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Notes -
That's part of the pitch for doing an Employer of Last Resort / Job Guarantee program, compared to UBI (or in addition to it). That there's still quite some inherent value in not encouraging people to just waste away on the couch, and that people who keep up some level of skills & pro-social behavior/habits are still suited to transitioning back into the private sector when there's more demand.
As for what people could do in these minimum wage programs, sure it could just be bullshit jobs, adult daycare, making art, organizing & participating in parties, etc. But it's also hard to imagine that we couldn't come up with various useful things for people to do, if we're not truly in some extreme futuristic abundance AGI world. The premise is typically that the national currency-issuing government foots the bill, as it always can, but that the administration would be decentralized at lower local levels everywhere, and people can decide what the enrollees are tasked with in their community/city/state (maybe tailored to the person as best as it can be). Money will still be useful as a technology for distribution (and to incentivize not getting fired from even your minimum wage public sector job) far into a transition toward the premised post-(real)work society.
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