One problem is finding people responsible / hardworking enough that you can rely on them doing your errands and chores without constant supervision. Someone that competent isn't likely to be working for $8-10/hour.
Obviously there are some subsets that mostly work at this price level (cleaning, landscaping, etc.) but there's a reason personal assistants are expensive.
Sure. Or people who need to be managed closely to be productive.
Which, I remind you, is a significant portion--probably the majority--of humanity. To make a world that I'd want to live in, you're going to have to find a place for them besides the glue factory.
I don't believe this is the majority of humanity. This was not a major problem when I lived in India - most people (with far less opportunity than typical Americans) were quite willing and able to work as domestic help.
Perhaps lower class Indians are simply superior to lower class Americans? Or perhaps the incentives are merely different?
It's not like Indians aren't picky about who they let into their houses, though. Cross-cultural labor market comparisons are always tricky, but unemployment in India is currently higher than unemployment in the USA (source: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/... ).
Ignoring frictions, you expect that even the worst of those employed as live-in maids, cooks, or servants are probably comparable to the best of the 10% of Indians currently unemployed. And the burgeoning Indian middle class has collectively decided that those currently unemployed Indians are too expensive to employ as help (or anything else). So they don't get employed.
As labor becomes more and more capital reliant, management costs are going to increase. At some point those management costs will exceed the costs of substituting labor with capital. That labor will then be replaced with capital. And just as companies have to be effectively bribed to employ the mentally retarded today, there's a class growing ever larger whose cost of employment exceeds the amount of value they generate.
The thing about India is that they are not underutilizing labor. You don't walk around and think "if only they had a human doing XXX, life would be so much easier". Whenever you find a job that could easily be done by an unskilled human, it is being done. Most middle class people have a maid, a cook, and a driver if they have a car.
In contrast, there are plenty of jobs in the US that could be profitably done by a human at $9.25/hour - domestic services are just one example. This begs the question - why don't unemployed Americans fill these jobs like Indians do?
Because Americans, by-and-large, are comfortable (or at least accustomed to) doing these things for themselves. Most of us wouldn't want a driver or maid or a cook. Some of this reluctance comes from our cultural self image (egalitarian, self-sufficient). Some of it comes from the structural and legal complexities of employment.
Finding somebody you would trust to have in your home is difficult. The paperwork involved for payroll and taxes can be complex and time consuming. Above all, domestic service just doesn't add enough value to make it worthwhile. I can drive my own car, cook my own meals and clean my own house, all without it seeming like an undue burden.
The situation is probably different for a family with two career-oriented parents and school-aged children. But it's unlikely that displaced factory workers have the skills and temperament necessary to take up work as an au pere.
Perhaps most importantly, it seems like a huge step backwards to re-establish a menial serving class.
> Perhaps lower class Indians are simply superior to lower class Americans?
Hmm, maybe that is the case?
Dodging the issue of different cultures entirely, I could see such a situation arising if we assume that in the recent past India has been less of a meritocracy than America. Competent workers, therefore having less social mobility than their counterparts in the relatively more meritocratic country, would tend to stay in the lower class more frequently, seeding the lower class population with more competent workers. Meanwhile competent workers in the meritocracy would move upwards, draining the lower class of competent workers.
I have no idea if it is fair to say that India has been more or less of a meritocracy in the past than America.
Who exactly is unwilling to work as domestic help? Most poor people i know would be more than willing to do that. I've done that sort of work. Transportation costs are high and a lot of time is spent on the bus as you travel from job to job for just a few hours of work, but its doable.
Its the same problem as with lots of other jobs though. Clients want to hire people with experience, not just anyone. Cleaning services get most of the work, since they can often pay to replace belongings that might get broken or ruined.
You're not just discovering a new area of possible employment. The people who can afford to pay to have their houses cleaned, their errands run, their yardwork done, have long done so. If you aren't currently employing anyone and are bringing in a nice income, you're the exception.
Your post ignores a very important variable - price.
Who exactly is unwilling to work as domestic help?
Pretty much anyone, at $10-12/hour.
People who can afford to pay $35-40/hour have their houses cleaned by a maid, but there is nothing special about this price point. If we have a lot of un-utilized labor who are willing to clean houses for less than $35/hour, prices should fall.
Since prices have not fallen, we must conclude that our unemployed are unwilling to clean houses except for high wages.
(Or possibly demand for domestic services is completely inelastic, but that's unlikely. I'd certainly have my house cleaned more often if it were cheaper, and I know many people who can't afford it at $35/hour but could at $10/hour.)
I've worked for less than $10 an hour doing housecleaning when i was first starting out. I topped out at $15 an hour. That's higher than minimum wage and you're going to get plenty of interest as long as you're advertising. Most poor people aren't as choosy as you seem to think they are.
Obviously there are some subsets that mostly work at this price level (cleaning, landscaping, etc.) but there's a reason personal assistants are expensive.