> I meant to let no viable jobs die or automate.

Are you saying you'd outlaw self-service gas pumps and checkout stations? Robotic assembly lines and autonomous vehicles?

A large fraction of the population has no distinguishing skills. That segment of the population is going to find itself with ever fewer ways to earn a living.

That was meant to read »non-viable«, i.e. if customers are not willing to pay enough for a product or service so that a full time worker can live on the salary, then efficiency must improve, the job must be automate away entirely or the business must go out of business. I consider neither simply exploiting the employees nor subsidizing the business and customers by giving benefits to the employees a good solution.

Besides that I am not sure about you comment, I am not sure how you interpreted my comment with the spelling error. I am especially confused because your first paragraph sounds like you are arguing for automation, the second paragraphs sounds like you consider it harmful for unskilled workers. I don't want to outlaw any automation, quite the opposite, I would consider the ultimate goal a world where all work is done by robots and nobody has to work.

What's wrong with letting the work be done at a market rate lower than the current (ideally abolished) minimum wage? I'd pay someone $5/hr to pull weeds, but I won't pay them $10 or $15/hr.

Now, in which system can a neighbor earn an extra $20 a week for a morning of work? In which system does my front garden look nicer from the sidewalk? Someone (probably a teen) gets some walking around money, the whole neighborhood gets a nicer sidewalk view, and I don't have to do an optional job that I dislike. Sounds like a winner all around to me, but no way is "pulling weeds" a full-time, live alone and without additional support career.

I mentioned that in another comment, there are certainly a lot of cases like your example where it makes no or not much sense to apply a minimum wage. I want the minimum wage to target specifically normal (full time) employment. An employer should not be able to pocket most of the money for say selling relatively expensive cloths but pay shitty wages to its sewers. You might argue that employees are free to negotiate wages and free to not accept bad conditions, but that easily fails if, for example, there is a surplus of possible employees. Sure, it is an important mechanism to reduce costs for consumers, but that should in my mind not come at the expenses of the employees.

I think that devolves into "I can hire Matt, the neighbor kid and pay him $5/hr, but I can't hire Matt Inc, the landscape company, because they aren't allowed to pay Matt [the neighbor kid] $5/hr"

All of which perpetuates the cash/grey economy (and the off-shoring of garment-making jobs in your example).

The thing about UBI is that it allows employees to turn down bad economic deals without starving. Sure, you can't live in a 2000 ft^2 house, drive a new car, eat and party out all the time, but you probably don't have to take a job with ridiculously bad conditions just so you can buy a can of beans or Ramen.

But that seems not unreasonable on its own. Tipping a friend $20 because he helped carrying boxes when you moved as compared to hiring a professional mover for $20 seems like a valid difference to me. But you a right that this could maybe be turned into a good argument for an universal basic income because you may be able to sidestep some otherwise relatively difficult to solve gray area issues, but I am not sure, I haven't thought that through.

You think $40 is excessive for a morning's work? I really don't know what to say to that that won't attract the wrath of dang. Perhaps he can suggest some polite words...

I didn't say I thought $10/hr was "excessive". What I said was that that was more than I was willing to pay to have that particular problem solved.

There are all sorts of things that people will pay a handful of dollars for, but that they won't/can't pay $10/hr for. Mine was just a concrete example of a low skill required task that I don't enjoy and that someone whose basic needs were already covered might be interested in doing, much like I did when I was a kid/teen and wanted to earn some extra money.

Sorry. I thought you were saying that jobs that are currently viable should not be allowed to be automated away. I was wrong.

I am in favor of automation (for the same reasons you are, I think), and automation does harm unskilled workers.

Between the present day and the future golden age of robotics that we both desire is a period of time in which some fraction of the population, who have specialized skills that are hard to automate, will work for a living, while another fraction (probably larger than the first) of the population will have nothing to offer in return for money. I don't see any way around the first group subsidizing the existence of the second.

> If people are not willing to pay enough for getting their lawn mowed - not sure if that is a good example - to make a living from it, then there never was a market for lawn mowing.

You are actually in favor of outlawing lawn mowing as a job? My 14 year old kid can't take a $20 from my neighbor to get some fresh air and weekend spending money? Are you serious????

If you are a professional lawn mower, there should be a minimum wage that ensures that you can live on that income. What is the point of mowing lawns all day long and not ending up with enough money to live? So kids mowing lawns bellow market rates because they don't have to live from that income are creating downward pressure on the price. And why wouldn't you pay market rates in the first place, same work, same pay? There seems also not to be such a huge difference to black labor - you cut some of the costs, taxes and insurances or living with your parents, and harm others trying to make a living with that job. It seems actually pretty difficult to have a balanced solution and as I acknowledged in another comment, this might actually be one of the stronger arguments for a universal basic income because it may allow to sidestep some of those difficult gray area problems.