Who or what creates good-paying jobs?

Blech.

by buying stuff so that other people can have jobs.

How the providers of these goods and services address the compensation of the labor involved determines the quality of the jobs .

Good-paying, livable-wage jobs with decent benefits are created by human beings who appreciate and reward their employees, and human beings who understand that a well-paid, healthy workforce adds value to a company and its products, and forms a safe, secure, good society where all people can thrive.

If you don't pay your employees enough to support the local businesses, and those businesses don't pay their workers enough to buy your products or services, who the hell do you think is going to buy anything?

Badgers?

Robots?

Magical Air People?

I work as a contractor at one place that is shocked, shocked I tell you that their sales suck. Yet they are a completely unsustainable workplace, paying shit wages (they call "competitive" - code for "as cheap as everyone else around") and offering people only 15 or 20 hours a week on the time clock.

They hire people by the dozens because the turnover is astounding.

Q: If they think their business model is so peachy, why are they complaining that no one is buying their shit?

A: American corporations ( and this is a biggie corp I use as an example) are run by short-sighted morons.

Which makes me curious who the proponents of all-robot labor force think is going to be buying the robot-made stuff.

It used to be that a populace with good jobs and purchasing power begat more good jobs but that was then. You need governance to step in and regulate, enforce benefits, fair working condition/practitioners perhaps even be the engine of growth for jobs.

Today what creates the most good paying jobs with livable wages is the government, this includes the military industrial complex, like it or not.

If and when corporations understand that paying living wages, having happier workers, and having higher employment benefits them more than short term profits we can have better jobs. As long as they see that short changing workers gets them more money while squeezing their workers for more productivity keeps the labor market desperate for their crappy jobs they aren't going to see the light.

None of it is likely to happen without government intervention to implement regulations giving workers better rights, most likely through unionization but that seems less and less likely with unions shrinking not growing.

The only working class people that "believe" in supply-side economics are team player ideologues.