[trbvm2]

All solvable problems though, no? If no one has to wash dishes in order to survive then you will have to offer a quite decent wage to get people to wash dishes else pay someone to finally make the washing of dishes completely automated. Supply and demand should dictate that the worst issue will end up being the rising cost of having a night on the town.

Same thing for any other currently low value jobs. We will have to adjust to paying people properly, even above minimum wage, to do things that suck. I view this as a desirable outcome when considered against the current situation in which only the most glamorous jobs tend to pay well, even if the job is not necessarily most helpful.

[adynatos]

so a minimum wage? great, so i'll pay half the dishwashers twice the previous wage for twice the work. or, if automation is possible, i'll pay one guy a minimum wage to look after dozens of dishwashing machines. result is less people working.

[dllthomas]

Not quite the same as a minimum wage. It's not enforced by bureaucrats, but by potential employees each individually deciding they have better uses for their time to do the work you're asking for the price you're offering.

If your workers are willing and able to do twice as much work in the same time for twice as much pay, you should likely make that switch anyway - at the least it'd save you bookkeeping, and it would be a better use of the workers' time.

And if people systematically decide that they have better things to do than a particular job, and we automate that job so we don't need people doing it, that seems like a win to me.

Whether it means less people working overall depends on how big these effects are, what the effects are on demand, and whether we couple it with other changes like a decreased minimum wage (which could lead to more people working on things which are more pleasant/fulfilling but less highly paid).