[AnimalMuppet]

It benefits the employee. That's what a paycheck is.

What I think you're trying to say is that the employee doesn't perceive any meaning in the job. And if you do mean that, I can whole-heartedly agree with you.

And, arguably, the employee can't perceive any meaning in the job because they can see that the job doesn't benefit society in any meaningful way.

It's not clear to me what the solution is, either.

[beat]

Whatever the solution is, we need to get to it, and fast. I've been reading Andrew Yang's The War on Normal People (among other books), and it is terrifying. We are poised to shed tens of millions more jobs (in addition to the millions we've already lost) in the next decade or two, due to virtually every repetitive job (what he distinguishes as routine, rather than non-routine) being replaced by robots that do it faster and better for less money. And there is nothing on the horizon to replace them, to provide an alternative income for the millions of truck drivers, fast food workers, call center operators, retail clerks, insurance agents, paralegals, even doctors who are about to become obsolete.

And if the answer to this dilemma is to throw them out on the streets because they're obviously lazy and/or stupid, exploiting our hard-earned tax dollars with their immoral ways - or to just keep swelling the ranks of unemployment and disability and "retraining" programs that will never lead anywhere - then the people who are still able to make it are going to face some very nasty shocks.