Problem is that politicians have been selling the US manufacturing sector short over the last 30 years by allowing companies to go overseas and use virtual slave labor . Industrialization has always been an issue in developing countries . The government and the labor force have to adapt to the new demands of the labor market otherwise the poverty class grows . In a proper system , the manufacturing sector becomes more efficient and productivity improves just like the chart in the article shows . The problem with this chart is that it does not address the manufacturing sector as a whole on a global scale . If jobs were not being moved overseas in the first place , this chart would look relatively the same but the scale would be different and show a more robust manufacturing sector . Automation has been robbing many jobs for a long time . It does not spell the end of mankind or the US economy . Full on automation like factory assembly etc . requires design , integration , operation , maintenance , and replacement , all of which require human intervention in the form of critical thinking , decision making yes , even the most advanced machines these days require a human to operate , and even swearing at it when the damn thing doesn ' t work . Point is , we are a long ways away from everything being automated , and even then labor will still be in demand . The government will need to provide companies with incentives to train a new generation of workers . That ' s why Republicans want tax cuts . A UBI approach will enable more people to game the system so they can stay at home and smoke weed all day on the dime of the people actually working i . e . The engineers designing and implementing these shiny new robots .