in the US, there doesn't seem to be much of a demand for "domestic labor". the idea of personal assistants or housekeepers is seen as something exclusively for the ultra-wealthy, but i'm not sure why.

in particular, i'm curious about what this says about the potential for the adoption of AI-based assistants.

for example: there's all sorts of stuff that I have to do outside of work that eat into my free time ( grocery shopping, simple meal prep, light housecleaning, running random errands). I'd love to be able to outsource all that to a trusted assistant that I pay a fair wage to.

back of the envelope math makes something like this seem like it should be financially plausibly for a lot of folks:

- ask a mid-career software engineer making 150k if they'd trade 10k/year to get an additional 10hrs/week of free time back, and I think a LOT would say yes.

- at that rate an assistant would get 4 clients to work a 'normal' 40hour week and make a ~median salary of 40k/yr.

So why don't we see arrangements like this? is there something about American class psychology where it feels wrong to employee somebody to do this? or are people just unwilling to trust somebody to do things on their behalf?

- Hiring someone costs way more than they salary they receive

- getting someone reliable who works for such low wages is especially hard

- people are cheap generally and don't have the disposable income

- I think many people have house cleaners, people who mow the lawn and shovel snow, nannies

I think Americans put a greater percentage of their wealth and identity into their possessions, especially housing/real estate. So to pay a random person ±minimum wage to be in this personal identity space is not desirable, even if you can afford it. It requires thinking of your home as more of a presentation space and less as a personal one.

Furthermore, most of the upper class already does hire cleaners, cooks, etc. The upper middle class, which is roughly the group of people you're referring to, is typically composed of people that are money-focused enough to think spending $10,000 a year on something they can do themselves is a waste.

There's also the simple fact that many people would rather have $10k a year + a dirty apartment and subpar food than the opposite.

> ask a mid-career software engineer making 150k if they'd trade 10k/year to get an additional 10hrs/week of free time back, and I think a LOT would say yes.

Maybe a lot would. Although I could certainly afford it, I wouldn't. There are a lot of more useful/fruitful things I can put that money towards.

> is there something about American class psychology where it feels wrong to employee somebody to do this?

Personally, I don't think it feels wrong at all, nor is it a question of trust. For me, it's just that the cost/benefit ratio isn't good enough (the cost is more than just the financial outlay, and the benefit of gaining a bit less than 1.5 hrs/day isn't that much). That said, I have certainly hired people to come in once a week to clean my house before and could see doing it again if my time and/or energy budget demanded it.

520 hours at $10k/year is only around $19/hour. This is minimum wage in some American cities like San Francisco, and fast-food starting salaries in many other large cities. You're simply not able to hire someone for bespoke meal prep, housecleaning and random errands for $19/hour in America - or if you can, they will either not be competent or move on quickly to higher paying jobs.

Having a housekeeping service come for an hour or so weekly and a lawn maintenance and snow clearing service every two weeks will cost around $10k a year total in many large or mid-size cities, and many upper middle class earners do in fact use those services.

Great question. I call this the “delegation paradox”: even when the math works, people resist letting go.

- Psychology: self-worth gets tied to “doing it yourself,” so outsourcing feels like weakness or elitism.

- Trust: Handing over personal tasks (groceries, errands) feels riskier than it is.

- Friction: hiring, scheduling, and managing another human adds overhead.

- Perfectionism: many would rather do it “their way” than risk compromise and not have the job done perfectly.

Ironically, these same barriers make people more comfortable with AI assistants, where with AI, you have less friction, less stigma, fewer trust issues.

The real productivity hack isn’t just saving hours, it’s getting past the belief that you must be the one doing everything.