking. One of the exact jobs that have allowed some Families to maintain a decent living, unlike a line job at a fast food restaurant or other low wage retail and service jobs.
Ok, let’s look back a bit, in the 1950's One Parent could support a Family - think biggest employers are car manufacturing companies (with paid vacation, health care coverage & retirement programs). Their dominance in the employment landscape decreased over time and gave way to very low minimum wage jobs in companies such as Walmart; many employees not full time, therefore no paid time off, no medical insurance or retirement plans except for full time (often higher paid management) positions. Many families combated this shift (that caused a decrease in a family's purchasing power) by having the other parent start working outside the home. By definition, this means instead of staying at home with Kids (ie. Child Care) they went outside the home and took, often times, very low wage part time jobs with few or no benefits.
As time and this shift continued, those second parents started working outside the home full time; increasing the need for more Outside Child Care Providers, who themselves are low wage typically non-degree jobs (notice this is what many Politicians & Academics say we need to finance so people can freely work). Here we are in 2021, with practically all parts of society in a state of chaos, the working classes have had to use more and more strategies just to stay even with their Family's Purchasing Power, and the Powerful Wealthy continuing to use the failed "Trickle Down" Tax Relief stories they have been using since the 1980's. Look at any inequality study you want from the 1980's to present to see where this has led us. Clearly not towards a more Equitable Society, I DIDN'T say EQUAL (socialism) - most Westernized Societies understand that jobs are never going to be, nor need or should they be, valued at the same level, but and - this is a Big Butt, the inequity need Not be by Hundreds or Thousands of times. The "C" suite management employees should not be making 100's - 1000's of times the amount that the night time cleaning staff does, nor should they be provided significantly more in terms of Corporate Benefits.
Back to my original comment, if society is going to loose so many, mostly lower paying jobs (held by the same people that free child care is supposed to help), maybe this is not about Child Care, Minimum wages, and Government Managed Social programs => maybe it is about the fact that, as a society, we are going to be able to employ fewer people in total, those people need to be able to make a living (not barely above subsistence) wage - maybe those fewer people need to make RELATIVELY more money in comparison to the highest paid positions in the company. Say the top CEO, COO & CFO are regulated to only be able to make a specific multiple (say 5-10 times) of their lowest paid employee, what would happen? Maybe second parents could be free Not to work outside the home and not live in poverty? The "C" Suite make millions instead of hundreds of millions, and the disparity between what they make and what the average employee makes, decreases? The Government "subsidy" / regulation only prohibits the Powerful and Wealthy from keeping all the Profits for themselves? Because at the end of the day, is the value of any one person's time hundreds or thousands of times that of any other human?
Respectfully submitted to the masses.
