About 2% of people in the US work in agriculture/forestry/animal handling/etc. If you include transportation workers, that's still about 5% of US workers. And if you include wholesale workers and utilities workers -- that's still < 10% of the US population.
All of this work is critical and necessary (to your point). But I think the BLS data is evidence toward OP's point that we've automated and optimized a lot of the work necessary for subsistence.
About 2% of people in the US work in agriculture/forestry/animal handling/etc. If you include transportation workers, that's still about 5% of US workers. And if you include wholesale workers and utilities workers -- that's still < 10% of the US population.
All of this work is critical and necessary (to your point). But I think the BLS data is evidence toward OP's point that we've automated and optimized a lot of the work necessary for subsistence.